How desperate are you for God?

I have come across this question twice in this past month.  It wasn’t so much someone asking me, but the Lord asking me as I have attended two conferences in the past month.  The first was Korea Campus Crusade for Christ Summer Conference 2011.  This conference included multiple sessions of prayer.  As I observed the 11,000 students praying, ‘desperate’ was the word that came to mind.  It didn’t matter that I didn’t know the Korean language.  Their demeanor cried out desperation.

The second was CSU U.S. Staff Conference 2011.  We just had a morning session today with Francis Chan as one of our guest speakers.  I must say this was one of the most powerful moments I’ve ever witnessed or been a part of.  Chan used the passage Revelation 3:5, “He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.”  He painted a picture of how wonderful it would be if and when Jesus confesses us before His Father.  From there, Chan ended with prayer.  But from the start you could tell this wasn’t going to be a “normal” closing prayer.  There was a sense of desperation from Chan that I have never seen in a person.  It reminded me of the prayers throughout the Psalms and the Old Testament when biblical characters are crying out to God.  It reminded me of the countless times men would tear their clothes before the Lord or pour ash on their heads and wear sackcloth.  This man wanted God.  This man needed God.

All of this has reaffirmed God asking me the question, “how desperate are you for Me?”  As I dwell on these supernatural moments, I am asking the Lord to give me a desperate spirit.  I want to be desperate for God in such a way where only He can satisfy.

Maybe that’s a bit too drastic, but I’ve had this happen many times in my life.  Sure, I will praise God and seek after Him when life is going well, but it just doesn’t have the same focus and intensity as when life and the world is bringing you down.  This is where I find a certain aspect of God’s grace I’ll call Gracious Grace.  It is analogous to a child only coming to his/her parents when they are hurt.  Or a wife only coming to the husband when she needs something.  That’s not right.  That is a dysfunctional, parasitic relationship.  I wouldn’t appreciate that kind of relationship and I am sure you wouldn’t either.  In the same way, we shouldn’t have this kind of relationship with God.  Yet, God in His infinite love will continue to pour out His gracious grace to us.

We seek God more in times of trials and tribulations, when maybe we should actually be seeking Him all the time in every aspect of our life.

There’s another side to this story that I was thinking about.  Is this actually the way God designed it?  Or another way of putting it is, “Is God okay with it this way?”  After all, He is God and we desperately need grace.  There are also Scripture passages where God’s grace seems to be more prevalent.  Take the Exodus story for example.

Exodus 2:23-25 says:  “Now it came about in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died.  And the sons of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their bondage rose up to God.  So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of them.

It sure seems like the Scriptures portray God listening to them more because of their suffering and pain.  Maybe the Lord knows what we need and knows how we are going to react.

To reconcile everything together I propose two points.  One, I think it comes down to a maturity issue.  I think we need to ‘love the Lord our God with all our hearts, souls, and mind.’  Praise Him in the good times and the bad.  He is God.  If we are seeking Him through it all, I think He will be honored and pleased whenever we come to Him.  And He will continue to show us grace whether we deserve it or not.

Two, our relationship with God is heavily one sided.  We fall drastically short while God’s love and grace is going to surpass anything we can imagine.  It will surpass anything and everything we need.  It is infinite.  Remember this and things suddenly become clear.

In the end, I think I already have some thoughts to this idea.  But for now it is just something to mull over.

Let us not confuse hard days with bad days.  And let us not have bad days

In my Leadership Practicum class, my friend James was giving a book review on Urban Ministry and some of his points caught my attention.  One point focused on the importance of cities throughout history.  Ever since the beginning of time cities symbolize power, prestige, and wealth.  Societal advancement is always birthed in cities.  Most interesting to me was the fact that in the Scriptures, cities, not countries are usually the ones that are mentioned when there is a conquest of land.

And what is even more amazing is that I see these facts in our world today.  Los Angeles and San Francisco on the West Coast, New York City on the East Coast.  These cities (to name a few) and so many others are the highlight spots of the world.  Many people I have encountered express desire and interest in moving to bigger cities.  There is something about humanity that craves advancement.  Not to mention the sheer fact that a bigger city has more to offer.

The next point reveals that just recently (maybe the past 50 years) people have started moving towards the suburbs and rural areas and away from the cities.  The idea behind this is that cities are now seen depraved and places where evil is birthed.  Once again I can see the connection in the life that I live.  We say we want to move to Los Angeles, but what we are really saying is that we want to move near LA in a surrounding city.  We don’t want to move to the ghetto and slums of LA.  For me as well, I would like to one day live in Southern California, but I always imagine living in the Orange County area, perhaps in Irvine, Laguna Beach, or Newport Beach.

How does this tie into the Christian faith?  As Christians, have we run away from the city and the people who need us most in order to live in a comfortable and safe environment?  I wonder if the “comfortable and safe” we so desire is slipping through our hands when the true comfortable and safe is when we are in God’s hands.  I am reminded of one of my older posts.  Have we retreated from the mission Christ has given us?

I ask these questions, not to guilt us into packing up and moving into the heart of the inner city, but to question our hearts.  We might not up and move, but we definitely have the capability to get in our cars and drive to the heart of the city and preach the gospel of Christ.  The apostle Paul didn’t have the luxury of cars in his day, but he still devoted his life to it.

In the same way, I wonder if there have been times in my life that God is “breaking my legs” in order to (1) discipline me and (2) teach me not to wander off.  Is He is breaking my legs now???

1. There is absolutely nothing that we can do to know God.  God has to reveal Himself to us before we can know Him.
2. Our understanding of inspiration is only speculation.  There is nothing full proof, except that the Scriptures are God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16).
3. General Revelation should lead us to a hunger for Special Revelation.
4. And finally, the most interesting thing I found was that God drove Adam and Eve out of the garden to protect them from eating from the Tree of Life so they wouldn’t live forever in a sinful state.  It was an act of mercy and grace when God kicked them out.  I always thought about it from the perspective that they got kicked out because of their disobedience.  While this is true, it is interesting that God was also protecting them at the same time.

Hope some of this helps!

The best example I can come up with right now is this blog.  Last night I was pretty hyped that I learned WordPress.  I was all ready to start blogging and share my thoughts with the world…  Yeah, that didn’t go so well.  I hit a brick wall and had no idea what to write about.

It seems to me that this is kind of a Murphy’s Law type of deal.  Oh well, hopefully my thoughts will come back to me as the days go by.  Until then!