I often ask the Lord to use me as a vessel in any way He wants. I also ask him to please fill my mind with his sweet words instead of my own thoughts. I ask him to give me a desire to draw near to Him throughout my day. I ask him to watch over my children, etc... I don't know about anyone else, but I ask a lot from the Lord.. and I seek out a lot of things of Him and through Him. If you were to ask me if I could only ask or seek one thing from the Lord, what would it be? - I honestly don't know how I would have answered that last week, yesterday, or quite frankly, even a few hours ago.
How would you have answered it?
I am going to begin a study on David this month, so I have been reading through the Psalms more frequently lately, to try to get in David's head/heart and understand him more. I have a tendency to read Psalm 27 often and get hung up on the end of verse 9 and 10 "... do not reject me or forsake me, God my savior. Though my mother and father forsake me, the Lord will receive me." I have clung to this piece of scripture because, if you know me personally, then you know it's exactly what I'm dealing with in my life right now.
But, there is a gem in this psalm, just a few verses before it. As I went to read this Psalm.. again... today, my eyes could not move past verse 4. "One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple."
When was the last time I only asked that one thing?
Have I ever only asked one thing?
When was the last time that I did not ask anything more of the Lord than to just be with Him and gaze upon His beauty?
I've got to be honest. It's been a while.
I am captivated by David's constant awareness of, and adoration towards God, and how he actively pursued Him. And God noticed. I love what God says about him in The Message translation of Acts 13:22, "...I've searched the land and found this David, son of Jesse. He's a man whose heart beats to my heart, a man that will do what I tell him." A man whose heart beats to my heart and that will do what I tell him. Oh, that my God would commend me in that way!
After reading that I had to ask myself...Whose heart beat does mine reflect most? I won't go into all the details of my answer, but the bottom line is - I would be lying if I said that it beats to God's 100%. I think more often than not, I want Him to try to match my heart beat instead of allowing my heart to beat with His.
My prayer for 2013, is that the Lord would create in me a new heart, one that beats to his. My hope is that when the Lord searches the Land, that He would consider me to be a woman whose heart beats like his, and I that I would be obedient to do anything he tells me. That sounds like the kind of life I want - to live with my heart beating close to God's and serving Him in any way, everyday, with total abandon.
