Lyrics to the song "Empty My Hands" by Tenth Avenue North are running through my head right now, specifically this part--" Cause my mind is like a building burning down, I need Your grace to keep me, Well keep me from the ground, My heart is just a prisoner of war, A slave to what it wants and to what I'm fighting for, So won't You…// So empty my hands, Fill up my heart, Capture my mind with You, Oh, empty my hands, Fill up my heart, Capture my mind with You, With You"
I love this song, and I have since I discovered it earlier this year. I feel like the words are the words of my prayers lately, which is why they have been running through my mind. You see, I'm caught in that terrible place where I want to be in love with God, I want to be desiring Him and pursuing Him in every area of my life, and I know in my head and can recite well all the reasons why I should be surrendering everything to Him, but--the awful but-- the details of my life simply aren't adding up to reflect the lovely list in the first half of this sentence. There's this war going on, and I love Him, but I'm not loving Him well. If love is a verb (it is), then I am slacking in acting it out (I am). I can't even claim that I don't know what's holding me back, or that I don't understand this phenomenon, because I do. I have identified the things that are holding me back from an intimate relationship with God, I have confessed of them and prayed about them and made resolution after resolution, read biblical book after book, written out verse after verse, and yet I continue to fall back into the position of slacker. Well, not even just slacker. It's worse than that...it's the lover who runs to Him, and then runs away the next day to another's house, and then runs back claiming I've learned and want to try again, only to leave again the next day. I know I don't have to be perfect at loving God back--He bought my life with blood so that I would be able to belong to Him regardless of how I fall short of deserving that relationship with Him. But I am not living in the joy, freedom, and peace that I can lay claim to when I'm in a relationship with God! And I could be, I can be. Life with Him can be so much more than this. I'm not embracing the real life that He has for me.
At least, I wasn't for most of today. And for many days. But between when I started writing this post and now, I talked out my frustrations with two of my closest friends and also with God... I had a mini breakdown which involved crying out to God about what's going on inside my head and my heart. I told Him about the mess of my job, license, and car situation. I told Him about my anger over my lack of resolve, and my fears about my future, and my unhappiness with certain parts of my now. I asked Him to come get me from the place that I was in, and realizing I sounded like a little kid, amended my request, asking Him to help me to come to Him from where I was. I listened to another amazing song, "Rest," by Nevertheless. It's kind of my go-to for when I need to turn myself around and run back into the Jesus' arms again. How miserable I was tonight may actually be a sign of how much I truly want to be close with God. If I didn't desire Him, then I wouldn't have been so upset about feeling far away from Him. Huh. While freaking out over stuff tonight wasn't fun, I think it was a good learning experience for me. Whenever I run away from Him, or even drift away from Him, sin, insecurity, doubt, worry, and a poor view of myself rush in. But when I run TO Him, even with all sorts of needs and problems, forgiveness, security, strength, peace, and the truth of who I am in Him invade.
Sometimes I get frustrated with my human self for not constantly running to God. It feels amazing to be close to Him, to be listening for His voice and seeing life through God-tinted lenses. Why in the world would I ever move away from that?? I don't have a great answer, but I think it must be because 1) I'm still a human living here on earth and 2) He lets us choose Him. A love that is chosen and not forced is beautiful... I kind of think that while me running away from Him makes Him sad, He's overjoyed to welcome me each time I choose Him again.
Do you have one of those friends who is super great, but people who don't know him/her have an inaccurate picture of him/her, and don't see your friend the way that you do? Have you ever said, "If you would just spend time with him/her, you'd see!" ?
I think that's how it works with God. I don't need to mentally convince myself into loving Him more--that wouldn't work anyways, because it would just all be a false front with no real affection or bond. But He is awesome. And all it takes for me to be thoroughly convinced of this is to spend time with Him. Just being with Him, in His presence, I'm reminded of who He is and why I love Him so much. Maybe the remedy for repairing and strengthening my relationship with God is similar to how I would improve any other relationship: we need to communicate, and we need to spend time together, getting to know each other even better than before. God already knows me inside and out, but I will never run out of Him to get to know :) I'm glad He takes me back. I'm glad He answers my prayers for Him to draw close to me.
This is the one relationship in my life where I need to work on being more clingy, needy, and dependent. Isn't that a funny thought? :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fWUzs6kT1g (Empty My Hands)
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