Do you ever feel frustrated with a heart that doesn't want what it should want? I often have. I have often known what I need, but not felt what I should feel.
I just want to take a moment to savor this revisited realization that there is no life apart from Christ. There is nothing I could possibly want outside of Him or His will for me. Jesus IS better. And all that glitters in the world is not gold, but a fool's gold. How silly we are to be drawn to counterfeit again and again. We know it isn't real, but we want it to be real.
I want to be the kind of woman who, as Charles Spurgeon says, visits other books, but lives in the Bible. I need to live here. I need to live at the feet of Jesus, asking for more mercy, more life, more strength. There is no other fount. The only fount I know that gives life is drawn from Emanuel's veins. The others are fake and do nothing to truly quench my thirst.
I have lived so much of my life running around, only to come back and dip my toe in the fountain here and there, only as much as necessary. "That should hold me," I'd whisper to myself. But in so many seasons, I didn't have a taste for it. I wanted to skim the shallows but not plunge the depths. It takes too much time, stirs up too much emotion, fans into flame desires that would take all of me and spur me to abstain from sin held too closely to my heart. Who has time to feel conviction? Ugh! Such a bitter flavor, right?
As I teach my kids to say when they don't like something, "I haven't acquired a taste for it yet." Because as I always remind them, "Tastes are acquired. We learn to like the things we like."
Throughout many seasons of life, I didn't have a yearning for the Lord like a deer pants for water. I would come and go, deciding that this would get me by, and then keep living dehydrated, reclining at other fountains for as long as I could hold out. I wanted the glitter to be gold. I wanted the fountain to be life-giving. It's amazing how long we can live on an illusion, even knowing it is an illusion.
Why do we want to keep up the illusion? Why keep up the charade that there is goodness apart from God? We want to believe the world is not so bad, that getting by without Him is not so hard, that we're not so weak. What a bizarre lie that Satan has perpetuated through the ages. "The world is not so broken. Sin is not so bad. We don't really need anything more than we already have."
I tend to think these lies can only fester in the mind-numbing shallows of the world. They cannot penetrate the depths of truth. They don't "hold water" if you take a good look within and a good look without.
I'm raising kids in a dying, festering, stinking world. What a way to wake up each morning. Good morning, the world is ending. Pass the toast.
It's easier not to think about it. I suppose that much is true. Perhaps that's why that which is easy is usually not that which is right or true. To plunge the depths takes courage. Courage I don't have. Strength I don't have. Back to the fountain we go.
I want to talk about Jesus. Can we talk about Jesus a little more? I want to hear about Him. I want to meditate on Him. I want to sing about Him- new songs, old songs. Melodies begin to roil within my heart. Jesus IS better. But He is not only slightly better. Even as I write this, I don't want to talk to you. I want to talk to Jesus. I don't want to look at a screen; I want to look into the eyes of Jesus. My sluggish, traitor of a heart is acquiring a taste for the right things, finally. Again. And I just wanted to commemorate this moment of truth, this moment of clarity.
Thank You, Lord, for giving me eyes that see- that finally see, that You are all that I want. Your Light shines brighter than gold. And I shall sell all my possessions and spend all I have to buy that field of treasure.
May my stubborn, diseased heart be trained ever more to love You and to love the things You love, to develop a distaste for sin, a sensitivity that allows me to be guided by Your Spirit. May my heart taste and see that You are good, good beyond words, good beyond the capabilities of my imagination, good beyond the brightest light and the purest gold. May I visit other books, but live in Your Word, live according to Your commandments, and delight in them for all my days. Your Word is good. Your ways are best. You are my one true love. For ever and ever. Amen.
P.S. Thank you for bearing with a lot of tortured metaphors in an effort to rather hear my heart reveling in Jesus. One day we shall have all the right words to make much of Jesus in the best and highest way possible. What a day of rejoicing that will be!
