He's Your Absolute Only Hope

You have a hunger deep inside you for things you can’t quite seem to satisfy. The reason I know this is true about you is that it’s true about me as well. It’s true about everyone around you, even that person who seems like they have it all together. No matter who you are, you’re hungry, and no matter what you do to try and fill up, the hunger always comes back.

You’re hungry for acceptance. You’re hungry for worth. You’re hungry for love. You want to be wanted. You want to be special. You want people to miss you when you’re gone and you want the room to go crazy when you finally show up. You’re hungry for a life where your needs are met and things around you are stable, steady and peaceful. You want to know where that next meal is coming from and you don’t want to have to be afraid about that. There are so many things you’re hungry for and the problem is that no matter what you do to fill up, it only works for a little while before the hunger comes back.

Having great friends feels awesome and it seems to fill you up. Being in love is intoxicating and really seems to work to satisfy that hunger. Having lots of money or a great job feels good and kinda works. Getting the grades, making the team, winning the game, getting the guy or girl, accomplishing your dreams - these all feel so good and they feel like they work to fill us up and tell us who we are, but then something terrible happens.

We get hungry again. We don’t fill up as easily as before. We need more this time. Friends let you down, love grows cold, there’s a bad breakup, the economy crashes, you get fired, you get hurt, you fail a test, you lose a game, your dream dies. Who are you now? What do you do when you’re hungry? Where can you go? Your heart has a seemingly insatiable need to be filled with love and worth and so many other things. Where can you fill up forever?

Did you know that the miracle of Jesus feeding the five thousand is the only one that is recorded in all four of the Gospels? Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all tell us about different miracles, but this is the only one they all mention. It’s extremely important. It’s vital. There’s something going on here that we must understand. One really weird thing about this story is that even though all the Gospels talk about it, none of them explain exactly how Jesus multiplied that one little lunch to feed thousands. How did He do it? What did it look like?

That’s something we want to know, but they don’t tell us, and I think there’s a good reason for that. If they told us how Jesus did this, we would try to replicate it ourselves. We would try to repeat it, bottle it up and sell it, but we can’t. We can’t understand what Jesus did that day. We are all desperately hungry and we need to be filled, but we can’t do anything about it on our own. Only Jesus can fill us up and I can’t even tell you how He does it. The only thing I know is that He fills me up and I need to go to Him every time to get what I need. You can’t feed yourself and nothing you try to do will ever satisfy your hunger, but Jesus can miraculously and eternally give you what you really need.

{LeeYounger} / {Photo}

Searching for Intimacy {Part I}

I have fallen and come up short, stumbled in darkness and came face to face with brick walls in an effort to find intimacy. I have been searching for intimacy; no, not love, but intimacy. If I were searching for love, I would have found it. Love found in friendships and family and even in wagging tails and slobbering tongues; musty, wet, fur. Love found in material things and passionate hobbies and words. There can be love - but it was all surface level love, conditional,  unable to fulfill fully - I was looking for something deeper.

There is a desire in each of us to connect. A desire to become as one, a longing that precedes words. The moment when Tarzan lifted his hand and Jane's palm connected. After a lifetime of living as that one difference in his world, he found his place. He found his connection. He found where he belonged.

I lifted my heart in the attempt to find something else that would come and fit perfectly.

In Biology, we learn about enzyme-substrate complexes. An enzyme has an active site with a 3-dimensional shape that is specific to a substrate. Only a substrate with a shape that complements the shape of the active site can fit and bind and form products.

In Biology, we also learn about non-competitive inhibitors. An enzyme also has a site away from the active site, called an allosteric site. When a molecule with a shape that complements the allosteric sites shape comes and binds to it, the shape of the enzyme changes and the substrate that used to be able to fit into the active site can no longer fit.

We are made for intimacy for God. There is something in our hearts, a shape of emptiness that can only be fulfilled by the perfect fit of His Love. But we go after other things that contain whispers of that love. It's not what we need. It can't fulfill us. When we bind ourselves to it, our understanding becomes distorted and our heart cannot fully receive what we were meant to receive.

I searched high and low for the longest of times. Places I should have never been. I scraped my knees and tore at my elbows and broke my heart, but forgot to turn to the One who first placed that desire in me. Instead I turned my back and tried to water my soul, cause it to bloom, with the dregs of the world. Yet I was never truly satisfied, and so I kept going. Binge eating on love. Vomiting it back out, left my heart feeling sicker. Aching.

I was helpless.

He found me.

15/09/2013

It's surprising how much you are changing from day to day. And we don't really realise it until we have something to measure it by. I had a 40 day fast from Twitter which ended today. The start of the fast, was me then. The end of the fast, was me today. And in between - 40 days of me living life day to day. I look back to the first day of the fast and I look at me today, and I realise I have taken several steps backwards and even more steps forward. I have grown in a span of forty days which amazes me. Do not think that you are not moving from day to day, do not assume that you are at a standstill, even when you're in between a rock and a hard place. A flower still blooms when it is watered and given nutrients though it is planted on sand.

Marking the stretches, stretching the marks

In my previous post, I wrote about the stretching of my heart. Of wanting my heart to be covered in stretch marks. When I first read that quote, it struck something in me. What am I doing with my heart? Am I loving enough? Giving enough? Spreading the arms of my heart wide enough? And so I thought about that - and I wrote. Wrote about wanting to love so greatly. So widely. So deeply. So unmitigatedly. Consummately. That my heart would be covered in stretch marks.

And last night as I was praying for the people around me, in my school. I felt something pour into my heart, and my heart felt like it was being stretched. Literally stretched to fullness, not just some spiritual metaphor - It was as if a passion and burden were filling my heart up that it was being stretched to its small capacity, trying to expand even greater. And you know what? It was uncomfortable. Painful, even. It was like my confined and restricted heart was a small balloon in my chest being blown up and pushed to the limit of its skin.

God showed me that He hears and sees all that I desire. All my resolutions and vows and commitments, and He takes them seriously. In this case, He did something literal while I was still thinking figuratively; He showed me that if I wanted my heart to grow in Love, it would not be something comfortable. It would be painful and uncomfortable and would bring me to my knees, crying out before Him. It would be the pounding and hammering of my chest as it expands to accomodate Glory, being shaped by the Master Potter Himself. It would be the fiery flames burning, purifying carbon to diamond, silver to gold. It would be the small balloon being replaced by an ever-increasing molten heart, blown bigger and bigger by the very Spirit and breath of God - I asked for stretch marks, now am I willing to pay the sacrifice for them?

The pain of growth, it is uncomfortable to the core. Being pushed, broken, tearing away of the old seed skin.

But the end result will be a heart filled with stretch marks, brimming with love and humility and glorious beauty. Stretched with praise and honor and holiness. Marked by the very hands of God. Stretched by the very marks of God.