All of Me

Today I have found that more than any other time in my life, I am CRAVING God. I don't want to live this life the same way I have been but I don't know where to start.

I am realizing more and more everyday that the Jesus that I chose to follow as a child is very different from the Jesus that comes alive in the Gospel. I can't handle just living in normal American contentment. I feel as if something is missing, even as a Christ follower and feel as if simply 'accepting' Christ has not been enough.

Recently there has been a fire ignited in my heart and I have no clue what to do about it. I HUNGER for His word, I desire to read scripture and theologians like never before. I read Diedrich Bonhoeffer and I read about The Cost of Discipleship and I realize that following Christ is so much more than simply praying a prayer and going to church.

I don't want to be deceived by this world and think that I am saved when I am morphing Jesus to be what I want him to be rather than what He is. Yes he says "For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" Matthew 11:30, but Jesus said to the rich young man in Matthew 19:21, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”


I think I get so lost in this world, contented to remind myself that Jesus loves me and that I am already forgiven, and that I am forgiven that I find that to be enough. I don't embrace the love that calls me to ACTION. The God of the UNIVERSE came to this earth, came after me, and bids me to come and die. To take up a cross, an instrument of torture as David Platt so aptly describes in his book Radical, and to follow him! 


I want to be ready to do ANYTHING that God calls me to. To love him so passionately that it calls me to action. It calls me to neglect everything I have, every comfort, and to follow. I want to go.


The song I Will Go by Starfield brings me to tears almost every time because it calls me to be willing to go, to go to the poor and needy of this world. What am I doing!? Why am I not doing this more!? Why am I so tempted by comfort that I remain stagnate?! Isn't the love I have for God so deep that it calls me to run with complete abandon into His arms and do WHATEVER he asks of me?! I WANT THIS! 


I am so caught in my fears, in my failure, in my belief that giving it all up would be too scary, and that there would be no one to take care of me. But I'm missing it, HE will take care of me. I don't need to worry, but yet I do. I don't know where God is calling me. 


I was sitting in my car earlier today and thinking how much easier it would be if Jesus simply walked up to me today and said, "Come follow me Kristina, I want to take you to spread the good news with me, Come". I want a physical Jesus to beckon me. I want him standing there because I can run into His arms when I get scared. But the thing is, He is calling me, just because he isn't standing right there doesn't mean he isn't calling me. HE IS! 


I want to go, I have no idea where. I don't want to live comfortably or simply content to live the average American life believing that I don't need him. I DO NEED HIM! I need him more than I need the next breath coming into my body. I need him more than the water I am craving in this moment. I need him because I can't fathom an eternity without him. I want to tell the world that they need him like that.


I get when he says he is the living water. I need him like everything I am depends on it. 


I am going crazy in this moment feeling completely unsure of where to start. But as I get on my knees and pray for His guidance, I just pray that he moves me from complacency and takes me and uses me for His purposes. I pray that I will be willing to LET GO of EVERYTHING and SURRENDER to the ONE who deserves it.