Led by the Spirit

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled." (Matt. 5:6)

Life is good right now. The last couple of weeks have been stressful, mainly due to a heavy workload, but since I've been making a conscious effort to dedicate each day to God, He's enabled me to get a great amount of work done in a short amount of time. My stress level, thankfully, has gone way down.

In the midst of things going right, I'm feeling a hunger. It seems like many times that hunger comes about when things are going wrong, but right now I think it's a hunger for more of God's Spirit to work in my life, not to swoop in and come to my rescue, but rather to lead me to new and exciting adventures.

I've been struggling with the desire for more Spirit-led worship at church. We have a great minister, a great worship leader and worship team, great shepherds and teachers and more ministries than hours in the day. But still, my soul hungers for less order and more leading by the Spirit. Not chaos, but yielding to whatever God has in store for us.

I'm not quite sure what to do with this hunger, except bring it before God. I wonder how many other people at church feel the same emptiness I do at times. I don't think I'm the only one, but who knows. Perhaps God is preparing me to play more than just "walk-on" role at church. We shall see...

At any rate, I feel that before I become critical of how I think my church should be, I need to do more yielding in my life. I have a lot of hopes and dreams for the future, which I believe that God planted in my heart long ago. Dreams like marriage, motherhood, a writing/speaking/teaching ministry. There's nothing wrong with these dreams, but I think they are just the tip of the iceberg. I believe that God has SO many more dreams in store for me if I would just yield to Him and let Him work.

A few months ago I went through a season of loneliness--not for companionship, because I have that. Not lonely simply for more friends, but desiring more deep friendships. By God's grace, I was able to reconnect with some friends who I now share a weekly accountability time with, and that has blessed me so much. There are other friends, some close and some far away, with whom I have a soul connection that is far deeper than just sharing an interest in the same movies or music. All of these close friends challenge, inspire and sharpen my faith. There is a great satisfaction in having friends with whom you share this great fellowship of Christ.

My hunger persists, though. I'm encouraged by Jesus' assurance in the Sermon on the Mount that our hunger and thirst for righteousness will be satisfied. Maybe I'm expecting a different kind of satisfaction, and I need to even yield those expectations to God.

It takes a daily, sometimes hourly, conscious effort to yield it all--expectations, desires, decisions, everything--to God. I am excited about how God is going to fulfill this hunger I have. I'll keep you posted.