Last night as I was contemplating Jesus, and how badly I wanted to hear audible words from Him, and what I wouldn't give to just see Him, and spend a day sitting with Him in real person, my heart ached for His physical presence.
I got the image of a person running through a forest, searching, desperate and looking frantically for another. Like how a desperate mother feels when she has lost sight of her small child while at the beach. She is desperate, she is frantic, looking.
I felt this way about Him last night. Looking, running, searching desperate for Him, and His words. I imagined myself in the days of when Jesus was walking on earth, and to know He was there, but not with me would drive me crazy.
I pictured myself slipping out the front door and running through the night, looking on every street corner, ever bunch of trees, every hill, every valley, until suddenly, I run into a clearing, and there He is, sitting on a bench waiting for me.
I start to weep! I found Him! There He is! I rush to His side, bury my face into His hug. "O Jesus! I was looking for you everywhere!!! I wanted to be with you so bad."
"I'm right here, come sit with me for a while.." He said. My aching heart was soothed. I was comforted. The sigh of relief from desperation slips from my lips. I'm content. I'm with my Master. I'm at peace.
There was another woman who felt this way in the Bible too. Mark 5:25-34
25 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26 She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. 27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.”29 Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.
30 At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”
31 “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”
32 But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
She was desperate. She knew Jesus was her only hope for healing. Her only source for true freedom.
I've come to realize this too, and it has left me desperate for Him, more of Him, thankful for Him.
No matter the storm, Jesus can calm it, and if He does not want to take the storm away right away, He holds me up in the midst of it. Even if it doesn't look like how I thought it would, it matters not, as long as I'm with Him, I'm ok.
Duet. 31:6 Says this:
6 Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”
He is always, always, always with me. I need only to trust in His provision. I need to lean on His shoulder for my support. To be thankful in the midst of the trial, and be at peace in the storm as He is.
Lately the Lord has shown me that He is all I need. Even in the midst of struggle, trial and sorrow, I can be thankful.
Be thankful IN all circumstances. Not just after the trial is over, not just before the trial starts, but IN the midst of the trial, and I can be thankful, because I have something greater than anything words can describe: I have Jesus.
So here I sit, my head on His lap, His hands on my head. He comforts me. He encourages me. He gives me words of strength and encouragement ... I trust in no one else. I rest in Christ alone.
Psalm 40:1-3 is the thankful cry of my heart.
I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.
2 He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.
3 And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord.
