If God sent text messages...would they sound like this?
"I just wanted to let you know that I miss you. I can't wait to talk to you soon! Hope your day is going well."
Would they? Would they say, "Sara, that 47 minutes you gave me this morning when you were half asleep weren't enough?", or "I wanted to know every detail of your day and what you thought about it. I wanted to know your struggles and your victories." "Sara, can you tell me what you learned today?" "You are my beloved, I just want to have one of our amazing conversations tonight". He would say all these things not because He has some magic amount of time you need to talk to Him, but because He desires a relationship with you.
These crazy thoughts came into my mind this afternoon when I received a text message from Ryan. I know...Ryan is in Africa and I can still get the occasional text message...technology is amazing! Anyways, for the next two weeks Ryan does not have Internet so we cannot correspond daily. Stinky...but not impossible. I of course miss him. I miss him because I just want to tell him about my day. I want to tell him big things that happened and little things. I wanted to tell him how I had a hard day because I had to discipline a kid. I wanted to tell him so many things, and I wanted to ask him so many questions about what he was experiencing. But I couldn't. So I missed him. And because this was the only communication I have with him, I have bit of a confession to make...
I read the text message 3 times.
It was 3 sentences long and I read it 3 times like it was difficult to comprehend. I acted like I was reading the Iliad or something. I read it 3 times because it was my only way to communicate with him. And then I got to thinking...
Do I read God's word like that? Do we spend too much time getting frustrated that God doesn't audibly speak to us and say, "Be a doctor" when we don't even cherish the word He has given us. God's word is clear, as long as we are in body form, we are separated from the Lord.
"Therefore, always being of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord."
-2 Corinthians 5:6
I am not with God. I may have His Spirit inside of me, but I am not with Him. I don't get to go to Target with Him. I don't get to sit face to face with Him when I talk to Him. I don't get to dance with Him. I don't get to hug Him. We can communicate, but we are separated.
Do I read His text message (the Word) 3 times just so I know everything that He said is written in my heart. Because this is the way He has chosen to communicate with me while we are separated, do I cherish His words? Do I act like David and say,
"Sustain me according to your word, that I may live."
-Psalm 119:16
Do I miss Him when we don't have a lot of time to talk? Do I miss Him when I haven't gotten to read His word?
I am talking Living By the Book from the amazing Rusty Bacaak, and I have been learning a lot about cherishing God's word. (P.S. Everyone should take this class...it's wonderful!!) I want to cherish my time in the word more than my text message from Ryan. I want my soul to groan as I am separated from the Lord like it talks about in 2 Corinthians 5.
The Lord is convicting me a lot and showing me areas where I get more excited about talking to Ryan than talking to the Lord.
Ouch (in the word of Heather Hendrick!)
That hurts...but I have made our relationship an idol before, and I DO NOT WANT TO GO BACK!!! I am thankful that God is daily putting a check on my thoughts and emotions and desiring my first "swooning" emotion to be His. (swooning emotion, is that feeling you get when you read a sweet note and you get that little smile on your face and you feel all gushy inside.)
God is the ultimate swooner. He has sent us sweet text messages in the form of a thick book. He has challenged me to let Him be my ultimate swooner. So even though He isn't talking to me via my cell phone, He has written me so many love notes. And I am pretty sure that if you are that crazy about text messages...you could get bible verses texted to your phone. Hey if I can text someone in Africa...I am betting this is possible....so really we have no excuse! Oh the 21st century!
(p.s. here is one of my favorite "make you swoon" (so I don't think swoon is even a word and I have used it like 7 times in this post! Good thing I rebel against grammar rules!) messages from the Lord....
"For your husband is your Maker,
Whose name is the Lord of hosts;
and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel,
Who is called the God of all the Earth."
-Isaiah 55:5-6
