"desire of ages"

a friend of mine at school named henry gave me a book called "desire of ages" the other day. the cover definitely made me laugh because it reminded me of sunday school flannel graph 1990 Jesus.

i finished my journal last week. it was so sweet...like, the best feeling in the world is finishing something, you know? and i definitely loved it. i was reading over it the other day, and i basically read from the beginning, which started at the beginning of last summer, to the beginning of the school year. it's pretty cool to be able to step back and take a look at all that God has been working out in me.


i guess the biggest change that God has been doing in my life recently is just a call to himself - really, a turning to look intently into his glory every moment of every day.

one of the biggest questions that came up while i was reading my journal was why things seemed to not be going so well. i was also confused by the circumstances...board out of your mind just made me think a lot about God's purposes in my life and in my church/school/city. i also read about the deep, passionate love that God had put in me after my experiences last year. i cried once at the beginning of the summer because i longed to be with God so badly. i also spent a week on a boat, practically alone with God in the middle of nowhere in Belize - it was amazing.

i have been realizing this week that my love for God hasn't quite been where it should be recently. i know we talk about the personal relationship a lot, and we say we love God all the time, but think about it. do i really love God? and, what does it look like to love God? beside my journal, two other things really have been causing me to think about this. first, i listened to this message by Francis Chan and it was really good. he said a couple things that impacted me, and i can't describe it so i won't...but it was awesome. (if you want to listen to it i can give it to you, just let me know.) the other thing that really impacted me was addie. last wednesday we had a "quiet time" together, and it was unlike anything i've ever done, but it was so cool. she asked me one question that really has been impacting me this week. she asked me, "how much do you think about God?" and, i sort of hesitated. i didn't know quite what to say...because i do think about God, just not really for the sake of thinking about him. i would think about ministry opportunities, but not just to think about God because he's beautiful. Francis Chan was talking about this in his message too - how service to God isn't really service if you really love him. and he made the analogy to relationships, esp his relationship with his wife. like, he loved her so much that the first couple weeks of dating her he asked to borrow her car, then got all new tires on it, filled the gas tank and got it detailed. and it made him happy to do it! like, i would give anything to buy addie dinner or wash her car or take her somewhere or whatever. i want to do that...its not service because i love her. anyway, back to addie and her question. i then was thinking of how much i thought about addie and the way i thought about her versus the way i thought about God. for God, i think about what to do and what would be the best way to do it or whatever. for addie, i just think about her - who she is, how amazing she is, times we've spent together, etc. so, i thought to myself, why don't i think about God like that!? why doesn't he distract me from my homework, why don't i spend time just daydreaming about him? and then, just her example really challenges me. she isn't leading a revival or converting hundreds of people...she's just loving God, and that's it. that's all she wants.

that's all i want to...or i want that to be all i want. i want to spend all of myself for God. i just want to know him, and that's it. i don't need to do things for him or lead anything. i just want to be a man after his own heart, entirely infatuated with him, head over heels, nothing holding me back from going after him with all i've got. i want to have only one goal in life - to know God, to love him. everything else is loss compared to this, and everything that is good comes from him in the first place.

the thing i most respect in christian leaders is their love for God. bill bright, the founder of campus crusade for christ, started balling when he was asked what jesus meant to him. you can sense the passion in the voices of people like francis chan, louie giglio, judah smith, and john piper. i don't want to just do big things for God. i want to love God and let him take me wherever he wants.


"O God, I have tasted Your goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need for further grace. I want to be wholly yours, but I simply can't do it. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O Lord God, I want to want You; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made thirsty still. Show me your glory and reveal yourself to me so that I may know you indeed. Begin in mercy an new work of love within me. Say to my soul, "Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away." Then give me the grace to rise and follow You up from this misty lowland where I have wandered for so long.
In Jesus' Name, Amen."
-adapted from The Pursuit of God by A. W. Tozer