ALL GOD WANTS...
"Sacrifice and offering You did not desire,
My ears You have opened.Burnt offering and sin offering You did not require.
Then I said "Here I am! I have come!
In the scroll of the Book it is written of me,
I delight to do Your will oh my God
And Your law is within my heart..." (Psalm 40:6-8)
Because you know that's where they came from.
Above.
You know they didn't drop out of the sky randomly but that they were sent with your name attached to them, to your address, like a wonderful surprise bouquet of Vendela roses, perfectly formed, perfectly timed, and perfectly intentioned.
Sent with love.
Sent with the hope that the sweet aroma of Heaven would overcome your heart and turn it again, in a new way, to see the desire of the Sender.
Such are these words to me.
They pierce my soul telling me all over again the stunning truth… I am His earnest desire.
I.
Me.
A truth that dispels the 'I-always-have-to-come-with-something' kind of thinking.
I.
Me.
A truth that dispels the 'I-always-have-to-come-with-something' kind of thinking.
Something to appease.
Something to impress.
Something to show.
Something to give ~ to lay at the altar.
Something meaningful and weighty to say.
Something profound to pray ~ a powerful intercession maybe, a skilfully put together love ode, or a rendition of the scriptures I know.
Just something as long as it's not just me.
The purity of these 'scent' words immediately cleanse my heart from this graceless notion ~ a notion that, if it were a pond, would be infested with water fleas and algae, designed to make the sweet waters of relationship with Him bitter and stagnant.
It is scriptural treasures like this that cause me to realise: it was never my pound of flesh with its blood sweat and tears He required.
Not ever.
⚡️
He never expected me to walk bare foot across a bed of broken glass or burning hot coals in order to prove my devotion.
⚡️
It was never Gods idea for me to pray, as a young catholic girl, the hundreds of 'Hail Mary's' I have prayed as penance over the years.
He didn’t author one of them.
⚡️
He never endued me with gifts so I could perform for Him or work for Him... or anything else for Him.
⚡️
He never demanded I spend hours in 'The Book' each day or consume as many Christian books as possible in order to stay in His good books.
No.
He wants none of it.
"Sacrifice and offering You did not desire (take pleasure in, incline to) burnt offering and sin offering You did not require (request, ask for, demand)”
There is nothing in my world that has any trading value or influence with the King of Heaven… this King who is also a Father with a Fathers love.
He is unbribeable.
No matter what offerings I bring, no matter what the magnitude of the sacrifice, it leaves His Father’s heart untouched when I withhold the most precious thing of all from Him ~ myself.
All the God of Heaven and Earth wants is me... just me... (as hard as that is to believe!)
Listen to the response of David once he understood this:
'Then I said "Here I am! I have come!"'
Beautiful.
Unencumbered and unabashed, he spiritedly entered the Presence of his God, giving to Him the longing of His heart ~ himself.
C. S. Lewis wrote; 'God doesn't want something from us, He just wants us'.
But like all things simple, the simplicity of 'I come' is a journey.
It’s a journey of de-tanglement and de-sophistication.
It's made up of letting go's, shedded skins, stepping outs and, at times, hard but regret-less choices.
It's made up of letting go's, shedded skins, stepping outs and, at times, hard but regret-less choices.
And it’s a journey that only becomes possible when the heart is willing to hear the unhearable: only Christ can make us acceptable to God.
Look what David said prior to his ‘I come’ moment;
'My ears You have opened'.
The Hebrew word 'opened' has the word 'drilled' in its meaning ~ to drill open ~ describing the drilling of hardened earth or cement or wax!
'My ears You have drilled open' then, is in effect, what he said to God, a ‘drilling’ that caused him to hear the ‘unhearable’!
But it was hearing the unhearable that enabled David to go beyond the willing level of devotion to God, into the delightful level of devotion. So that he was not only willing to give to God what His heart yearned for, but he delighted to give it.
'I delight to do Your will Oh my God' he said.
This is not just love.
This is liberated love.
This is liberated love.
Because willingness without delight will always find itself, in the end, standing in the constraining shadows of religion.
It is the delight that makes our relationship with God a matter of the heart.
'Your law is within my heart' David said.
.
May the 'Vendela petals' of David's words, as recorded here in Psalm 40, be strewn throughout our lives that we might understand more and more His delight in us, and in understanding, have the courage, like David, to come with child-like honesty just as we are, and BELIEVE His Love.
.
May the 'Vendela petals' of David's words, as recorded here in Psalm 40, be strewn throughout our lives that we might understand more and more His delight in us, and in understanding, have the courage, like David, to come with child-like honesty just as we are, and BELIEVE His Love.
Amen.
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