Relentless Pursuit

(12/04/03 journal entry)

It is impossible to have clean hands and pure hearts unless we are actively involved in seeking the face of God. The only way to worship is to worship every day - if we become slack or hit-and-miss with our pursuit of God, we become soiled by the dirt of everyday living and it becomes difficult to enter into the presence of God. The natural pull of depravity draws us away from God and his holiness into the mud of "normal" life. The Christian life that seeks God has to fight to do so. I want to have the character of the company of God's people that seek him - not that of those who just know him. There is so much more and I want it.


Psalm 24:3-6

Fill My Vision

(12/04/03 journal entry)

I have allowed my vision - the vision of my heart - to be filled with many things other than God. In a way, I've allowed my focus to shift off of God; or maybe I've not zoomed in on him as I should. As he's taken up less of my vision, other things have crept into the margins. Peripheral things don't like to stay in the peripheral - they fight to gain my attention. So, this morning I've done a lot of confessing and putting down my idols.

My prayer is for God to completely fill my vision. That's worship - when our hearts zoom in so closely on God that everything else is pushed out of the picture. As I write, I'm looking out of the window watching the sun rise over the beautiful Rocky mountains. Vanessa and I will leave in a few minutes to see the Grand Canyon. These things are so huge and so wonderful that my eyes can't really see all the majesty they really possess. My Father, the great Creator that designed both the sunrise and the Grand Canyon, is so much more majestic than what he has created. Lord Jesus, fill my vision until everything else is pushed out of the picture.

The Walk of True Faith

(01/21/03 journal entry)

We tend to begin the walk of faith with lots of excitement, intimacy and expectation. God leads us through all kinds of amazing things - often very hard things - and we follow with zeal and pledge dedication with our mouths and hearts because the sensation of his amazing work is so fresh, not realizing the path we are choosing to follow.

After the hard days have passed and God allows us to settle for a time in a place he has promised us, a place of blessing, the sensation of blessing is more overwhelming than the remembered sensation of God's hand and we quickly begin to start carving new idols in our lives. It is then that the zeal that we called faith is shown to be what it is - a reaction to a sensation, when true faith is actually a commitment to believe in the absence of sensation.

Lord Jesus, it is true that we become like the things we worship. May we become steadfast and faithful by worshiping you instead of worthless by focusing our lives on worthless things.


Jeremiah 2:2,5