Am I Desperate? I Wish I Was...
This is the air I breathe
This is the air I breathe
Your holy presence, living in me
This is my daily bread
This is my daily bread
Your very word, spoken to me
And I, I'm desperate for you
And I, I'm lost without you
Worship is supposed to be a time when we engage our minds as well as our hearts right? Today was one of those days for me, when my mind was most definitely engaged. We sang this song this morning and with each line, each repetition more and more thought kept racing through my head.
This is a song that most of us have sung more times than we can count. It's been around for awhile and has consistently been one of the top worship choruses out there. There have been times when it has topped my list of favorites. We all know the words, but I wonder how often we think about them? Don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing this song at all, I think it's beautiful, but it just makes me think...
I'm wondering about desperation. I wonder how many of us really are desperate for the Lord? I think that more of us WANT to be desperate, but we aren't. We WANT to want him, but we don't, not in the desperate way that we sing about. I wonder if Marie Barnett was actually desperate, hungry, and lost when she penned these words or if she merely wanted to be in that state? Or are they just words?
So if we are in the place of WANTING to be wanting (I freely admit that's where I am) how do we move to really wanting? What clicks in us to say that we really want him, what makes us that hungry. The song compares him to our daily bread. He is supposed to be the bread of life, that's accurate, but is he really our daily bread? Do we depend on him for sustenance the way we do food? A woman I know just attempted a 40 day fast. She made it about half way before she was too ill to continue not eating solid food. Would it honestly affect us that much if we were to go on a 40 day "God fast"? I'm certainly not recommending that to anyone, just thinking. What about air? When you can't breathe you're terrified, panicked, you can think of nothing else but filling your lungs with air. Are we that desperate for the Lord? Somehow I doubt it...
LOST is one of my new favorite shows, I'm completely addicted. Jack, Charlie, Kate, Locke and the others are exerting every effort to find a way to surivive the tragedy that has befallen them. They have fallen from the sky and out of civilization. They know that they are lost, that they have no hope except to keep doing all they can. I think all Christians pretty aware of the fact the we would be lost without Christ, but would we really be lost? Would we have that same desperate resolve and panic that gripped the cast of LOST? We know we would be lost, but I wonder how lost we'd really feel...
The Lord commands all of these reactions from us... not in a verbal command, but his very being commands this kind of reaction from us. I don't think that we follow through, at least not very many of us very often. And this brings me back to the original question... how can we move beyond? How do we go from wanting to want to really wanting?
This is the air I breathe
Your holy presence, living in me
This is my daily bread
This is my daily bread
Your very word, spoken to me
And I, I'm desperate for you
And I, I'm lost without you
Worship is supposed to be a time when we engage our minds as well as our hearts right? Today was one of those days for me, when my mind was most definitely engaged. We sang this song this morning and with each line, each repetition more and more thought kept racing through my head.
This is a song that most of us have sung more times than we can count. It's been around for awhile and has consistently been one of the top worship choruses out there. There have been times when it has topped my list of favorites. We all know the words, but I wonder how often we think about them? Don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing this song at all, I think it's beautiful, but it just makes me think...
I'm wondering about desperation. I wonder how many of us really are desperate for the Lord? I think that more of us WANT to be desperate, but we aren't. We WANT to want him, but we don't, not in the desperate way that we sing about. I wonder if Marie Barnett was actually desperate, hungry, and lost when she penned these words or if she merely wanted to be in that state? Or are they just words?
So if we are in the place of WANTING to be wanting (I freely admit that's where I am) how do we move to really wanting? What clicks in us to say that we really want him, what makes us that hungry. The song compares him to our daily bread. He is supposed to be the bread of life, that's accurate, but is he really our daily bread? Do we depend on him for sustenance the way we do food? A woman I know just attempted a 40 day fast. She made it about half way before she was too ill to continue not eating solid food. Would it honestly affect us that much if we were to go on a 40 day "God fast"? I'm certainly not recommending that to anyone, just thinking. What about air? When you can't breathe you're terrified, panicked, you can think of nothing else but filling your lungs with air. Are we that desperate for the Lord? Somehow I doubt it...
LOST is one of my new favorite shows, I'm completely addicted. Jack, Charlie, Kate, Locke and the others are exerting every effort to find a way to surivive the tragedy that has befallen them. They have fallen from the sky and out of civilization. They know that they are lost, that they have no hope except to keep doing all they can. I think all Christians pretty aware of the fact the we would be lost without Christ, but would we really be lost? Would we have that same desperate resolve and panic that gripped the cast of LOST? We know we would be lost, but I wonder how lost we'd really feel...
The Lord commands all of these reactions from us... not in a verbal command, but his very being commands this kind of reaction from us. I don't think that we follow through, at least not very many of us very often. And this brings me back to the original question... how can we move beyond? How do we go from wanting to want to really wanting?
posted by Alison at 2:22 PM
2 Comments:
good post alison
I think one neglected discipline is thanks-giving. When God provides another day, another meal, another insight, another friend, another etc....
If we don't take the time to thank God for them...we tend to end up thinking we got it on our own or by chance.
It might seem cheesy to thank God for everything. And to do it often. But I do think that's a part of becoming desperate.
for you i would suggest two books to check out:
When I Don't Desire God: How to Fight for Joy
Desiring God
Both books by John Piper and excellent so far as I've looked at them, which is minimally just so you know. But I hope to acquire them soon. So if anything, you can read them and tell me if they're good :)
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