Today is dubbed “Why Not? Wednesday.” here on TIHS. The idea behind it is that we all have questions and thoughts that we have in our head or that we struggle with but are too afraid to put out there in front of others. I’m going to attempt to be open and honest with those questions and struggles. I’m not the only one that has them, so why not put them in front of everyone else? I hope that by doing this other people realize they’re not the only ones going through these things.

This past Sunday night in small group we talked about what it meant to live as a Christian. If we were forgiven already, and if that sin two weeks from now is already forgiven, then what the heck was the point in living a pure life that strives to be sinless? We went back and forth and had some really great back-and-forth between students and leaders.

At one point I tried to relate everything back to something that I knew that my guys knew. Back in the fall they had pooled their money together to buy me new tires for my car. I told them that because they had made the sacrifice to do that, I wanted to care for those tires as much as I could. I recognize and respect what it took for them to give me that gift and want to show my thankfulness and gratitude for it by taking care of it. In the same way, Jesus made a sacrifice for us and because he gave it to us, we should want to live a life that would bring honor to him.

Whenever I tell other people something, I immediately start to think back to what I said and ask myself the question, “Am I actually doing that?” I would absolutely hate to be a hypocrite but it’s very easy to tell others to do something and not do it yourself.

After asking myself that question, I realized the answer wasn’t necessarily yes but was more, “Eh, sort of.”

I haven’t been going out and killing kittens or punching babies, but my life hasn’t really be the best it could’ve been. I wasn’t doing anything wrong per say, but not doing anything wrong isn’t the same as doing what’s right.

I’ve been in a rut. I’ve let the stress of my future overwhelm me. In doing so, I’ve stopped having lively conversations with God and reverted back to turing my prayer life into a wish list. I’ve stopped looking for God in everything to see what he wanted to show me and have simply went through life knowing God’s there but not actively pursing him. I’ve turned times of worship into me singing words to a song instead of singing my heart to my creator.

On Monday night, after hearing the great message that I mentioned in yesterday’s post, we went back into a time of worship. I’d just been slapped in the face and woken up about what the cross really was and not I was singing. I wanted the words to be more than just words but for some reason they weren’t. While we were singing “None But Jesus” by Hillsong, I remember wondering to myself, “Why can’t I get into this? What’s stopping me? What is holding me back?” I continued singing and then we got to the bridge of the song:

All my delight is in you Lord.
All of my hope, all of my strength.
All my delight is in you Lord, forevermore.

I sang those words and realized that I wanted those words to be true again. For whatever reason, for the last month, I wasn’t sure if I could say that they were true. I stood there and stopped singing and prayed.

God, I want this to be true again. I’m sorry for whatever it is I’ve been doing. I’m sorry that my priorities have been so jacked up. I don’t know how it got to this point but I don’t like it. I want to come back. I want you back. I want you to be what this song is saying.

Without saying amen or doing the typical “closing” to a prayer, I went back to singing. Immediately I felt a difference. I wasn’t completely back to where I could completely lose myself in worship but I felt myself closer to that point than I’d been in a while.

I don’t think that God had stopped pursuing me, but I think that he got tired of me being an idiot and reminding me of everything all of the time. He didn’t leave me but he knew I had friends that I would rather be with and was sitting a few sections away instead of right next to me. He was waiting for me to ask him to come back. The second I did, he started climbing over people to get to me. By the end of the worship set, he had gone from the other side of the room to just a couple of seats away.

Ruts happen. Our priorities get jacked up and we don’t even realize it. I’m climbing out of one right now. I have no doubt in my mind that God will be much closer to me tonight at FUEL than he has been in a while and it’s all because I invited him to come back to me.

He’s not going to force himself upon me if I don’t want him.

But I want him.

And that’s all it takes for him to come close.