The Picture

So, "Healer" by Hillsong came on this morning.

The song emphasizes how God is our healer, that we can trust Him, and that nothing is impossible for Him. He holds our world in His hand. But a few of the lyrics beat some meaning into me: "You're more than enough for me...Jesus, you're all I need."

We hear that all the time, right? At church, in our circles of friends…I probably write it in every entry.

Do we truly mean that?

I mean, what do we want? What do we really want?

You can answer that by looking at how you spend the majority of your free time, what you think about, what you put your life into. Motives, too. Not just what you want, but why do you want it?

I was reminded of a picture I'd had about a year ago. It wasn't a vision really, just a scene in my mind's eye. But it had stopped me from whatever I'd been doing and crashed into my mind. I couldn't scribble it into my journal fast enough.

In the picture I’m sitting on my bed in my room. (My room is like my sanctuary or haven. Even my sister knows not to come into it without knocking and getting permission.) So in the picture, I knew it represented my heart. Suddenly the door opens without a knock, and a bunch of people come in. They’ve got guitars and cameras and all kinds of stuff. They don’t acknowledge me; they just come in and sit in my chair, get on my computer, start playing music and taking pictures, talking and joking around with each other, making themselves at home. Still no one looks at me.

The room is now crowded. At this point I know who they are; I recognize each person as one I’d put my hope in, put in the place where only the Lord should be in my life. I’d looked to them to satisfy me, to meet needs that God alone can fill. It’s an assortment of people, friends, family members, guys…

I sit there watching them, heartbroken at the number of them, still holding onto a few hurts because they’d never been able to fill those places in me. I’m not saying that we don’t need people in our lives; we certainly do. But I’d given importance and priority to them in various areas, places which should’ve only belonged to God.

Then Jesus shows up in the doorway, and he’s looking straight at me. This may sound cheesy or cliché or whatever, but I don’t know how else to describe it… Sitting on my bed and looking at him looking at me, I knew that he was all I wanted. All I’d ever wanted. More than I’d ever wanted, more than I knew I was ever capable of wanting.

He turns to go, but he looks over his shoulder and says quietly, yet I hear it over the noise of the room, “You coming?”

I don’t even think. I jump down from my bed and shove my way through the people and sprint out the door after him. And I don’t look back.

I was thinking about what people want, what we look for. It’s not hard to come up with an answer. Look at people’s lives. Look at the movies that sell. Look at the news.

I want, too. But you know what I want more than those things? I want to be able to say, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” with absolute honesty. I want to know, truly know, that He’s enough. I want to be ok with being single for the rest of my life, as long as I have the intimacy with God I was made for. I want to be ok with never traveling again, as long as I know he’s got my world in his hands.

I'm not advocating killing our desires; I know God puts certain ones in us for a reason. I'm simply realizing that we have this mindset where we don't trust Jesus to come through, that we don't believe he really can meet our every need.

“You’re more than enough for me.” I want to know what that means, what that looks like lived out. I want it to be true of me.