Break has been... different? God has been moving like crazy and while at times it is exceptionally encouraging (late night conversations and bible studies where I can see God moving) but at the same point life is... complicated :)
Yet and still, I still get so GEEKED about my God. For the first time in my life I can see fighting pride and lust as more than just an endless struggle. As I was running one day (yes ya' boy is crazy enough to run in 15 degree weather...thank God for UnderArmour), God really started to tag me up and deal with me about listening to wisdom. The longer I ran, the clearer it began to become the simplicity and complexity of knowing God.
For those of you who do not know, this summer I took a mission trip to South Africa and on the plain it became painstakingly obvious that I did not have a passion for God. My relationship had been drenched in stoicism and, after reading John Piper's Desiring God, I realized that I could not picture being satisfied in Him because I did not know what pleasure was/is/feels like.
I now realize that there's a cycle that we, as human beings, are excluded from and limited by: passion for God -leads to--> a desire for God -which leads to--> searching for more of God -which leads to--> finding God and knowing Him more and more -which leads to--> a passion for God.
The cycle doesn't really start anywhere and logically you could only become passionate about a God that you know so most times, we're stuck in one of the following categories
1)We are passionate about a "God" we do not really know.
-> in this category we are excited about God, but don't spend time actually chasing after a sound knowledge of Him. This causes our passion to be rooted in feelings and not genuine faith. My "push" here is that people can be passionate about ANYTHING but how do you know that the God you are passionate about is the God of the scriptures...?
2)We desire God but fail to pursue.
-> really simple here, if you really desire God, you will chase after Him until you find Him. If you really want Him, you won't be satisfied until you have Him. If you seek you will find, if you're not finding, are you really seeking or just pretending to look?
3)We "know" God but our faith has become dry and passionless.
->Kind of like a fading marriage, we're stuck just going through the motions. In this scenario/state of mind, we know and study lots of theology but don't God. If we did, we would be overcome by His awesome awesomeness and there is no way we could not get excited about Him.
So what's the solution??!?!? Very simple: Pray that God gives you the passion to pursue Him (you can't do it without His grace), the knowledge that establishes your faith as solid and secure, and a desire that never fades.
I KNOW!!! Crazy simple, but if God is supposed to be our source, even our activated faith begins and ends with Him. We need Him to push, prod, inspire, reestablish, and replenish us constantly throughout our journey. You can't even desire God on your own, He has to plant that in you. So as you examine your faith, I implore you to ask God to open your eyes and then divinely "grow you-up" as only He can.
Grace and Peace
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