Heart Tracks - Coming Or Going?

      Twister is one of my favorite movies.  It's the story of a ragtag team of scientists obsessed with the idea of chasing after and encountering a Category 5 tornado, one of nature's most powerful forces.  In the movie, they brave every type of danger to do so, and exhibit a perseverance that will not be denied.  They want to know the makeup of such a force of nature, to uncover the mystery of what lies within.  In a sense, they want to literally "lay hold" of the tornado.  What would your life and mine be like if we possessed a similar desire to know and lay hold of Him?
     Our lives are filled with cravings and obsessions.  The things we chase after are unable to be counted.  Success, in ministry, in our profession, even in noble causes such as "winning the lost."  We commit all of our energy, our being, to secure these things.  Many of them are good, but how many are truly "God?"  Do we have a desire for Him that will not be denied, that will face any obstacle and overcome it simply for the joy of knowing Him?  Or, do we relegate Him to a small portion of our lives, ready to be called upon when needed, but otherwise, staying in the background while we get on with the business of pursuing the things we have identified as having really mattered?  We expect to be in heaven someday, and that will be time enough to spend with Him then, but right now, there are more pressing matters, more important cravings that cry out for our attention, and we need to feed them.  He'll understand, He'll be patient.  He'll wait for us.
     We are activity oriented people.  This is especially true of believers, especially pastors, missionaries, and other ministry workers.  "Go and make disciples," that's what Jesus told us to do in Matthew 28, and so we we go out to do just that.  Yet, before we go out for Him, we must first come to Him, and so few of us really do that.  So we go out ill-prepared to encounter the spiritual forces arrayed against us.  The result is weariness, frustration, burnout.  Wade Taylor, in his book, The Secret of the Stairs, wrote "The call of God is never to 'go,' it is always to 'come.' "  In Mark 1:17, Jesus said, "Come after Me, AND I WILL MAKE YOU TO BECOME FISHERS OF MEN."  Like the tornado chasers, we must have an all encompassing desire to know, and encounter, the mystery of who He is, a mystery that He longs to share with you and I.  Then, when we do go out, it won't be in our own power, understanding, and wisdom, but His.  We go out as ones being God sent, and not self sent.  There is a great difference between the two.  Before the apostle Paul went out to the Gentiles, he first came to Him in Arabia, where for 3 years he was consumed with the passion to know Him.  This passion never left him, and he exhorts us in Ephesians 5:18, "Be filled with the Spirit," the literal meaning of which is "be being filled with the Spirit."  This is a continuous, life empowering, life giving, encounter with Him through His Holy Spirit.  It is an encounter with a Person, Power, and Life that all the category 5 tornadoes that have ever been or will be are as nothing in comparison to.  When is the last time that you or I really had such an encounter?  In one way or another today, you will go out.  Have your first come?  To Him, all of Him, with all of yourself? Are we "going" but not "coming."  Be sure, our lives will reflect if we are.

Blessings,

Pastor O