What Do You Want More Than Anything Else in the World?

Lord, I want to see your Spirit move in my life more than I want all my heartfelt dreams to come true.

I prayed that prayer in church during the evening service last night. I realize that I am going through midlife now. Most of the things I have dreamed about have fallen by the wayside. I have desired many things for my life. I wanted to be an artist, well, I kind of am -- but I always wanted to make my living by making art, not being a teacher. Then I wanted to be a preacher or in some kind of full time ministry. Most recently I wanted to be a farmer. Midlife has a way of causing us to re-evaluate our "plans." As a Christian I have to realize my "plans" are not necessarily God's plans.

This morning I read Proverbs chapter 18, "A man's spirit sustains him in sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear." (v. 11) This made me think about something else I prayed about (more than once, I might add): brokenness. Now, why would any rational human being pray for brokenness? We sing the song, Take My Life and somewhere in it the words "brokenness is what I long for..." come up. It sounds all nice and spiritual but it is often painful.

The fact of the matter is God cannot truly use us unless we are broken; unless we have completely surrendered our own agendas and dreams to Him. When we come to the place where we lay down our demands of God and say, "You are the Lord," then we can honestly say we are true worshipers of God.

Is there anything else you want more than for God's Spirit to move in your life? Is there any dream you have that you are not willing to lay down at the foot of the cross? Then you will never be truly useful to God and His Kingdom. Personally, I can think of nothing else worth giving my life to than to the Lord Jesus Christ. And I have to admit that He is the boss, I am only a follower.

Faith is Relational

Remember the time when you were a child and your dad held out his arms and told you to jump from a high place? You probably jumped without thinking about it. In that moment you were practicing faith.
Once during Jesus time on earth the people asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” (John chap. 6)
“The work God requires,” Jesus responded, “is to believe in the One he has sent.”
Wait a minute Jesus, that is just too simple. You mean, all I have to do to practice the work God wants me to do is believe?  Yep, that’s it.
Jesus, it seems often extrapolated complicated things down to one simple thing. However, when I look deeper into the notion of belief I encounter something not quite so simple for my comfortable, American sensibilities.
To believe means to be mentally persuaded of the truth of something. If I am mentally persuaded of the truth that a chair will hold my weight I will not hesitate to sit in it. When God asks me to believe in Christ, he is asking me to put all my weight on him. To believe in Christ is the distinguishing characteristic of the Christian. When others look at me, do they see someone who is putting his entire weight on Christ? Do they see me poised, at any moment, to jump into the arms of my Heavenly Father?
When the people asked Jesus what they must do to do the works of God, they were speaking of specific things. They were asking about what specific works they could do to be pleasing to God. We are all like this, aren’t we? We want specific rules and guidelines so we will not make any mistakes in the journey toward Christ likeness.  But Jesus doesn’t speak in specifics, he paints with a larger brush. “You want to please God?” Jesus asks, “then you must believe.” This requires a moment by moment relationship with God. Paul calls it “walking in the Spirit.” In fact when Jesus answered their question he didn’t respond by speaking of “works” (plural). This was the word they used. He simply called it “work” (singular). Interesting.
Are you looking for formulas? Faith is not a formula, faith is relational.
“Without faith it is impossible to please God, because he who comes to him must believe that he is and that he rewards those who diligently seek him.” (Heb. 11:6)