Really Needing Jesus

I've learned as this week as continued on to be more and more, that I really need Jesus. I spent most of yesterday begging him to be near him. And yet, it was soooo hard to be near to him. He wasn't near to me after I got the $161 speeding ticket on the interstate. Or when I was buried under work at the office. Or about to pass out but still felt insomnia as my wife prayed over me for me to be able to sleep. It's taken until now this week for me to really desire and long for God. It is a wonderful thing when you are broken down to just you and you want God. There is no pretense, no supposition about his love, it's a passionate longing for the Beloved.

I love this poem by John of the Cross. It's the Spiritual Canticle of the Soul. It's our love affair with Jesus' Spirit written by lover of God. Here is a short excerpt:

Reveal Your presence,

And let the vision and Your beauty kill me,

Behold the malady

of love is incurable

Except in Your presence and before Your face...

The bride has entered

The pleasant and desirable garden,

And there reposes to her heart's content;

Her neck reclining

On the sweet arms of the Beloved...

Let us rejoice, O my Beloved!

Let us go forth to see ourselves in Your beauty,

To the mountain and the hill,

Where the pure water flows:

Let us enter into the heart of the thicket.

We shall go at once

To the deep caverns of the rock

Which are all secret,

There we shall enter in

And taste of the new wine of the pomegranate.

There you will show me

That which my soul desired;

And there You will give at once,

O You, my life!

That which You gave me the other day. Stanzas XI, XXII, XXXVI-XXXVIII

One of the best ways to stay in Jesus' love during times of busyness, is to bury ourselves completely in his love. But, when we are completely taken with little left we find ourselves bare before God and his love. A God who loves us passionately. It's a passion that one must give into to find a joy that was unexpected and perfect and incredible. God himself desires intimacy with us. As John Eldredge and Brent Curtis said, "An intimacy much more sensuous, much more exotic than sex itself." (The Sacred Romance). God is wooing us to become enthralled with him. Which is leading to one day marrying him, to the consummation of our marriage with him. How he desires us and longs for us is incredible.

Last Sunday, our pastor was talking about the Holy Spirit and said, It says it would be better for the Holy Spirit to be here in our church than for Jesus himself to be walking around in our midst. It's true. Because we now have God himself inside of us. And he wants incredible intimacy with us. We wants to be so close to us that our bodies are his temple (1 Corinthians 6:19). How rarely we look and think about ourselves in that way. Not just that we are his desire, but that he desires us so bad that he thinks our bodies are his temple where he is worshipped by us. He wants spiritual skin to spiritual skin with us. His heart pressing on our heart. He wants naked worship of him inside us, nothing between us and being completely intertwined with his Spirit. Jesus desires us. This is the love we are being pursued with by our God. Read Song of Songs and put yourself and God in the story and see how badly he wants you. One day, we are going to say, I do, to Jesus and be his for all time (Revelation 19:7). He wants to begin forever though right now with us :)