I crave you undiluted

The other day I was listening to Skillet on my iPod while I was working when I heard the line "I crave you undiluted". When I heard the line I was completely taken aback by it. It is such a cool thought and one of those things that really makes you stop and think about what you should do with that. At the end of the day I did my normal routine of climbing and coming back I saw a beautiful sunset that reminded me again of those lyrics. I looked out on the beautiful colors swirling above the horizon. The thousands of shades of red and pink and orange mingled with spots of blue and purple. Then I began thinking of the one who created all that; He is the one that is drunk with love for me yet do I really crave Him undiluted?

Craving God is not something I would describe as a daily occurence for me. I mean sure there are days where I am on fire for God and absolutely content within His presence. There are other days where I am desperate to be next to Him and to feel Him near me, but to say that I crave God everyday would most likely be a lie. How can we possibly go from realizing that God created this beautiful creation to not even thinking about Him? We seem to be such a fickle people where we desire God one second and with the same breath we think only about ourselves.

The thing is, there is no wonder that we are like this. Yes it has to do with our sinful nature but its more than that. We put these characteristics on God that take away from His character. We look at Him as this judge who keeps us in check. All of us are aware that Jesus died for us once and for all but secretly we are convinced that we are unclean and unable to come before Him. We've heard of God's love yet we diminish it to a shallow conditional love. We are made free from sin and death by the blood of Christ but are quick to condemn each other for our shortcomings. Our misconceptions and human logic have trapped God in a dogmatic set of rules that have lost the original purpose of the Gospel. We almost get bored with God. The one who created joy, excitement and passion is the same one that we get bored with. We have defined God's character as fitting into a certain mold and thus we get burnt out or simply disinterested. We miss the beauty of Christ and the illogical and reckless Grace given to us by God the Father. We should be shouting from the rooftops God's praises. The sun torches the sky in the evenings and mornings to praise God's name. All of creation is shouting together because they don't attach things to God. They are always reminded of the fact that God has given us breath. If we are to follow Christ then we must first learn to separate what we have been told and what is true about God. We must not settle for a diluted, blurry view of God. We must crave God undiluted.

Radical Change

Looking back over my life, I notice something that is so glaringly obvious that I have to accept it and embrace it. I have become something new. Much like Jesus said, "The old is gone and the new has come." I was once something different than I am now. The change is a very stark contrast. At one point, my life dwelt only on me and how I could possibly gain recognition or how I could be better than others. Even in my spiritual life I was always competing with others and trying to make myself better than others. It wasn't about having a better relationship with God it was about seeming to have a better relationship than everyone else.

This thinking came up the other day when I was listening to Fireflight's new CD and I came across the lyrics, "I wish you could see me before the change. You'd see a broken heart, you'd see the battle scars." It's amazing to think at how far I've come and how I really can't go back to what I was nor would I want to. Whenever I met someone who actually understood what it meant to love God, I would normally become distant or try to come up with something that made me better than them at least in my own eyes. I had an inflated opinion of myself and because of that, the song really spoke to me. I sat there thinking about how I had hurt or offended others and in the process hurt myself. I tried to be better on my own and appear to be spiritual when really I was still struggling along with everyone else and muddling through my spiritual walk as an infant.

During college the change in my life began. I began understanding what loving God meant. I began to understand what I was supposed to be living for and what really mattered. Of course this was not of my own doing but rather God's doing. He caused the change in my life in a way that I could not possibly take credit for it. Through my circumstances I've been able to see God's hand move me gently along His path for me. It is a rather comforting experience and thought to know that God actually cares about my life and that He has a plan for it. The one who spoke the universe into existence actually loves me. Now that I'm confident of this change and aware of it I have live it out. If I were to go back to my sinful nature I'd be something that I'm not. As Paul says I was once a slave to sin but then died to that and become a new creation in Christ. I believe that is this change that we must show the world if we want to really love others. It is this change that will set the world free.