Some Randomness/Life/Time with God

I went to the dentist yesterday to get two fillings done. Yay. Dentistry is such a barbaric and elitist medical practice. First, the barbarism. They wanted to stick a 6 inch needle into the back of my mouth in order to numb my gums. Um, please don't? When I asked if it would hurt or not, I was told that it would. I immediately started repenting of all my sins and for Jesus to make it not hurt. (It actually wasn't that bad) They then drilled on me for 45 minutes. Tooth particles shot out of my mouth and the room suddenly smelled like an electrical fire....I'll stop there with the details. Next the elitism. My wife astutely noticed that when you go to the dentist you almost are guaranteed a lecture of some kind. "I've noticed, Joel, that your gums are starting to recede. You haven't been brushing correctly. From now on, instead of just pushing your tooth brush as hard as you can into your gums, you need to lightly brush. And brush in circles! Always in circles. Duh." They have a way of making you feel like crap because I haven't flossed properly in the past week and gingivitis is starting to appear on my gums. Oh, big deal. I'll have some Scope when I get home....So Adam and Eve fell, along with all of mankind, dooming the Universe to entropy and I got to experience that in the form of novocain shots and tooth drilling.

Also, this week, I started really listening to music that wasn't bad for me. Which is a good thing. I've been listening to Switchfoot's Mess of Me almost obsessively today. Such a good song. And so true too. I am a complete master at torpedoing myself emotionally and spiritually. I mean, I have a perfect good love relationship with Jesus. And yet, I insist on not just reveling in it but would rather listen to music and zone out. I get so much pure joy and happiness out of being near to him, but there is something inside of me that just nags and nags me away from him. It's awful. And we've all been there. We all have those songs that we know we just shouldn't listen to. And they might be completely ok lyrically, but they are the worst possible thing for our hearts. They're like spiritual cancer. I really need to indulge in God and in those things that bring me and him intimacy. Give me any song that will do two things:

1. Open up my heart. There are a lot of beautiful things in this world, but we all have certain songs/things/times/places that under the right conditions have the power to move us to tears. In a good way. In a way like in Ecclesiastes 3:11, where we have a better grasp on the way things should be with God. The way our love relationship should be with him if he were physically present with us participating in our daily lives. And these are the things we really must surround ourselves with.

Philippians 4:8 - "...whatever is lovely...think about such things." NIV

2. Keep me drawn into Jesus' heart. This is the tough one for me. I work in an office. Sitting at a computer all day. And I have total access to about a million things that can redirect my attention away from God. So even if I had an awesome time with God on my drive on the interstate, where we were close and intimate and just loving on each other, it's usually only a matter of time before my heart walks off into the world of business. There is an incredible story called One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (thank you to Eldredge for the synopsis in his book Desire) which tells the tale about a Mexican village who's inhabitants are overrun by an epidemic of insomnia. The first thing to go, memory. They forget the most menial tasks and items. And in order to remember, they have to write the name of things on a paper and tape it to the item. So they would go around the farm marking a pig as 'a pig' and a cow as 'a cow.' It gets worse and they have to write down explicit instruction on what to do with the cows and pigs and other farm animals. How to milk them, feed them, etc. And then on the entrance to the town they write a sign that tells them that 'God exists.'

I've been there before. Every day of my life I've been there for at least an hour. And so just as Philippians 4:8 says "whatever is true, think about such things" I need to know the truth; that I am deeply involved in a passionate love affair with the God of the universe and am caught up in a story with him of epic proportions that permeates everything in my life. So little of my time it seems is consumed with that basic truth. So I need songs which will help me remember that in my heart and mind.

We really do need to get space time with Jesus every single day. I like to "unplug" from everything and just enjoy him. I love to enjoy God's Spirit. He's wonderful and more of a rush than anything I've ever experienced. I get off the computer and the iphone and enjoy him; I want his heart to know that I am captivated by him and not by any of these other things that really aren't that important. And I so desperately want "ears to hear and eyes to see." I love being able to feel the romance with God in a cup of tea, a sunset, sitting on the porch with my daughter, talking and being held by Jesus, smelling dinner that's in the oven right now and imagining how exciting it will be in the Father's house when he calls out, "Dinner's ready!" And I will come bounding down the stairs with Jesus into a wonderful feast. Life with God is incredible. On a good day, life in the world is mediocre. Mostly it's just a drain. But oh my goodness, being near him and in his presence and his heart, it's perfect. Just perfect.

I just want life to revolve around this:

Oh God, you are my God,

Earnestly I seek you;

My soul thirsts for you,

My body longs for you,

In a dry and weary land where there is no water. Psalm 63:1