As a child I often looked at the rain and imagined it was God’s tears falling from heaven because of all the terrible things in the world. As an adult with knowledge of science, I now sit and mostly just enjoy the trickle of water down the window or the pitter-patter on the roof. This morning, however, I found those thoughts of old returning together with a feeling of longing that was not from me. In my past ignorance I have prayed that God would break my heart for what breaks His (a truly irresponsible prayer if you are not prepared to really have your heart broken) and so I assumed this longing must be a glimpse into God’s heart. But what could He be longing for? What would God cry about?
The list of course could be endless: a broken world, wars, poverty, injustice, hate, sin, lost people …and so the list continues. But as I sat there taking in the rain and conversing with God, I found His answer to be quite surprising. He did not mention any of the things I had on my quickly and logically formulated list. Instead He spoke of a longing for fellowship with His children. Could it be that what breaks God’s heart more than anything else, is that we miss opportunities to spend time with Him? As I considered this it reminded me of a time when I was in love and wanted to spend every waking moment with that person. I would never miss the chance to see them, even if it was just for a second. I would take the time to send them a short message just to let them know that I’m thinking of them. Do we sometimes forget that that is what God wants as well? To spend as much time as possible with us? Not just a set hour a day or those two hours on Sunday. To think that He is like a young man in love waiting in a coffee shop for the love of His life to show up for the date, looking out the window every few seconds to see if she hadn’t maybe arrived yet.
Over the last few weeks my amount of dreams each night has increased exponentially. With dreaming often comes the feeling of not quite being rested so as I rose one morning after another dreamful night, I asked God out of frustration why He gives me so many dreams. Now I would have to go through the day as if I never slept. His answer was simply this: because I want to talk to you. This made me stop in my tracks. Here I was questioning God because I was tired. When did I start thinking that what I had to do that day (and everyday) in the world was more important than spending time with God and hearing what He has to say? Was my desire to be well rested for my work somehow relevant if I didn’t even hear from God what work I was supposed to do for Him that day? Once again it seems that pride slipped in. Clearly I think that my time is my own and worth something. Instead I could have seen the blessing in this situation: an entire evening spent with God, only to wake up fully surrendered to Him for energy and spending my waking moments with Him also.
1 John 5:21 Keep away from anything that might take God’s place in your heart.
Many of us have journeyed on idolatry and have spent many hours de-cluttering our lives from all things or mind sets that we put before God, but never have I considered ‘life’ to be something that could take God’s place in my heart. ‘For me to live is Christ’ but is it really? Or am I living for other things? Am I living Christ or is life preventing me from living Christ?
So here I stand with yet another part of ‘self’ to lay down and surrender. Because even though I think my life is about me…it is not. It is about knowing the Father and the Son…
Comments