I was sitting in a public area right off the high street and was deep in thought. I could not shake a feeling – a feeling that had been gnawing at me since I woke up that morning. It was a feeling much like hunger, but deeper. Like a very basic need that I could not yet describe. I felt like an infant crying because I felt hunger, but if my mother leaned over my crib and asked “What’s wrong?” I wouldn’t have been able to blink at her matter-of-factly and go “Well, mother-dear, if you would care to notice your watch it’s about my feeding time again and I’m awfully ravished.”
I tried to trace the feeling back to where it began. It began round about the time when I had last had a good experience with God. I don’t mean one of those where you’re in church and you’re singing a repetition of the chorus for the 46th time and you get a warm, fuzzy feeling right down to your toes. (Note: if anyone has experienced this it may not be God… your toes may be going to sleep because you’ve been standing for so long.)
No this experience is best described as a growth spurt. It can come through different ways; a new realization, a book you’ve been reading, a conversation with a friend, a silent moment. Point is, growing is not always comfy, but it gets you a little further away from Earth. And the feeling to growing closer to Him, or somehow being able to taste a tiny, little bit more of Him is simply addicting.
Yes! That was word I was looking for! ADDICTED. I was longing for more. More growth, more insight, more peace, more of Him. That was it. The more I knew him, the more I wanted to know him. The more I saw, the more I wanted to keep my eyes open for the chance of being taught something new.
I was trying to get my head around this new thought when some speakers from a near-by cafe blared the popular 80′s hit “I wanna be with you Everywhere.” by Fleetwood Mac. Although I have never been a big 80′s fan the words caught me, and I found (even to my own surprise) that a passion welled up in my throat and I bellowed “OOOOOoooooAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! I wanna be with you EVERYWHERE!!!”
After the gentleman, peacefully reading his paper in front of me, recovered from his heart-attack and most people had stopped staring I thought “Yeah. That’s exactly what I wanted to say.” I want to be with Him everywhere. In the supermarket, on the street, in the kitchen, on the bus, at work. Not only in church. Not only in assigned “holy time”. I wanted him to be everywhere; in everything that I do and am.
If we really are in love with this Person should we be satisfied with a taster? Surely there is something in our hearts that longs for a feast. We can’t be satisfied by meeting him at church and then leaving him to sit and wait in the pews until Sabbath comes round again. The Jesus I know wants to come home for dinner,wants to watch you tie your shoes, wants to be there when you buy toothpaste and when you cry and when you laugh till you cry. He never asked to be a a figure in our lives. He never asked to be a symbol or a thought or an idea. He asked to give us life, be our life, live in our lives, through our lives. He wants to be with US everywhere! And nothing less seems to suffice or satsify.
Sometimes I wonder if this relationship is one of those “all or nothing” cases.
Maybe we all feel this hunger sometimes, and like infants we cannot quite explain it. All we do is cry. Or loose sleep, or feel empty, or find our relationships hollow, or leave Church service feeling the same way we did when we went in… We try and get more sleep, take a holiday or a day off, get some quiet time, eat some chocolate, distract ourselves. But maybe the hunger is good? It is not your body, but your heart letting your know that you need to be filled. And the one who broke Himself for bread is more than willing to feed the hungry.
He understands the infant’s cry and all we have to do is ask him; ask Him to go with us everywhere, to fill us more with him. (Although it may not be the best idea to bellow this request out in the middle of a high street.)
