Since getting home I've learnt so much, many things have changed, and I have new questions every week - but in it all God has pointed me again and again towards getting to know Him deeper. He's uncovered so many areas where I still need to stand firm in Him in and allow Him to be my delight and not just His blessings. Since getting back from Bangladesh, I've been so aware of how incredibly safe and comfortable my life really is - I have a great family, great friends, never really had to deal with grief, and have always been comfortable and looked after, with many opportunities ahead of me. Wow, isn't it easy to love God in all of that?! Yep, it's not a struggle to be thankful. But the truth is that He alone is so much greater than all these blessings...if I lost all of these but still had a relationship with Jesus then that is enough to find my delight in! Am I there though? Is He alone enough for me or am I falling in love with His blessings?
While thinking about my life and where God might lead me, I'm becoming increasingly assured that it will not be Scotland and that it probably won't involve luxury. (Many confirmations and words of knowledge have led to this but mainly just a sense of knowing and heart for those (especially children) who suffer daily). If He is to take me away from the comforts I know, and too often see as entitlements, and plant me somewhere new then I fear that if I am not satisfied in Him then it won't take much to shake me. From reading through Psalms it's amazing reading over and over about David's struggles and times of complete loss and yet hearing Him cry out to God again and putting all of his treasure in the Lord alone. God certainly didn't promise riches on this earth - but ultimate riches that can out-shine every loss on earth. I want to be a person who puts all my treasure in the Lord, but it's so hard to when I love God in the context of a really nice cushty life in the westend of Glasgow. I don't want to love God for only what I can get FROM Him but for what I can get IN Him. How can I witness to someone who has had real losses in life if I am still talking about the God who gives me good things and has blessed me with a lovely life?! Surely that's a massive understatement and limitation of God's true goodness...the goodness, and peace, and joys, and comforts can be found IN Him and hope in Him regardless of tangible blessings that we like to see. HE is enough. Man, I want to know this more. I feel so challenged when I hear from testimonies of people who really had nothing then found God and saw that relationship with Him was enough and find such joy in Him against all their persecution and loss. I am certainly not asking for grief, but it is not rare in life, and I hope I will know God personally enough that He does not change (in my perception) when my circumstances change. I don't want to learn this too late. Thank God He is so much more than enough!!
How can I know Him personally? By searching out and spending time in His presence. That alone noone can take from me and that alone is enough. I know that when I truely come to Him and experience His closeness but too often it takes a lot for me to really come to Him. When I start to idolise anything that is not His presence, I am always questioning why I am not fulfilled. It's been so humbling but amazing to learn over and over and over that my satisfaction really only is in meeting Him. Evangelising the whole world doesn't offer any fulfillment if I don't feel Him. Day by day it gets harder to come to Him and not let it become a task focused routine but He's still exciting every morning so I don't want to miss that by 'doing' my focused times with Him. Please pray 1st that my daily times of intimacy with God will increase in life-givingness(?) and that I'll really prioritise and desire these times as I wake.
So that's been a big summary of what God's been teaching me for the last few months.
Oh man, this song by The Sing Team explains so much better what we should aspire to through suffering or anything. "LET MY LOSSES SHOW ME ALL I TRUELY HAVE IS YOU"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7O7LQpQaoc
I had so much more I meant to say again but got lost in this. Next, I'll tell you all about how Navs life this far is going....
Rosh x
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