Wonder of your love 💕

A song kept playing on repeat for me one day..Finally I focused on the lyrics – “Take me back to my first love” I began to ponder…thinking about my initial days of being in love with His presence. I could almost feel my heart leap..just remembering those mesmerizing moments that I longed to be in the presence and time stood still. Life has taken its toll over the years and somehow prayer became a routine. There are days that I just sit in prayer time – unable to speak with God, just going through the motions. And for many, the ‘first love’ is almost non-existent as we are born and raised in church and that is all we knew. We went to church, we went to prayer meetings, we listened to sermons and we read the bible. Just like we woke up, brushed our teeth, changed our clothes, did our routine. We go through seasons in life that events bring us to our knees…when we have no place else to go but to God. We also experience seasons where everything is going well, just a few bumps in the road, but we are ok living the routine. And then there are seasons when everything just feels right and of course we are thankful…God is present in our routines but not a necessity. We force and find ourselves feeling guilty of not being able to spend more than 10 minutes in quietness in His presence.

 

My heart desires for a ‘spiritual hunger’- a constant season where the longer I am away from my daily personal time and place with the Lord, the more I long for Him. Yes, to fellowship with Him throughout the day, and by bedtime, I’m nearly sick with desire for the Holy Spirit’s call to sink gratefully to my knees beside my bed and whisper my final words of love to Him. To fellowship with Him alone in the early mornings. Sometimes with tears on my pillow. It’s like being in love, but better—He never stops reaching and pursuing me and never forsakes. What does it mean to be spiritually hungry? Casting off apathy, seeking repentance, longing for purity, reverence of God’s Word, and crying out in prayer, characterize spiritual hunger. As John Piper puts it – “If we don’t feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because we have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because we have nibbled so long at the table of the world. Our soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great”

 

 

Life weighs us all down – at one point or the other. This is reality. There will be days that darkness settles in so thick that we fail to see the light. I remember the days, months and years that I cried out to God wondering if he even knew how I felt. I tried hard to place one foot in front of the other while life itself tried to drag me down…in the moment focusing on planting just the next foot to be dragged in front of the other. Mathew 27 – reminded me of what Jesus went through. He felt shame, he felt abandoned, deceived, he felt physical pain, the weight of the cross and the pain of dragging that weight, trying to put one foot in front of the other. He knew! He walked a path that was a hundred times harder than I could ever imagine! Yes He was right there, walking that path next to me, never letting me fall, always pursing me.. even on the days I turned my back and didn’t give Him a thought. This is the God I serve! How can I not be passionate about the things of Him? How can my heart not long to be with him? How can I not be hungry for His presence? Yet my unworthy, selfish mind desires for the things of this world and gets distracted by the simple pleasures and heartaches around me. Lord -may I never forget on my best day that I still need you as desperately as I did on my worst. May I never lose the wonder of your love and your presence. And when I stand in worship – may I worship you like Mary did – Not a casual, what’s -next-on-the-agenda worship. But an extravagant worship where she didn’t count the cost. An extraordinary or perhaps an irrational worship where she didn’t look at the clock or her wallet or at the people around her who were wagging their fingers in judgement. Instead she looked at Jesus. She allowed Him to fill her vision and eclipse everything around her. She worshipped like no one was watching. I want to stand in that wonder…lost in your love; every day for the remainder of my life!

 Written by: Anu Varghese