Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Infinite Need (Part 2)

I didn´t even know my own NEED. It was this growing sense that found me walking aimlessly and troubled through the snowy woods. “Oh, to know my poverty, to see my wretchedness, and to feel my need,” I kept thinking over and over. God´s piercing light was working to drill through my autonomy and blinding self-sufficiency. Truth be told, I was slightly terrified that He would never break through and that I would be stuck forever with a proud, lonely, and lost heart.

I sat down on a fallen tree and began to cry. The stunning sunset colors only seemed to represent an amazing love that I would never experience if I never felt my true need for redemption. As my shoulders heaved with pent up emotion, I knew that at least momentarily I was needy. I had nowhere else to turn with my desperation. I felt need…a need for something I knew only God could give…a need perhaps for God Himself. His thoughts of hope, patience, and calling intermingled with my anguished ones. He spoke my name and told me my tears were beautiful to Him. I think I knew then that it would be okay. He still wanted me with a passion, despite everything.  

One place we will never leave, throughout all eternity, is the place of needing God. Never will some spiritual level be attained at which our deep need for His love will disappear. Our desire for independence will fade away but our need for His closeness will only wax stronger. He comforted me by showing me that my struggle and tears were the beginning of me NEEDING Him more…NEEDING Him even to instill the greater sense of NEED in me. He was becoming necessary to my soul´s peace and joy.

I stood and leaned against a nearby fir. I glanced to where I had been sitting previously and realized I barely recognized “that” girl…the girl who moments before had sat dejectedly weeping with her face in her hands. Was that really me? So broken? So helpless? So needy for an understanding embrace and loving word from her God?

Yes. That was me and that is me. I found the real me in a perfect place that I cannot risk forgetting or leaving—the place where I need God more than life.

Our need for love is our need for God. Our need for comfort is our need for God´s arms. Our need for hope is our need for God´s unbreakable promise. Our need for truth is our need for His words. We truly need Him! Our inner being thirsts for Him with an infinite and undeniable need!  Our hearts will indeed wither away and perish without their Creator and Sustainer!


We can pretend that intellectual acceptance of our need is enough, but it isn´t. Mental acknowledgement of our dependence on God is simply a springboard from which to dive into a continual and conscious experience of heart-felt, emotional need. How God wishes to be unashamedly needed! Is your need for Him real?


Infinite Need (Part 1)


(previously unpublished from December 2013)

I stepped off the porch steps and my shoes crunched on the mixture of snow, ice, and gravel. My thoughts were far from confident. I was sure of only one thing…well two, actually. I was sure that God´s love was real and I was sure my only hope was in continuing to seek Him. Five days of inner tumult had worn me down emotionally and just breathing in the freezing air caused tears of desperation to form in my eyes. 

I knew I needed God. But that was nothing new; I had known that for years. The fact was I was being convicted to FEEL my pure need for Him. And that was something I had never deeply experienced. 

His Love had been crashing over me like waves of a passionate sea. I had never known love like this before. I was allured by it and wanted to go deeper. The feeling of being loved as I didn´t deserve provoked rays of love in me towards God that were more beautiful than 1000 sunrises. I truly wanted this encounter to continue into eternity. I wanted this love.

But then the question came, “Do you just want my love, or do you need it? Do you just want to be in a relationship with me, or do you desperately need me?”

I could not move past the question (for five days) because both God and I knew the answer. I was well rehearsed and practiced in the art of professing to need God while inwardly relying on the deception that “I was rich, and increased with goods, and had need of nothing.” I wanted to reply to God´s question and say, “Yes, I need you,” but I could not make myself give a response that I did not feel. I did not feel my true need for Him and thus, I could not correspondingly add one more lie to a lifetime of pretense.  


While relishing in the wonder of this new love experience, my heart was yet failing to fully acknowledge or understand my NEED for this experience with God. He knew there was no other way but to ask me directly and to let the question linger until I was broken. “Do you truly need my love? Because if you don't truly need me, I can't ever become your Everything.”