What Does God Want?

"Going through the motions doesn’t please You, a flawless performance is nothing to You. I learned worship when my pride was shattered. Heart-shattered lives ready for love don’t for a moment escape God’s notice." Psalm 51:17 MSG Bible

Going through the motions. This is what life can sometimes become. When you're tired from within, no amount of sleep or distraction can fix it.

Culture teaches it's normal to live broken, distracted, disconnected & in pain. That it's normal to throw whatever you can at it in an attempt to numb, avoid, take focus off of. But it's there.

Then there's God.

Who we mostly view as either distant & disinterested, too busy, or worse, only angry & unapproachable. What does He want? We can't even figure out what we want, so to try & approach Him feels... insurmountable. We avoid.

But at the end of the day, when there's silence & just you, you find it there again. That nagging feeling of... there's got to be more.

Perhaps we'll take another vacation to get "away" from it. Binge another series to try & relax from it. Scroll endless hours on social media observing other people's supposedly 'perfect' lives. And it leaves us feeling less. Maybe if I buy this, go there, watch that, MAYBE this...thing will go away. It doesn't.

So we spend years of our lives told that this is "life". Slowly, that child-like wonder & awe we're innately born with ebbs & drains from our lives. And there's that guy standing on a street corner with signs, or the banner on the freeway shouting- "WHAT does God want?"

If you follow the logic that we're made in His image, with His likeness, traits & personality, then there's something on the inside that is screaming "I WAS MADE FOR MORE!"

And we'd be right.

So what DOES God want from us?

Been having this gnawing & inescapable feeling that what He wants, is US.

If the church were in a relationship with God, we could describe it as "toxic". We expect to see Him once a week (but honestly that feels like too much time), & maybe a conversation if I'm feeling 'up' to it. Meet my needs, don't ever fail me, give me my hearts desires, but please, don't ask me for anything. If we were on the other side of this relationship, what might we feel? We're MADE for connection. MADE for communion. Everything else can & does fall hopelessly short of this. We're MADE in the likeness of Him...the implication then is, if we long for connection, so does He.

He doesn't want us to throw sacrifice at Him. To somehow try to appease Him as though He were one of the gods of the pantheon who are temperamental & cannot be counted on. Think about what He told Israel after setting them free from captivity: "I brought you out...that you may KNOW Me."

That word "Know" in Hebrew is thick with intimacy. Like you know your spouse in intimate detail. Like you know your closest friend. KNOW. KNOWN. Does this feel too close? Because THIS is what He is after! Who wants a loveless, disconnected relationship? Certainly not God! He wants our HEARTS! It's what He's ALWAYS been after, since the dawn of time. Love that is not CHOSEN is not love! It's obligation! I've been feeling this need to draw away from the noise of the world, of disocial media & longing for connection. How about you?

The simple song above came out of time with Him this morning. As I sang, 'Coming Back to the Heart of Worship" this phrase rang out loud in my mind & heart: "Sacrifice You have not required, but a broken & contrite heart, You will not turn away! You will not turn away!"

I want to invite you today into this. What are the areas that He would want to draw you away? What water does He have waiting for a tired & thirsty heart? What connection does He have just waiting for you on the other side? What dreams or vision is He just waiting to release? He is saying "COME! ALL WHO ARE WEARY & HEAVY LAIDEN. I WILL GIVE YOU REST!" This is what we were made for. To walk in a garden, in close relationship with Him.

Nothing else will satisfy.

Jo