Week One of this semester of the Furnace is wrapping up today. Four prayer meetings later, I'm already in awe of what God's doing.
Admittedly, the beginning of a semester feels a little like a junior high dance. There's a lot of shuffling around by the wall, waiting for someone to ask us to dance. But that's where we begin--awkward but willing. Eventually, we warm up to the microphone, discover our vocal chords, and begin to be wrecked by Jesus.
The last few days, I have been consumed with the idea of hunger. It was destroying me a bit during prayer meeting last night, and I got to the point where I had to confess, "God, You are never anything less than constant in Your pursuit of me. I am the one who is halfhearted. I am the one who is inattentive. I am the one who is stingy with my affections. I am the one who isn't looking for You."
There have been several times in the last few weeks when I have been completely overwhelmed with an unsettling heaviness in my spirit. It is so profound that I have several times left whatever group of people I've found myself with and withdrawn to an empty room or coffee shop, aching. I can hardly explain it...this is a bit from a journal entry during one of those occurrences:
Daddy,
It's as if I've connected with some unnerving heartbreak--some terrible grieving of Your Spirit...There is no way to articulate this brewing storm in my soul. All my spirit can give are the moans of a dying man. Every word I speak seems foul if it is not of You. Every second I do not gaze on You, encounter You, or express what I know of You causes a disturbance deep inside...
How does one breathe under the weight of this Ache?
As crushing as this burden can become, I want to embrace it. I want to take up a real cross, one that causes splinters and chafes my shoulders, not the pretty, polished cross I seem to have so readily adopted. I want to want the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings.
I am so easily placated. My spirit is starving, and I numb myself against the pain because it is easier than seeking out the food I so desperately need. I see my inner man, and it is emaciated: sunken eyes, ribs showing, paper-thin skin. And I tell myself, "You're rich. You're full. You're satisfied." All the while, I am "wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked."
I want to feel the grief of God at my distance from Him. I want to hear His groaning at my lack of intimacy with Him. It will break me and ruin me, and I want it. I want to feel the hunger pangs. I want to be crippled by my need for Him.
Daddy, make me hunger. Make me incapable of functioning without You. I don't want these morsels I've been using to satisfy myself. Hunger is painful, but You are the reward. How can I deny You?
As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?
Psalm 42:1-2
If I never walk on water, if I never see the miracles
If I never hear Your voice so loud
Just knowing that You love me is enough to keep me here
Just hearing those words is enough is enough to satisfy
You do, You do, You satisfy
I couldn't leave even if I tried
I must have You, I must have You
"Let Me Love You More," Misty Edwards
