Desire: The Bowels of God

Somebody said something quite profound to me the other day. And I told it to my mate, and she said it really helped because sometimes she feels like she’s just a bit too crazy about God. Like she’ll read the bible and she’ll hear what it says and she’ll feel like actually, God is the thing. God is what it’s all about. He is so much better than even the best bits of everything else. Every second of her life belongs to him, and she wants it to be permeated, drenched in him, she wants to enjoy him and please him with every thought and every moment. And then she chats to other people, other Christians as well, and she starts to worry that maybe she just needs to take a more balanced approach…

But the thing that somebody said to me the other day was this:

“We do not have the capacity to exaggerate the goodness of God.”

And that’s true. And what’s really fun is trying. Trying out loud to exaggerate the goodness of God and realising that there’s nothing, absolutely nothing you can say – if you had a million years – nothing you can say that is truly good that is not true of him. God is better. Always and forever, God is better.

i will bless the King at all times
    his praise will always be on my lips
my soul makes its boast in the King
    let the humble hear and rejoice
 oh magnify the King with me
    let us exalt his name together.

And here’s something even better than knowing God is better. He wants to know us, he wants to know you – one of the hardest things to get my head around in life is the simple fact that the God of the universe yearns to be with me. There’s this crazy bit where God speaks through Jeremiah (its chapter 31 verse 20 if you’re interested) where the literal translation is, “I do thoroughly remember him still, therefore have my bowels been moved for him, I do greatly love him”. That’s right people. Bowels. God’s desire for us is genuinely gut-wrenching, and like every lover, he wants us to desire him back. He wants our guts to cry out for him, he wants us to run through a thunderstorm to meet him, he wants us to knock on his door at three in the morning just because we’ve missed him. And I know that all this sounds a bit pretentious and extravagant and weird, but honestly, I cannot exaggerate how much he desires you, or how desirable he is. This week has been a very important week in my life because I’m beginning to learn to desire him. Desire him. Run after him. Seek him.

i sought the King, and he answered me
    and delivered me from all my fears
those who look to him are radiant
    their faces are never covered with shame
this poor man cried, and the King heard him
    and saved him out of all his troubles.

The King hears us. It’s mental, it’s utterly mental and that’s partly why its so hard to remember that its true, but he hears us. And then, crazier still, he does stuff to us, does stuff in us. He takes away every drop of shame and makes us radiant with the reflection of his beauty. He rescues us from all our fears because if the King is for us then what on earth can stand against us? Can fear scare us or death kill us? I believe, wholeheartedly, and I have experienced before and I long to experience more and more, that God is a God who responds. So don’t stop asking, don’t stop pursuing, don’t stop searching, whether you’re a Christian already or whether you’re not, because he might not give you the answer but he will give you himself. And in my experience, when that happens, the questions start looking like they’re written in tiny, tiny letters. So concretely what I’m saying is, take a bible, get out into the quiet and call out to him. Desire him. Read the letter he has written you, and don’t stop until you’ve been changed. Until an exchange has occurred, until your heart has been warmed or transformed. God is real. I think all I’m really trying to share here is that even though I’ve known that for a long time, I still have to be reminded to act like it. And already this week I’ve discovered that its not always that easy; but I’m going to keep going, because – and I’m not exaggerating here because I do not have the capacity – if there is one thing in the whole of existence that is worth running for, worth waiting for, worth searching for: it’s Him.

As always, the guy who wrote Psalm 34 puts it better than I can:

oh, taste and see that the King is good.
    blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.

(P.S. If you're feeling a hunger for this but you'd like to read about it from someone more eloquent and infinitely more qualified, I'm part of the way through a book called "The Pursuit of God" by A.W. Tozer and it is incredible, and all about this. So I would highly recommend!)