Sep
19
Desperate
Filed Under Devotional
If you’ve been to a doctor’s office recently, you’ve seen the little chart they all have that is supposed to help patients rate the pain they are feeling on a scale from 1 to 10. It has a little happy face at one end to signify no pain at all and a severely grimacing face at the other to denote excruciating pain.
This week, I think I experienced the 10. I spent one afternoon and evening a few days ago passing two kidney stones. Unfortunately, I remember it all pretty clearly. It wasn’t until I got some really good drugs at the ER that I could finally focus enough to have a clear conversation. It also helped the stones pass, which is why I can compose these thoughts now.
Looking back, though, I realize how that kind of experience begins to strip away all of the facades I use every day. When I first spoke to a nurse, I talked about how much it hurt in a calm voice and tried to look somewhat casual while I paced the floor. Less than three hours later, I was sweating, groaning loudly, and sick to my stomach while I paced around the parking lot of the department store where we had gone to fill my prescription (which, by that time, didn’t work).
Suddenly, I was the crazy guy wandering around the parking lot and I didn’t care who saw me. Then, the ambulance came.
It got to the point where I couldn’t think clearly. I couldn’t concentrate to come to any conclusions. I couldn’t even think of what to do next. All I could think of was pain. I had a split-second of clarity in the midst of this where I realized I was on my knees, next to my car, desperately pleading with God. I think He gave me that moment so I’d remember it later. I now have a picture in my head of what it means to want God desperately.
The gospels are full of vignettes about people desperate to see Jesus for healing or teaching. They bucked convention and ignored social mores to be near Him and to hear from Him. I want to be like that. I want to be a radical for Christ.
“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:18
Ignore the world around you. Don’t let the facades get in the way of being desperate for Christ. I recommend you figure this out before He has to get your attention like He did with me.