desperation

I will dance, I will sing, to be mad for my King. Nothing, Lord, is hindering this passion in my soul. And I'll become even more undignified than this. Some may say it's foolishness, but I'll become even more undignified than this. Leave my pride by my side.


I woke up with this song on my heart. Since this song is in line with some of the truths God spoke to me yesterday, I will consider that maybe He is trying to encourage me further along those lines. So what was spoken yesterday?

Carole, a missionary in Northern Uganda, spoke at Path of Life Church here in Riverside. As we walked in, it felt different from most worship services I have experienced in the U.S. The people actually seemed to be worshiping unashamed. It wasn’t all crazy and buckwild, just real, authentic, unashamed worship. A not caring what my neighbor thinks, just coming before the living God in gratitude for all that He is and all that He does in me. True worship. Some hands were raised, some heads were bowed, some eyes were closed, and some just sang. True worship. I desire true worship, yet concern for what others think, and unwillingness to pull back from the world and life long enough to truly reflect on my heart and on Christ, and so many other distractions keep me from it. True worship. Unashamed worship.

Then Carole spoke. She felt at home. She spoke with passion, with conviction. She shared the sadness of 2 Samuel 14:28 – “Absalom lived two years in Jerusalem without seeing the king’s face.” Absalom, the son of the king, went two years in his father’s kingdom, yet never saw his father’s face. It seems absurd. It seems unlikely. Yet so many of us, as Christians, spend our whole lives claiming to be sons or daughters of the King, and fail to ever see His face. We seek His hands, we seek answers and direction, but we rarely, if ever, seek His face, seek to truly know Him, to walk with Him, to simply be in His presence. What a sad thing that we miss the most amazing aspect of our relationship with God. In pursuit of doing or being for Him, we completely miss being with Him.

As Carole proceeded, she explained that throughout Scripture, it was a hunger, a desperation for God that moved His hand. Complacency never does. In America, more than any other nation, I believe, many of us have become complacent. We are unaware of our desperate need to see God’s face, to be moved by His hand. We do not need more knowledge, more teaching, we need more hunger, more desperation.

God, am I willing to be undignified, to lose the respect of those around me, to be humbled so much as to be desperate for you?