I heard this yesterday from a fellow traveler out on the road ahead. It came to me like a wave, picking me up and then pounding me into the sand with its tidal force. These were the words:
The awakening of an irresistible thirst for Christ, the pursuit of joy in God, is not only innocent, it is essential. The birth of that pursuit of joy is the birth of the Christian life.
A portion of my own clutched cynicism, lifeless and impotent, was exposed; a piece of a system the world has handed to me and I’ve grasped onto in a moment, or perhaps several moments, of unbelief was revealed. How often I trade the invitation, simple and resurrecting, of a God who first knit me together in my mother’s womb, who wove into my heart desire deep for life and Himself, and then sets out to fill those desires, to draw me out and into all that I am made for, for something smaller, something manageable and controlled and gelded.
I’m at work today. I have a list of to-dos that grows by the hour, and with each one that I check off, I feel a tingling inside – something jumps up and says, “Ahhh. One more down. Well done, thou good and faithful worker.” And in the same minute, I glimpse at the ever-increasing list with a sense of duty, obligation, and eventually disdain that robs me of any amount of desire and passion I have for the work. But the expectations come my way, expressed either in a pat on the back when I’ve done well in someone’s eyes, or a disappointed look and sometimes words when I haven’t lived up to other’s ideas (or my own) of how well I should have performed.
And so the boat rocks, and I am pummeled by the swelling waves of wanting to please. I want to feel good about myself, so I spread wide the sheets of my bed for the comforting whore of pride and self-achievement and accolades.
Oh, they’re subtle. I don’t consider myself moved by what others think of me. But that line comes back again and again to my heart and I’m exposed: “The pursuit of joy in God is not only innocent, it is essential.”
What is my Christianity about? These works I profess are all good, make no mistake. I work to minister to people, and my desire is genuine. It’s not a bad thing to finish these tasks at hand. But what am I trading in exchange for the soup of expectations for my starving frame? Could it be an inheritance and a place with my Father that, would I but hold onto the hope for just a bit that it’s greater and more extravagant that I could ever imagine, would blow me away?
It’s useless, really. Grasping for the wind. Someone described it much like soup running through the hands of a starving man. A saltwater sea when you’re dying of thirst. The God-given blessed thirst is there, but where do we go with our desire? Where have I gone? Is it into the depths? Is it into the Waterfall of God? Is it to the Living Water? Do I even recognize this irresistible thirst as the beginning of something so, so good, and that living well and living abundantly means by definition that I will always remain partly thirsty, that my heart will always be somewhat empty, until and only until Christ Himself becomes for me the Water for my Sahara Soul, the Bread broken for me, and that He has become this for me already, that nothing hinders or prevents or disqualifies me from having that, having Him, and that it is only I who now can faint into Him, who can desire Him like I desire breath?
I’m the woman at the well. It’s hot, the midday heat scorching my neck as I dig deep for something cool to sooth my cracked lips and sticky mouth. But could it be – could it be that He has made Himself to be the joy of our hearts afterall? Could it be that the story I’ve been told so often, the story of complete this, work to finish this, count your points, tally up your score, hasn’t been the whole Story and nothing but the Story? What if the Real Story is so much better. And what if the Bigger Story is big enough to hold my heart still largely thirsty, but finding Him to be everything.
Clear days are no longer our pursuit, and sunny days no longer our reward. He is. And He is better – the Pearl of Greatest Price.
Christ, I stumble, trip, and faint after You. You’re all I want to want. Amen.
