Settling or Continual Chasing, Gratification or Godly Discontentment

This has been a week of thinking and mulling over some recent conversations with different people. Sunday was a time of some precious times of worship at Church and some anointed and courageous preaching.

I have come to a strange point as I have pondered things - am I happy to settle with things how they are, how they have been or am I going to continually chase after more of God and plunge the depths of what He has? Am I going to be satisfied with things as they are or am I going to have a sense of 'Godly discontentment' where I simply want more and more of God. Am I going to stop being concerned with what others think and simply be obsessed, addicted and caught up with the One? What challenges are laid at my door as I have pondered, mulled, prayed and opened my mouth simply saying 'Lord fill it.'

I have to say that I long to make a greater impact on my neighbours, my friends, I long to see many swept into the Kingdom - we possess wonderful news and yet so many of us as Christians are captive by situations, by the past, by other people and so on and so on..... On Sunday morning a Godly man was preaching in our Church literally an elder in the Church but also in the faith - a man who has walked closely with God and as he closed his sermon with some honesty he declared that he was no longer going to be worried about what others thought about the way in which he talked and praised God - he was deciding to be more concerned with what God wants. Afterwards I was thinking about how easily we are frightened by other Christians - perhaps they are older people, perhaps they dominate, perhaps they even put us down. There is a call coming through to me again and again to simply be caught up with the Holy One, the awesome God, the One who right now reigns on high where the myriads of heaven constantly and continually worship and declare His worthiness, His glory.

Let me clear up that by Godly discontentment I am not saying a negative - the negative would be an ungodly contentment where I simply say "Well this is as good as it will get, I can't and won't go any further.' If a preacher in his latter years can stand and declare 'Lord I need to change' then surely a woman in her early thirties equally can say 'Lord change me, Lord mould me and shape me, don't leave me in this place right now at this stage, take me further, take me deeper, make me more and more like you, transform me, heal my wounds, heal my past, heal the aches, make me stronger in the battle, give me courage to stand in the heat of the battle, help me to combat every temptation, help me to undo the accusations, help me to thwart the enemy, be my shield, my rampart, take over every detail of my life, enable me to tell every evil thing where to go, atune my ears to hear your voice and to identify the liar, the accuser.'

Today is not a day for remaining in the depths but deciding to reach for the skies! I used to have a principal at the school I went to and he would say "Aim for the moon and you will hit the sky, aim for the sky and you will hit the roof of the barn, aim for the roof of the barn and you will hit the tree, aim for the tree and you will hit the barn door, aim for the barn door and you will hit the bottom of the door, aim for the bottom of the door and you will hit the ground right in front of you, aim for the ground right in front of you and you will hit it." Well something like that anyway - I need to aim high and that has to change with immediate affect - I can't live compromised any longer, I can't live with scrapping by - that's not what God says about my destiny! Yes there are things that I need and want to get sorted and I feel a stirring in these days that I need to deal with things head on and see victory come over them. The enemy still presses in hard (and will do I am sure) but now is the time to see this determination lit like the fuse of some spiritual dynamite! I am going to start to take God more at His Word - if He says it and He promises it then what am I doing wittering about in the trenches!? We have an awesome, capable, almighty, all-powerful, omnipotent, good, faithful God - there is no question over who He is or whether He will still be in office tomorrow - His reign knows no end, there is no one like Him and His position cannot be contested. The continual chasing after Him, the Godly discontentment where every fibre of my being says 'more Lord' comes not out of condemnation or out of legalism but it comes fired from passion for Him, for a depth of thankfulness that can only come from a redeemed wretch, who was clothed in filthy rags but now stands in the robe of righteousness, the ring on her finger, shoes on her feet coming to the banquet held in her honour where the fatted calf is just the start.........

The strange thing is that when you simply get a taster of how wonderful He is then you just want more and more of Him, of the Holy Spirit, of the bounties that He has lavished. I for one have spent too long in the pit of the pig sty when I am destined to be the heir. I see my Father standing at the gate longing for my return from the trenches, the pit and I see Him running in the sight of all towards His beloved wretched daughter who has made mistakes, who has thought that she had received all that He could give to her but now as I see Him taking every stride towards me my heart beats with the expected embrace with the longed for moment when He takes me in His arms and loves me not for what I have done or achieved but for just being me. This is the moment when the transaction from beaten, sodden, weary, wretched, miserable slave turns into accepted, cleansed, forgiven, redeemed, restored, adored, loved, treasured child takes place - this moment when all else fades into insignificance that moment when my Father sings His love songs over me - can you hear Him singing..................