Hungering for God

Over the past couple of months I seem to have entered a sort of spiritual crisis time in my life. Where once before, going to church and going through the motions of being a Christian seemed “good enough” to me, it no longer seems any good at all. Oh, I suppose it’s better to go through the motions and thereby maintain some proximity to Christianity than to abandon it altogether and not even try, but just going through the motions seems so shallow to me now. Several things have contributed to my growing sense of urgency to really know God rather than simply know about God and go through the motions of serving Him.

First of all, my age is a contributing factor. No, I don’t really think of 35 as being necessarily old, but when I look back on my life and realize that I’ve always had the opportunity to really know and serve God but have failed to take advantage of those opportunities, it seems like a lot of wasted years. If I can manage to really know and serve God from this point forward, in another 35 years I’ll be seventy and it is somewhat discouraging to me to think that by the time I reach 70 I will only have really served God with half of my life. At the same time, I know that God’s Word promises that He can and will restore the years “the locust have eaten” so I’m working on my faith to believe that He can take the next 35 years of my life and make them double what they would have been without Him as director.

Another contributing factor has been thoughts of death. Not my own pending death really, just death in general and knowing that the only thing that really matters once a person dies is how they lived while they had the chance. On the negative side, the deaths of actors Heath Ledger and Brad Renfro got me to thinking about how pointless fame and fortune really are. Here are two young men who had everything by this worlds standard, but who ended up dying much too young and I have to wonder if they ever really knew happiness at all? I know God is a merciful God and it’s my hope that both of these young men made peace with God in the final moments of their lives, but every indication seems to be that they were still searching for a happiness they never found.

On a more positive note, I recently read a book about another young man who obviously found that true happiness comes from surrendering all to God and living life for Him. Sadly, this young man also died much too young, but what he accomplished in his short fifteen years far exceeds what most accomplish in a lifetime. His name is B.J. Higgins and I highly recommend you read his story in the book, I Would Die for You. Reading this book has really had a huge impact on my desire to seek after God and to know Him in a way I never have before. The thing is, I don’t think BJ’s experience should be the exception. I think all of us have the opportunity to allow God complete control of our lives and it’s sad that so few seemingly ever make that kind of surrender. For all too long, my “surrender” has only gone so far and no further and I’m finding out that such a limited surrender is really no surrender at all. As long as I’m holding anything back, God cannot work in my life as He wants to.

So, I find myself in the midst of a transition period in my spiritual life. I wish I could say that huge changes have taken place and I’m making great strides forward. The best I can say right now is that I’ve begun to recognize a lack in my life and I’m trying to learn to seek after God, and only God, to fill that void. There are still many things that clamor for my attention and try to convince me to settle for something less than complete surrender to the will of God, but I’m actively trying to combat those “voices” through prayer and seeking God. I wish I could say my greatest hunger was for God. The best I can say right now is, I want that to become my greatest hunger and I’m asking God to make it so.

I will never do the things that BJ did during his life, but I do believe I can one day have the same kind of testimony if I will make the decision to surrender totally to God as BJ did. The biggest mistake we can make when reading about someone like BJ is to think that we can never be as good a Christian ourselves. When we do that, we end up thinking “what a nice story” and then just walk away from it and return to our lives, somewhat inspired but not changed. God didn’t show special favoritism to BJ; BJ simply discovered that any one of us can become God’s “favorite” if we simply give up our own “rights” and surrender completely to Him. The hard part is getting over ourselves; God is eager to fill us with Himself if we will simply step aside and let Him. My prayer is that God will help me to daily step aside and let Him. Not so I can find some kind of fame or fortune or blessing, but so that I can find Him and thereby become complete.