Discovering Hidden Treasure

My birthday will be here in a few days and I cannot believe all that has happened this year.

The amazing, the terrible, the heartache, the adventures, the lessons learned, the fears faced, the people met, but most importantly: how much I've grown. 

If I had to pinpoint one of the most important lessons God has stamped into my heart, it would be this:

When you actually are IN LOVE with Jesus, every single thing is different than when you love the idea of Him.

You cannot just occasionally love Him. Either you're in love, or you just love the idea of Him.

I realize this concept may be disagreeable to some, or it may be a concept those of us who have grown up in church hear and immediately think, "I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW".

But the bitter and dangerous curse of religiosity is much more common than we give it credit for. And the intention of letting Jesus fill our constant appetite does not count as allowing Him to do so.

The answer for just living as Jesus calls us to?

Being in love with Him.

If it isn't God's H E A R T that you're after, you'll end up burnt out, you'll end up bitter, you'll end up angry with God for not somehow giving you "what you deserve" for working for Him, you'll end up caught up in a tangled web of sin, you'll end up defeated, you'll end up turned off from the entire idea of God in general.

I believe this is one of the greatest dangers of the Church. Because so many people think dedicating their time to a ministry, or avoiding/fighting against "big sins", or reading their Bible everyday, or having their life together-ish, or hanging out with other people from church, or reading  a lot of Jesus-centered books, or knowing all the right things to say and even THINK, qualifies as loving Jesus. 

When in reality, these are results... not the way we make ourselves love Him.

But this is far from what God intended... because it's still shallow. It requires no digging.... Sure it requires effort and time, but what else? You can cover a million acres of land with seeds... you could endlessly dump them onto the dirt for miles and miles and miles, but if you never go beyond the surface, if you don't go deeper... every single seed is useless. Absolutely no growth or fruit will be produced. You can fill your life with stuff and ministry and words all you want. You can fight for fruit and good and even the things God is passionate for... But creating lasting, rich, real fruit is impossible without planting the seed FIRST.

How terrifying to think you could be this person your entire life, and once you die, God says: But I never knew you.

I cannot stress enough how much this used to be me. But I also cannot stress enough that once I fell in love with Jesus, everything changed.

I now see no time spent with Him as a chore, no act of service for Him as a waste, and no sacrifice too great in exchange for Himself. Because there is nothing better. There is no one more worthy. There is no love sweeter. There is no power stronger.

I think in terms of our earthly relationships. When you LOVE someone from the center of who you are, you want to be like them, you want to be WITH them, you want to honor them, you want to serve them, you want to do everything you can to make sure they know they're adored by you. Not because that's your "duty", but because it's your natural response to the love and relationship you have with them.

You would do whatever it takes to feel that love deeper, to make that love stronger, to see their heart clearer, and to know them more intimately. We were designed this way on purpose. Not just for each other, but for the One whose image we were created in.

All Jesus wants is for us to chase Him back. Because I promise He's already chasing YOU.

Basically, He doesn't want us to chase fruit... His stuff. He wants us to chase HIM. That will look different for everyone because God knows that we all feel love differently and uniquely.

The more of His love and His heart that I experience, the more natural becomes my desire to worship. Worship can be expressed in tons of different ways because it's our love BACK to Him. Just like He shows His love uniquely to each of us, we show ours back uniquely to Him.

In my joy and laughter, I want to worship.
In my pain and sorrow, I want to worship.

Sometimes I sing and spend time with nothing more than my guitar and a candle. 
Sometimes I run so hard throughout the woods with tears streaming down my face because I just know He knows what He's doing even though I don't.
Sometimes I laugh out loud with joy as I reflect on how beautiful He is.
Sometimes I belt out Kim Walker while I'm driving. 
Sometimes I sob my eyes out on my bed and just ask Him to hold me.
Sometimes I am driven to love humanity and buy a stranger flowers and tell them they're loved.

But always, I am called to worship.

And I've truly found that the more deeper in love with Him I fall, the more that everything that happens-- awesome or terrible-- the more all my heart craves is time with Him and His presence.

Just like the first person we want to celebrate joyful news with or to hold us when we're broken is the person we love most, Jesus wants to be that for you. 

And He's better. Infinitely and unexplainably better. Because He doesn't push away, let down, or disappoint.

He blows away, He lifts up, and He exceeds our expectations.

This is because He didn't just LOVE us FIRST, He invented it. He encompasses all that it is.

So I challenge you:
Find His heart. 
And you'll never want to stop knowing more.