obsession

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Another sleepless night
I'm turning in my bed
Long before the red sun rises
In these early hours
I'm falling again
Into the river of my worries
When the river runs away
I find a shelter in your name

Jesus, only light on the shore
Only hope in the storm
Jesus, let me fly to your side
There I would hide, Jesus

Hear my anxious prayer
The beating of my heart
The pulse and the measure of my unbelief
Speak your words to me
Before I come apart
Help me believe in what I cannot see
Before the river runs away
I will call upon your name

Jesus, only light on the shore
Only hope in the storm
Jesus, let me fly to your side
There I would hide, Jesus
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It´s interesting to me how songs, like the above from nuestro amigo Fernando Ortega, come back up after years. I still remember--with a fair bit of melancholy, I admit--sitting in my room, or better yet, lying on the bed, listening to and soaking in all the FO music that I could get my hands on. Although I don´t listen to him as much anymore, his songs shaped me and inspired me in those early- and mid-teen years. I thank God for how He used those thoughtful songs to work in me and help me think joyfully and thoughtfully about Himself.

Right now, I´m again being encouraged by those same songs, as I sit here on my bed some 5,000 miles from Minnesota, just thinking and talking to God. Maybe part of the reason my body won´t sleep is the fact I took a late nap today; maybe it´s just the fact that my mind is running in overdrive right now. Either way, I figured it couldn´t hurt to just write for awhile.

Yesterday morning, on the way to school, I started reading Tozer´s The Pursuit of God. Although I haven´t read much so far (and in spite of the many distracting editing errata in this version!), already the book has challenged me in where I´m at with my relationship with God right now. Let me explain. Tozer begins by talking about how, in his day at least, there were many people who seemed to understand truths about God, but who didn´t exhibit a thirst or longing after God. They slavishly studied God and built programs supposedly meant to glorify Him, but without the simple focus on and awe of God that He wants from us.

I know I need God right now. The convergence of various events and circumstances in my life right now show me that more than ever. However, I don´t want to realize this and run to religious activity as a "cure." I don´t need religion. I don´t need stuff. I don´t need good things. I need God. The one who created the world, the one who formed me, the one who chose me as His own, the one who is love--this is the one whom I crave. I want to be captivated by Him, and only Him. I want to have a sense of wonder before God that goes beyond intellectual curiosity and that consumes every part of who I am.

How do I do this? I am a broken person. I run to other things than God when I am down. I have sins and weaknesses that tend to make me pull away from God and His people instead of toward them. Haste and anxiety sometimes keep me from letting God lead me in His time. I see present and past hardships and failures in my life, and I get discouraged instead of going to my Redeemer and seeing what He has to say about who I am.

On another note, how does delighting in myself fully in the Lord and finding my meaning and fulfillment in Him play out in a world where my attention is constantly called by the things at hand, and in a new culture where I want to apply myself to get every drop of cultural and language experience that I can? What does loving people in my life look like when Christ is my obsession?

These are not just rhetorical questions that I want to ask in a moment of thoughtfulness and then forget. I want to grapple with these things. Some things in life are simple enough that you can understand them right away. It doesn´t seem like I´m having a lot of those in my life right now :P. But that´s okay. Some things are worth wrestling with. There´s a reason that Jacob wrestled with God all night... maybe it´s a match he lost, but it was worth it. He wasn´t letting go until he had figured out what was going on, or at least until he got a blessing. I want that attitude. I don´t pretend to have things all figured out, but that´s not what God calls us to do. He calls us to seek Him with all of our hearts, promising then that we will find Him. He calls us to love Him and love people. His yoke is easy, and His burden is light.