Near the beginning of this year I felt a stirring in my heart, a kind of awakening in my soul. The people close to me would know this, but I am very much about doing things and sometimes about talking. The greatest gift I have been given in life is the ability to figure things out, and build or fix or create things with my hands. So it is no surprise that one of the greatest ways I connected with and found my place in the body of Christ for many years was in my acts of service and in the doing of church ministry and missions work.
This year my hearts cry has been, Lord I want to know you. As a person who has spent 25 years as a believer, it is a strange cry. But should it be? And if we as believers search our hearts, would it truly be an uncommon cry and longing?
I don’t want to serve the church for serving or obligations sake, I want to know the Lord, which is the reason the church exists and needs our service in order to function. I have always connected with music and with worship, but that is our adoration and response to our maker for His goodness. The cry and the desire within is the walking in the cool of the day with the Father, the companionship that Moses and Joshua felt, as Moses spoke to the Lord, “if You do not go up with us from here than we will not go further.”
As I have sought this, things have not immediately become different, struggles in many ways have increased, but I can sense the response to this longing and this heart cry has not gone unanswered. The Lord is faithful and good, and when His children cry out He is sure to listen and answer.
We as children and believers can boldly make these kind of requests, the Lord is not put off to these moments of questioning and desire for more, in fact it is my belief that He has placed these desires in our heart to draw us even closer to Himself. No matter our spiritual journey and the time we have spent with Him there is no reason to feel inadequate or ashamed of asking again to know Him, to know His heart, to Hear from Him, and to just sit once more at Jesus feet and listen to His affirming and reassuring voice.
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