Intimacy with Jesus. I am believing more and more every day...particularly while I'm in Israel, that intimacy with Jesus is what this life is all about. The struggle I keep going through is not a struggle to believe that premise...but to apply it. Out of intimacy springs everything of life...everything beautiful and of worth. I want my life to reflect all of those things, but it is very easy for me to slip into a pursuit of the fruit of a life of intimacy...rather than the life itself. It's a constant battle for me. It's so subtle, but so strong. It's the difference between bondage and freedom.
Maybe it's because it requires yielding, relinquishing control...I don't do that well AT ALL! I believe that our lives as Believers are meant to be marked with the miraculous...signs, wonders, miracles. Jesus' life looked like this, the Believers' lives in the first century church looked like this, I've heard testimony after testimony of Believers' lives throughout history looking like this, the lives of many friends I know now look like this. My life is meant to look like this. It is. But getting from point A to point B is where my understanding breaks down. I get confused, I get frustrated, I get distracted, and perplexed. Oh how desperately my logical analytical mind wants a formula to this intimacy and access to God's power in my life. But praise God, He isn't like that! Lord break this servant. Confound my mind...until I can rely NOT on my on understanding.
My prayer for these last four days in Israel is that God would do just that. The sites I've seen have forever impacted my life, but more than that, encountering the Living God in HIS land and in the lives of radical hungry Believers has compounded my desire to give everything for You Lord! This trip has, thus far, been a time of breaking off strong holds, challenging me to greater depths of faith and boldness...and still risk...always to risk. All of that, but still centered on intimacy with Jesus. I honestly have no idea what that means...what that looks like, but I've seen too much in the lives of those God has placed around me to not hunger deeply for that kind of abundant life. It really ruins you for anything less. Oh God would you wreck us, give us such a hunger for Your fullness that we give all of ourselves, completely sell out to You!
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what makes me tick...what makes me laugh...what awakens my heart...where God is taking me...where He's brought me from. my life.
Tonya Norman
2 comments:
i am on your couch enjoyin some wifi and thinking that if you were any cooler we couldnt be friends. haha! you know what i mean? INTIMACY with Jesus! Yesssss need more of it, want more of it. goodnight wifi Im talkin with Jesus! ;) see you (as in T) in the morning...
And you said it was hard for you to open up... yet you speak such truth and clarity when you do!! Thank you for being so raw. I love knowing your heart! And I'm a little bit freaked out that we are on such similiar paths... I keep praying "Lord, I just want you to be glorified through me, however that looks." And the implications of that are both EXTREMELY scary and a deep call to initmacy.
I'm so glad God crossed our paths to walk down this road together, even if it's just for a short time! I love you!
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