Grace

To Know HIM

       Dear God ~ Cory Asbury
       Knowing You ~ Minister GUC
       Christ In Me ~ Jeremy Camp

          Right now, if you asked me what I want most I would tell you that I want to know God, that I want my relationship with God to grow so strong, that I want to be the person that  God wants me to be. Yes, that is my heart's desire. To follow God through and through, without asking Him questions nor doubting.

   Someone might ask me, "Why not wealth or health? ". I want the wealth and health, at a certain point I may actually need both of these things but I can not afford to want those things if I do not have God. And besides, i know and believe that as long as I do as my father in Heaven tells me to, if I take care of my relationship with my Father in Heaven, HE will most certainly take care of me, HE will see to my every need. HE is my Father, my friend, my defender, my protector, my provider and my everything. He has me right in the palm of His Hands.

      I know all these things, I have heard them being preached time and time again but... I fail to uphold my end of the bargain. I still fail to trust God, to worship Him in truth and in spirit, I fail to follow Him, I fail to seek Him, I fail to put Him first. And every single day I ask myself, why? Why can I not just do as my Father in Heaven tells me to? I struggle and fail to fast, to pray, to worship, I struggle to hear what God is saying,  I fail to be the person that God wants me to be.

      I want and need to know God, that is what I want most. I want to serve Him with my whole heart and being. My soul, my heart and my spirit yearn to follow God, yet my flesh lets me down over and over again. Even as I am typing this, I feel a sort of tightness in my heart because I am failing to follow my Father.

      The pride of this world, the pleasures of the flesh, they are chained to me, they cling to me. They make me lose my way, they make me stumble and fall. I want to be rid of them entirely. My heart yearns to follow God, to know His ways and to know His truth.

      And in all this chaos and mess, God still offers me His hand. He never goes away from me, He encourages me to try, just to try again.

     He keeps on calling out to me, in hope that I will answer.
    He keeps on drawing me towards Him, in hope that I will come.

     I do pray that I will always answer HIS call. I hope that I will always come to HIM. Because if I am where HE is, then I will not fall.

         "Dear God I've been trying awful hard to make
You proud of me but it seems
The harder that I try, all the harder it becomes
And I feel like giving up Most of the time

Dear God I've been chasing their approval and it's killin' me And I know The more I try to prove
All the less I have to show
And I'm stuck inside my head Most of the time

But if I pray a little harder
If I follow all the rules
I wonder, could I ever be enough?

  'Cause I try and try Just to fall back down again
And I ask myself why Do I try to chase the wind?
I should lean into the mystery Maybe hope is found in a melody
So I wanna try again Oh,
I'm gonna try again

And dear child I hope you know how much I love you and I'm proud of you
And please believe The thoughts I have for you will never change or fade away
And when you felt like giving up I never did

'Cause I'm not scared of imperfections
Or the questions in your head Just know that you have always been enough 

'Cause you tried and you tried And I saw you wrestle with Every how, every why
I was right there listening
So just fall into the mystery
And I'll meet you here in the melody
Try, just to try again
Oh, child would you try again? My child, you can love again." ~Dear God, Cory Asbury

        
          I find that the lyrics above really hit home for me. It is a reflection of what I feel deep down within me. I want to know God, to really know Him. Not just to know Him, but to be embedded in Him in such a way that I live in Him and He in me. I want to know God that I may walk in Him and with Him. That I may always follow His Will. And the song above has become a prayer for me. I love the second verse, in a way it is an answer  from God. To me it is God saying that He knows me and that is enough.

       And with all that, I want people to see God. I want people's  lives to change because they see God's Love and His grace. Because I can't see the wonders of His mighty Love and not share that. I want my life to show the Glory of God to the world. That when people look at me, they see God's Glory, they see that without God, I couldn't possibly be where I am at all.

    "In this obsession with the things this world says make us happy
Can't see the slaves we are in all the searching, all the grasping
Like we deserve much more than all these blessings we're holding
So now I'm running free into an ocean of mercy unending

So come and empty me
So that it's you I breathe
I want my life to be
Only Christ in me
So I will fix my eyes
'Cause you're my source of life
I need the world to see
That it's Christ in me
That it's Christ in me " ~ Christ in me, Jeremy Camp

     

                      Christ In me