A Challenging Journey

My mind is so full today that I don't know where to start.  I have so much to say and yet, I have no idea how to organise all the thoughts into a logical sequence so that you can follow and grasp what I am trying to say.  I don't think I will be able to tell it all today either.  Well, we have been taking about it for a few days, we might as well carry on until we are eventually done with the subject of being different.  If we ever get done.

God is challenging me on all sides.  Not through impressive sermons by well known speakers.  Not through TV shows by charismatic evangelists.  Quietly.  Unexpectedly.  Like this morning in the shower.  I was humming the tune of  "You can take the whole world, but give me Jesus".  An old, well known, pentecostal chorus.  I have known it since I was a child.  Then the conversation started.

God: "Really?
Hilda: "Really what God?
God: "Am I really more important than EVERY THING in your life?  Are you willing to give up EVERY THING just to have more of me in your life?

Ouch.  Major ouch.  So I started thinking and God continued speaking.

I want more of God.  I want His character.  I want to experience more of God.  I am tired of hearing about other people's experiences without having my own.  What I experienced previously doesn't count.  I want a fresh encounter.  There must be more.  I am hungry for more.  It has been consuming my mind for a while now.  I think you all picked it up in my blogging.  I want God.

So the question is this: how desperate am I?  Am I desperate enough to sacrifice certain things?  Am I desperate enough to sacrifice time?  Join me in this exercise.  Make a list of the things you really like doing.  Things like wathing CSI, reading a novel, playing a quest game, etc.  The useless activities we occupy ourselves with.  Are you willing to sacrifice whatever is on your list for more time with God?  Am I willing?  How desperate are we really?

We want more of God but we don't want to give more.  We want to hear His voice, but we don't want to spend time with Him so that we learn to recognise His voice.  We want to experience his miracles, but we don't want to spend time with Him so that His anointing can come on us.  We want, we want, we want.  But give?  That's another story.

To add to the problem, we have the super spiritual people.  Oh they have the most glorious stories of their encounters to tell us.  Strangely enough, they are somewhat arrogant about it.  In the process they make us feel so unworthy of time with God.  Unknowingly, we believe the lie that God would much rather spend time with 'them' than with us.  And these people love throwing some challenges at us.  "You must be this or that, otherwise you are not really saved.  You must have experienced this or that, otherwise you are not really saved.  Oh if you are still doing that, there is no chance that God will use you".  Do you recognise some of these phrases?  I have heard them many times.  And many times I became so discouraged that I gave up the search for more of God.  These people are probably not telling the truth.  The truth is this: if they really spent time with God, they would have been humbled by the experience - that much I know.  The pride they carry is a dead give-away that they haven't been with God either.

God clearly spoke to me this morning.  What we still do or don't do is not important.  What we still are is not important.  The only important thing is that we start looking for more of God.  We will never really be qualified to be in His presence.  Our best efforts to impress Him are filthy rags in His sight.  But if we come the blood stained way, we are welcome, regardless of what we are and what we still do.  He will not disappoint us.  He will change whatever needs to be changed in us, when the time is right.  No earthly person has the right to demand change.  God will change us as we spend time in His presence.

I am hungry for God.  I am scared too.  But I want more.  Slowly I am starting to sacrifice so that I can have more.

How about you?  Are you hungry?  Are you desperate enough to join me?