Don’t stop believing
Tonight we are remembering why we ever thought it would be a good idea to publish this journal of our wanderings along The Warrior’s Path in the first place:
Because of you.
Yes, you.
You with the hungry heart that just won’t stop aching for Something More, no matter what tactic you take to drown out the cry of your heart. Believe me, I’ve been there, and I know in some small part what you are feeling.
Hungry - yes...
...but scared too.
Scared?
Yes. Scared that this ache for More isn’t a holy longing; that is not, at its core, something God intended you to feel. Scared that you just want too much – that God is not really offering you as much as you hope for, that His best is going to fall so far short of fulfilling the yearnings of all that your soul craves. Scared that the wild wonder of youth that once filled your heart with passion and your soul with awe is already slipping, slipping –never to be recaptured again for all the weary long years that lie before you. Scared that with the loss of Innocence some great piece of all you were meant to be was lost as well – and that all hope that God is still, in any practical way, on your side is gone as well. Scared that you stand dangerously close to the precipice of becoming someone you cannot bear to live with; and scared that the person you once hoped to be will soon be buried alive beneath the weight and burden of a life you never meant to have.
Do any of these words touch the inconsolable secret that haunts you every evening as you tumble into bed, stalking you through the restless dreams of a black night, waking you in the small hours with a rising terror, whispering that just about nothing in your life is going to turn out the way it should have – especially your relationship with God?
Is it you?
Are you the one that is just one more day away from losing Hope? From killing the restlessness in your heart the only way you know how — by killing your heart?
If so, God has something to say to you tonight:
You are right.
You are right.
Your heart is right.
There is More. And it is beyond your wildest dreams.
Stop letting the world, your parents, or your friends tell you to lower your expectations and just get on with life. The longing in your deep heart does mean something. It is leading you “further up and farther in”. And no, you haven’t been “shut out” based upon where your life has taken you thus far. Your Father, whose image you bear, loves you with a blinding passion, and He is calling you back to Him.
Listen.
Do you hear Him calling you back? It’s not as a second-class citizen with a dozen black marks against your name that He’s calling you back. No - it’s as the beloved son (or daughter). The son who gets His best robe. His best ring. The best feast the Kingdom has ever seen. The FULL inheritance. A co-heir with Jesus of…well, of everything that’s ever been made. A co-heir of the Universe. Every promise ever made to ANYONE still stands - for YOU. Nothing will be held back from YOU.
(We didn’t say it was beyond your wildest dreams just to sound cool or to merely take advantage of the author’s privilege of poetic license…)