Dear Sister/Brother,
There is something that I want to say to you.
When I decided to follow Jesus as an awkward teenager (really, is there any other kind of teenager?) I had only one redeeming quality. It wasn’t that I was quite clever, or reasonably likeable, or that I had a glistening ball of potential creativity resting in me. None of those things have ultimately been of much consequence. The one and only ace I think I’ve ever had (and I suspect the primary reason why I’m still here writing stuff like this after some rather brutal periods of having everything conspire to make following Jesus an extremely unattractive option) is that when I threw my lot in with the rejected messiah, I pretty much said, “I’m in, and if I’m in then I really mean it, and if I’m in then I really want it.”
It may not seem like much when you weigh it up, but I’m convinced that it’s been the difference maker for most of my life. What has kept me going over the years, even when I have failed to live up to my own expectations, has not been any gifting or great learning, but a yearning for the vast and endless ocean; a small but significant, deep, unceasing, burning desire to see God. I’ve learnt a lot of theology over the years, some of it quite useful, but I suspect none of it has been as useful as the sheer bloody-mindedness to keep going and going and going until God and His promises prove to be real. You see, knowledge is very good and to be treasured, but when you hit a roadblock in your spiritual life, it’s often only the man or woman armed with a genuine desire for God who will find a way through.
In all the bruising experiences of existence, what has kept me moving forward has not been some delusion or clever piece of psychological trickery, rather it’s been a sort of spiritual stubbornness; the part of me that really meant it when I said I was in. I’ve felt like giving up on almost everything I’ve ever done at some point, but not God. Sometimes I’ve clung on by my fingernails, but I’ve clung on to Him with the same conviction by which He has clung on to me. Only once in my life have I considered pulling the stroppy teenager act on God, and even then I couldn’t do it properly.
You see, I’ve always trusted (and when I haven’t trusted, I’ve suspected) that God would come through somehow someday. When I have been stuck halfway up the mountain, exhausted and surrounded by darkness, unable to see where to put my foot next, I’ve known that if I can keep going then, one day, I would get through that cloud cover and reach the peak and see that glorious starlit night sky, and that’s proven to be the case more times than I can count. That’s what has kept me coming back to God even when sanity has seemed to demand otherwise.
It’s just a hunger and a thirst for Jesus. That’s all. Not doctrine or expectation or learned behaviour and churchy culturisation, but simple hunger and thirst. I’ve built many boats, and set out on the ocean many times, and every time I’ve been dumped into the cold, salty water and found myself spluttering on the shore again, my reaction has been to get up and build another boat, not because I love boats, but because I just have to be on the ocean. I can’t live on dry land any more. I haven’t been able to for years now.
What I’ve wanted to say to you is this:
If you find yourself lying awake at night, restlessly dissatisfied with where you’re at at the moment…if you have nothing more than a twisting, squirming desire for God in you that makes you so uncomfortable that you sometimes wonder how you can sleep at night…if you want nothing more than to lay hold of a Jesus who seems so far away right now…you know who you are, and what I want to say to you is that there are far worse places to be. Take heart. I think you’ll be alright. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Your foolish but stubborn brother,
James
