| | Those of you who knew me through college knew me basically as a workaholic. I tried to spend as much quality time with people as possible . . . while acing all my classes, working, and volunteering for BSM and church activities right and left. The beginning of three of my four summers that followed each year of college, my appetite and enthusiasm decreased. I was so used to being as busy as a person can be (averaging six hours of sleep a night, if I was good), that having so much leisure time made me feel that my life was in the doldrums. That’s when I would know that God and I needed a reflective talk. Because if I felt I was living for nothing without my activity, then I was obviously not living for the God who speaks in stillness. Even though the things I was doing were good things, ways I intended to serve God, I eventually would wind up doing them for my own satisfaction, not for Him. It is so frustrating when serving God has come between God and me. It is confusing when what I believe God wants me to do in some way becomes an idol replacing God Himself. The scary part is how long a Christian can live under this deception without realizing that anything is wrong. How can one tell the difference, then? I have found that a lot of it has to do with satisfaction. If you are living for something less than God Himself, you need more of it than you can handle, or else you will quickly feel unsatisfied. I, for instance, had to have enough responsibilities to push my physical and mental limits in order to feel satisfied. If one gets his satisfaction from work, drugs, adrenaline, entertainment, or anything else coming from this world, the longer we draw from it, the less it pleases us. That is why Jesus said He is the Living Water, and all who drink of Him shall never thirst (John 4). Yes, our thirst for Him continually increases. The difference is, He is like pure water that truly hydrates, and enables us to grow, ever growing more and needing more. And He is the Fountain that never runs dry. The more we need Him, the more He satisfies. Everything else is like salt water, which one may drink and drink, and only become more dehydrated. Blessedly, I worship a Jealous God. He will not let me keep drinking from something else, both for His sake and mine. He has started to heal my obsessiveness towards things which once seemed critical, but are truly inconsequential. I no longer necessarily have to wait for quiet before I realize I have been striving after noise. The striving itself becomes empty. Having known the delight, the sweet fulfillment of the smallest pure devotion to God, the emptiness of striving after something else becomes more noticeably miserable now. “Let Thy goodness like a fetter bind my wandering heart to Thee”—the more I surrender to the goodness of God, the more unbearable the misery of joyless idols becomes. I first chose to follow Christ because I believed what I was told about Him, that He loves and died for me, and without Him I would go to hell. Later, I followed Him because His ways made sense to me, and He gave me grace to believe Him in the instances which did not. Now I follow Him, even more closely, because I cannot bear not to. There is nowhere else to turn that would not suffocate me. I am obsessive, and any other obsession would kill me, not so much with its relentless demands as with its void. Addicted as I have been to perfection, approval, and activity, when I remember the Lord, these things become worthless. |
