A few weeks back, I was talking to a
friend about junk food and healthy food, and how I'd noticed that my
body was craving healthy food more, and junk food less. In part, it's
because I'd been eating healthy. A meal including beans and veges
made me get excited. Stranger things have happened!
Last week, it got weirder. Thanks to
the best friend/gym partner/PT that I could ask for, I'm more
consistent at having a gym routine than ever before. I made it to the
gym four times, and when it got to Sunday afternoon, my body was
craving exercise!
It gets stranger. That same afternoon,
I was offered a very rich dessert that would have otherwise got thrown
out. Usually, I'd take up the offer in an instant! But my body
actually didn't feel like it! I knew my flesh would still like it,
but I chose to say no to it. (I had to throw it out quickly before
I'd change my mind!)
It's occurred to me that this is a lot
like the things of God!
Even though I often fail at doing the
things I set out to do (like prayer/worship/bible reading) I have
found that the more time I spend in God's presence,
worshipping/reading his Word, the more I desire Him!
Bill Johnson says: “In the
kingdom, if you want to get hungry, eat.”
The very things you want to want.... do
them.
I had to do this a while ago,
ironically right after I'd written a series of blog posts on gettingspiritually “refilled”.
I had to drag myself, early in the
morning, towards bible reading. I drifted & day-dreamed
constantly. In and of myself, I didn't really want to do the things I
had so passionately encouraged you, the reader of this blog, to do –
read the Bible and feed of God's Word through prayer.
Still, I made myself attempt it with
all the energy I could muster. I had a break-through when the verse
of the day (on my Bible phone app) was exactly the verse I'd read and
pondered earlier, in my state of drifting, day-dreaming and forcing
myself to read anyway. This happened not once, but twice in a row!
That really woke me up. Even when we feel unfocused/lost/distracted,
God can still speak to us and draw us back to the path he wants us
on.
It's worth taking the step towards God,
in the way that you know how. Ultimately, it's by His grace that we
do anything. It is because of His enabling presence that we even
breath, let alone engage with Him. It is here that the mystery
lies. God is active, even when
we are passive, and yet God's word still says that if we draw near to
Him, he will draw hear to us*. God is not entirely bound by our
actions, and yet His movements are intrinsically linked to ours.
What does the conolli have to do with worship? The canolli is the dessert I said no to on Sunday. Usually, I would have said yes, but I chose to throw it out. I ate healthy food instead, which my body loved. What is it in your life that you need to throw out today, in order to draw near to God?
*James 4:8
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