Seek His face and not His hands..

"..But whatever was to my profit, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things, I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ..." -Paul

You know, people don't really talk like that anymore. When we ask people about what is going on and how they are doing, we get these responses that say, "yeah yeah everything is good, just waiting for this to happen." or "im just getting ready for this next thing that is coming up." I even find myself talking about this or that and the next thing. I find myself putting my focus on different things, trying to get ready for them, or a goal that I'm striving for or whatever it may be. And Paul just says, "I don't even care about those things..." He uses these words and calls it "the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ." He says, "I don't even care about those things because my focus is completely on my relationship with Him."

I find myself so distracted on the things in life that I must get done or getting ready for the next thing and the whole time I'm missing out on the one thing I was really created for. I get so distracted that I forget to think about my relationship to Him; I forget to dwell on His words. & when I do that, when I get distracted by everything that is going on, I know that I am missing out. I am missing out when I don't spend time with God. If I don't constantly have communion with Him and have an on going conversation with Him throughout my day, I am missing out! Not even that I am missing out on something that He's trying to tell me. Yes, God might be trying to say something to me, and I would miss out on it because I wasn't listening but I'm talking about missing out on just being with Him. Intimacy with our Father, our Maker.

I'm talking about when you first meet somebody, you have to talk and converse with them. You have to both listen and speak and get to know each other, but over time, after spending lots of time with someone and finding out who they are, you get comfortable with one another. And all of a sudden you find that you don't have to be talking all the time. You ever find yourself riding in a car with someone that you are really comfortable with, because you have spent so much time with them. You'll notice that it can be completely silent for quite some time and both of you are totally ok with it. You just enjoy being with that person. You just enjoy being in their presence. If you try to do that with someone you don't know well or perhaps you just met, you will probably find that it will be awkward between you. Your thinking, "I don't know you, you don't know me and we're here not talking, just being silent." It will be awkward.

I find that a lot of students start their relationship with God and after several months or so they say, "I just don't hear Him speaking anymore." There might be many reasons for that. You might not be listening, or maybe it's a test of faith etc, but I believe that a lot of times God wants to take the relationship to the next level. Can you imagine the level of intimacy it would take to ride in a car with Jesus (or perhaps a donkey) and not say anything at all. You know Jesus so well because you've spent so much time with Him that you just ride in the car without having to say anything. Just being with Him is good enough, and it's not awkward at all.

I think a lot of our youth today need to get over the "awkward" stage with God, and just spend time with Him without looking for direction or what to do next, but simply to spend time with Him. Just to be with Him.