This is the revelation that is shaping my life today….what motivates me to seek an audience with God?
Mark 5:21-23 TPT
[21] After Jesus returned from across the lake, a huge crowd of people quickly gathered around him on the shoreline. [22] Just then, a man saw that it was Jesus, so he pushed through the crowd and threw himself down at his feet. His name was Jairus, a Jewish official who was in charge of the synagogue. [23] He pleaded with Jesus, saying over and over, “Please come with me! My little daughter is at the point of death, and she’s only twelve years old! Come and lay your hands on her and heal her and she will live!”
Observation
What makes us throw ourselves on Gods mercy, at His feet, to seek His presence? Unfortunately desperation is often the answer. God wants to share the everydayness of everyday with us, but our response often is “I’ll catch you when I’m in desperate need of you.” We will go to extremes, forget our position and push our way into Gods presence when desperation kicks in – “Please come with me!”
Our driveness for His presence is often out of need for intervention not desire for intimacy. “My little daughter is at the point of death,” has me pushing in for an audience. We want what Jesus can give not who Jesus is. It’s his good stuff we need not his love. I have no problem coming to God when desperate times motivate us, I have no problem seeking him for what He can do and bring in a situation – it’s when this is the only time I come that my motivation is obvious and somewhat disappointing. Interestingly, God does not get disappointed and respond how I might, He goes with the man and heals his daughter.
The wrestle for me is to live with a desire and a passion to push into His presence because He invites me too. To come without an agenda of desperation, other than I desperately want to share my moments with you. Must my life become so full that desperation and intervention are the only motivators for my seeking out God? Have I lost the awe of his presence in every crevice of creation? Have I lost the beauty of His presence in the intimacy of a conversation? Have I lost the reverence of His Godship in the familiarity of his fatherhood? Am I really that important that I have so much to do, am I really that caught up in the trinkets of this consumer world, am I really so lost in the looking for life, that I have lost my perspective and priority of my God?
Application
Stop. Slow. Remember. Reflect on my life and the priority of His presence. I will always come pushing into his presence with my hands full of desperate need to receive from Him what I need, but I will come running into His presence with a desperation to share my life, to glimpse His beauty, to be near. Like a child running to the door when the car pulls up in the driveway, may I never loose the joy, the wonder, the excitement of my Gods presence.
Response
Thank you that you never turn me away regardless of my motives. Thank you that you always invite me in to a deeper revelation in your presence. Thank you that your patience and love outlasts my ridiculous pursuits that ignore you. Thank you that you position yourself as always available, always present to be present. I am blessed to have a standing invitation into the presence of my God.
Meditation
When do I seek out God? What are the motivators that drive me to push into His presence?
Is there a rhythm of intimacy with God in my life? What does, could that look like?
JOURNEY DEEPER
jpcoffs05
DESPERATION IS GOD’S GRACE. IT IS A GIFT., AND I DONT BELIEVE IT IS UNFORTUNATE
“What makes us throw ourselves on Gods mercy, at His feet, to seek His presence? Unfortunately desperation is often the answer. ”
I believe as sinners we are broken and stubborn. So God intervenes in our lives by giving us this ‘grace’, or ‘gift’ called desperation. This is when we find ourselves at a place where we say ‘I need help, and I don’t have the answers’.
There was a period of thirteen years when I was an ICE addict. My life was punctuated by periods of homelessness (sleeping on park benches, public toilet blocks, garages) and ongoing imprisonment. There were times when I didnt have money to buy food because I would rather buy drugs. And I still remember walking through supermarket aisles opening packets of biscuits and bread eating them. Then running away before security caught me. The person that I became in addiction drove my family to disown me.
I didn’t believe in God. I especially had a big problem with the Judeo-Christian God.
In November 2014, a series of events happened where there was a period of four weeks when I didn’t have any drugs in my system. Then one day I had a moment of mental clarity. I begin to see my life as it really was and not the delusion I usually have under the influence of ICE. I was overcome with the realisation that I really screwed up my life . I was alone, no family, and all I owned in the world at that moment was a black garbage bag, the contents of which (donated clothes) didnt even fit me.
I realised I had a problem. I needed help. But I didnt know what to do. And I had no one to turn to. I received the gift of DESPERATION. For the first time in my life I knelt down and prayed to a God I didnt understand. That little seed of faith was sown.
Today, I am a soldier of the Salvation Army. I have a career as well being a second year university student. I am invloved in a ministry that provides ongoing ICE education in Australian schools and communities. The Australian Anti-ICE Campaign. My family is a big part of my life today. Three years ago I met for the first time nieces and nephews who never knew I existed. Today, I tutor them.
2 Corinthians 5:17 I am a new creation in Christ. The old has gone the new is here. Yes, today in everything I do in Christ Jesus. I do because of desire. But to this day, I still have that black garbage bag. That represents God’s gift to me. The ‘gift’ of desperation. It was ‘not’ an unfortunate event, it was to be celebrated as all of God’s grace.
jpcoffs05
Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of desperation. Because of his dying daughter Jairus became desperate to seek your face. My black garbage bag represented that same gift. Today I desire to know only your will in my life. And I pray for the power to carry it out. I ask this in the name of my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
jpcoffs05
Hi Guys,
Thank you for the opportunity to time out with Jesus. It was a great opportunity to reflect on his words as they apply in my life’s journey.
God Bless and see you next time.