Living Life for Christ Alone

As December thirty-first turned into January first of the new year, I had mixed feelings. Partly because 2014 had turned out to be extremely dear to my heart. Many of my own life's most difficult moments had happened in this year, as well as many of the most exciting ones. I wasn't quite ready to let it go. Come on, it's just a year number...   On January first for the past couple of years now, I like to write a prayer of dedication in my journal, asking God to do something incredible with the year, to teach me more about Him, to grow me more... that kind of thing.

"Oh God, do you even love me?" The question escaped my lips before I could even begin to think how "unchristian" it was. The darkness seemed to envelop my vision and I could not see the One I was speaking to... was He even there? How could He be when I felt so far from Him?  ...No, He couldn't be. Desperately, I looked around me, looking for solace, but the wind kept blowing, the waves kept beating against me, threatening to knock me down.  "What is He doing?" I asked myself. 

The Glory of God: Life's purpose, His plan, Our everything. My prayer has been, "God, make your glory to come down on me! I want Your presence to be real in my life!" Several mornings ago, God showed me a prayer of Asaph, which he repeated three times in Psalm 80: " Turn us again to Yourself, O God. Make Your face shine down on us. Only then will we be saved." (Vs. 3,7,19) " Turn us again to Yourself.. ." Sometimes we are too weak to turn ourselves to Him. Might we ask Him to turn us to Him? Don't you think it will be a prayer He will answer? Are you "willing to be made willing"?

The sun had barely risen in the wilderness, and in the tent could be seen the silhouette of a man kneeling, praying to the God of heaven. A cloud, glorious in appearance, stood over the place where the man knelt silent and speechless. He could not take his eyes off the cloud, for in it -he knew- was the very God he was praying to. This was an amazing thought to him.  As he knelt there, the turmoil within his heart grew. One question was on his heart, and he wasn't sure exactly how to ask the One who stood before him in so much splendor.