Whatever it takes

Thinking out loud I found a few nuggets in my heart.  A few artifacts entrenched in me like clues to an unfinished mystery. 

Knowledge: wrong/unattainable 

Place: wanting

Reality:  already, but not yet

Feeling: hate to see it

Want to be fixed, able to wait, remain in His love, obey, live. 

Reality: struggle, sin, banking on grace, confused, harsh inside, weak and weary. 

How: ???

Only a change of heart.

No control. 

Trust 

Obedience 

Striking and healing 

Not a zap, but a chiseling 

How long Lord? 

Sometimes when I start to pray and really search for what's going on in my heart I end up sobbing uncontrollably--which I never really expect or enjoy at the moment--but I want the truth.  If I start crying it doesn't mean it's the truth, it just means I'm crying because I feel sad, and what's beneath that is not the truth either, which is my desire.  I find that I'm sad because I want something I don't have, and beneath that desire is a very needy and desperate me.  

Beneath that?  

I don't really know, maybe the hand of God is there holding all of me there.  

So that when I pray through the unexpected tears and through the sadness and through the revealed desire and through the poor and needy me, I land in His palm--which was there all along. 

I thought I just wanted to have a good life.  To know that God is taking care of me so that even my lazy choices or bad ones are being redeemed because Lord knows most of my mistakes are my fault.  My disobedience.  My fear.  My pride.  My laziness.  My sheer stupidity.  My apathy.  My mind.  I know these about myself a little better than when I was younger, which made me pray and need God a lot more.  So I thought that's what I want.  A God who will "work all (my bad choices)/things for my good (life)."

But that's not what I want.  I mean it is, I want all my bad choices to eventually take me to a place that's awesome....like being lazy suddenly lands me in a top career or eating donuts everyday reaps me a rockin' body.  Just like that I want all my sins to bring me perfect righteousness.  But it doesn't work like that--like a zap.  

That's not the way God spoke things into being. 

It's more like a process, a sequence of events, one meant to be prior and one meant to be after.  Little chisels in time. 

Even thinking about it like that makes me cringe.  I want it to be the way I want it to be--a zap.  Like *puuk* and my heart is changed! 

And then I even feel amazed and awed by this miraculous *puuk*!  Until some time passes and I'm back to wanting and crying and landing in the palm of His hand through the praying. 

This isn't necessarily a bad or wrong thing, but I'm talking about what I want.  I don't just want a *puuk* today.  But I don't want chiseling either.  Today I want to know what I want!  (Part of what makes me crazy)

When I'm in His hands, when I have the Father's attention and He listens to me...I'm dumbfounded and no words come to me about what I want.  So I start saying a bunch of stuff that sound pretty good...I want faith to move mountains, I want discernment and wisdom like You gave Solomon, I want courage and boldness, I want to be sinless...but then I don't feel like any of these hits the nail on the head.  

I don't know what I want.  

I thought I did, and then I landed in the hand of the One who owns everything, and I found myself feeling strange.  The want fading fast. 

If I could have anything I wanted what do I want?  First, nothing comes to mind...like I want nothing.  Suddenly when the choice is anything I want ...I want none of it.  It reminds of when I was younger and I'd have a crush on a boy and then he would tell me liked me and I no longer liked him.  So perhaps more than him I just wanted because of the want in me.  

But in this case, I sway because the moment I doubt that I REALLY have everything at my disposal I start wanting a lot of things!  (The list starts piling in my head "Well, I want ...." X10000000. 

Wanting comes from lacking, so take lacking away and out goes wanting with it.  But find lack and you find want. 

How do you get rid of lacking?  

By landing in the palm of the one who lacks nothing and hear Him say that everything He has is now yours too.  

So then no more lacking, no more wanting...where does that leave me? 

I have no idea.  

Is it perfection? 

Is it a taste of glory?

Is it peace? 

All of the above? 

Not really.  It's the chisel.

I don't see the complete sculpture, but I see the chisel and the form being worked on.  I don't have to understand.  But I have to watch.  And it feels both good and bad.  Good because it's cool.  Bad because I have no idea. 

What if I knew what God was doing?  What if I had all of His foreknowledge and saw what He saw?  That doesn't really sound good for some reason.  Sounds like it's too much.  

Yet not knowing is not so great either. 

I'm never fully sure.  

But you know what?  In life I want to know for sure!  I lack foreknowledge until I reconnect intimately with God, then I don't really need it.

If I don't need it then what do I do? 

“Brothers, each person should remain with God in whatever situation he was called.”

1 Corinthians 7:24

There you have it.  

Remain right where I am.  

Always with God. 

Through sin and in saving grace. 

Always with God. 

Remain with God,

In whatever situation. 

Especially with people...because they seem to effect me the most.  

“Although I am a free man and not anyone’s slave, I have made myself a slave to everyone, in order to win more people.”

1 Corinthians 9:19

“To those who are without that law, 

like one without the law — not being without God’s law but within Christ’s law — to win those without the law. 

To the weak I became weak, 

in order to win the weak. 

I have become all things to all people, 

so that I may by every possible means save some. 

Now I do all this because of the gospel, 

so I may become a partner in its benefits. 

Don’t you know that the runners in a stadium all race, but only one receives the prize? 

Run in such a way to win the prize. 

Now everyone who competes exercises self-control in everything. 

However, they do it to receive a crown that will fade away, but we a crown that will never fade away. 

Therefore I do not run like one who runs aimlessly or box like one beating the air. Instead, I discipline my body and bring it under strict control, 

so that after preaching to others, 

I myself will not be disqualified.”

1 Corinthians 9:21-27

My brain feels fried...

main takeaway:  stay with God.  

Do whatever it takes to stay with God today.  

Whatever it takes, 

and whatever I can do today, 

I'm staying with God, 

Because what I thought I wanted I don't want anymore when I'm with God because I have it already.  

The moment I find myself far from God is the moment I find myself lacking everything leading to wanting and crying. 

On your very worst day He calls you Beloved because of the pain Christ bore for us to have the Father too.  When you're with people today, love them the way Christ has loved you. 

Whatever it takes, remain in Christ. 

Jmegrey.