Missing_God_With_You.pdf

This season of life, three years now since moving to Minnesota, has served me well according to God’s good, wise, and sovereign rule. The stretching times have included the transition from all that was familiar to the unfamiliar, to the sharpening I received throughout the ordination process late last year. It all has served me in this way: I miss God.

Let me explain: When I miss God it creates a longing to pursue him through prayer. As I commune with God in prayer, it strengthens my longing for him, and over and over it goes. Times and seasons that stretch me help this process along, and in that context I find that I just want to see my King.

This may be one of the reasons why I take heart in reading Hebrews 9:28, where we are told that Jesus is coming back for “those who are eagerly waiting for him.” The word that captures my attention is eagerly. We long for the return of those we love when they leave us, even more so for the return of the King. I want to see him so much and I want to honor and glorify him with a heart that is finally free from sin, don’t you?

My born-again heart that longs for the Shepherd of my soul has come at a great cost. I will never get what I deserve because Jesus has taken that terrible divine wrath in my place. The gospel is the grounding to my longing, my praying, and my communing with God.

I love God. I know my sin, and weakness taints these words, but they are true even so. I love God. He is dear to me. I love Jesus and I delight in listening to his words. They are so full of tenderness and power. This reminds me of the story in Luke 7:36–50.

Jesus was in Simon the Pharisee’s house. A woman was anointing Jesus with ointment. She was standing back by his feet, wiping them with her tears and kissing them. She was with him, listening to him, and loving him. This appalled Simon because he knew what kind of woman she was, but Jesus turned to look at the woman while speaking to Simon, saying, “I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much.” He then said directly to her, “Your sins are forgiven. … Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

This is our story, too. Our sins, which are many, are forgiven and by grace we love Jesus. I can’t imagine how great our love will be for him when our sin is finally gone. It is what he deserves, love from pure hearts.

In John 14:23 Jesus says, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” Even as I type out these words, I feel it in my heart—it’s a kind of “homesickness” for Jesus. I am with him and yet I long for him. I miss God.

One of the most precious gifts God has given me is you. My heart has been filled with longing for God while worshiping him with you. My heart has been challenged to honor the King in life while listening to the preaching of the Word with you. My heart has known passion while being led in prayer with you. My heart has known joy while hearing stories of the King (some call these testimonies) with you. My heart has known the joy of the ministry while serving in Jesus’ name with you.

Let’s miss God together, pressing in on him together, praying and communing with God together. He loves to be pressed in upon by his children. He loves those who miss him.

Let’s close by praying with A.W. Tozer:

O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, that so I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.” Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long. In Jesus’ name. Amen.*

Bud Burk
Pastor for Children and Youth Discipleship, Downtown

*A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, (Camp Hill, Pennsylvania: Christian Publications, 1993), 20.