So I have been wondering what sort of content I wanted to produce and share on this blog for a bit now and I think that I have come to a conclusion on what I seek to accomplish.
First, this blog is merely a grounds for me to express my thoughts as clearly but creatively as possible. This blog is a space for me to voice my findings as well as to revive my love for word-crafting.
Secondly, I would love to share some of the reflections and thought processes that run through my mind using a variety of literary methods.
DISCLAIMER: I have a tendency to ask myself questions that shake the core of my spirit.
Luckily they have a habit of producing beautifully crafted answers from the Lord that restore, reconfirm, restrengthen, and reestablish me.
With that said, let us begin:
I am covetous, I am possessive, and I am greedy for gain.
Yet, as awful as this sounds, I believe that this is a positive commonality that we all share collectively as members of humanity.
But this should especially be true for those of us who call ourselves followers of Christ.
We are called by God to yearn… to passionately desire… and to crave his presence with all of our hearts.
As John Piper said in a sermon podcast I listened to a year ago, the issue we face as Christians is less the fact that we desire too much, but rather more the fact that the desire of our hearts is lacking.
But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ
Philippians 3:7-8
I earnestly believe that the Word writes that we were created with the faculty to desire richly and the capacity to satiate the void in our hearts with the overwhelmingly sufficient love of Christ.
However, we often fail to desire this much. It is an arduous struggle for us to see past the material possessions of this world, past the recognition we crave, past the relationships we preciously hold.
We accuse ourselves of being too quickly and easily seized by the snare of desiring things when the reality is that we fail to ensnare ourselves in the greatest desire of all, to know and to love our Lord.
College, friendships, family, my lovely girlfriend, my talents and hobbies, my hopes and dreams, my life itself. All wonderful things that God has blessed me with in this lifetime. Still, all of these things are rubbish, trash, chaff blown away in the wind compared to the worth of catching a glimpse of Christ’s beautiful face.
For a day in your courts is better
Psalm 84:10
than a thousand elsewhere.
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
On this note I want to share with you some thoughts I had coming out of last Sunday’s sermon on the Holy Spirit, part of our new sermon series that we will be running through during the summer.
The portion that I was particularly focused on was the notion that the FRUIT of the Holy Spirit can be conceived of as a mark of spiritual maturity.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
Galatians 5:22-24
This is fantastic and a great way for us to keep tabs on how we are progressing in our walk with the Lord. Contrarily, for me, this signaled a moment of concern:
Is my walk with the Lord fixated more upon the obtainment of greater spiritual maturity than the enjoyment of the Lord himself?
This is a question that immediately made its impression in my mind and still yet remains resonating in my heart. I realized that I love the grace of God and his blessings, that I love the endowments of the Holy Spirit and his guiding hand. Yet, I realized that I did not love them less than I loved Christ himself, nor less than I loved the Spirit for who he is.
In fact, I was frustrated, aghast, and heartbroken that my desire to grow more spiritual mature had overcome the greater desire to love God with all my heart, all my soul, and all my mind.
But God is faithful and more confident than I that I will find restoration and that the Spirit will lead me once again in my endeavor to walk upon the narrow path with Christ.
I have tremendous hope and joy knowing that he will sweep my tattered feet off my current, dusty ground and lay them down upon the solid ground of his courts once again.
A Reverie of Grace 