We’ve all been born with a longing for God.
A God centered void reserved in our hearts when He created us.
That secret place He kept for Himself where our aching, our hunger, our groaning, our desires for something more calls and pulls on our heartstrings, unaware in the beginning though these longings are unable to be satisfied by the things of the world, but by a relationship with Him.
…He has planted eternity (a sense of divine purpose) in the human heart (a mysterious longing which nothing under the sun can satisfy, except God)…Ecclesiastes 3:11 AMP
The longings of our secret place are gently stirred with God’s hand in His pursuit of our hearts; His wooing us to Himself.
God is an intimate Father who personally knows His sons and His daughters each by name, whose voice is no stranger to His children’s ears either.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them and they follow me…
John 10:27 KJV
We hear Him;
We know Him;
We want to follow Him.
But our hearts deceive us and entice us at times to crowd the secret place with those desires and lies of the world instead.
Make no mistake; God does not share Himself with anything but Himself. He is a jealous God. He will step aside until we give our Lord complete surrender to the secret place of our heart.
You shall not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God…Deuteronomy 5:9 NIV
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?
Jeremiah 17:9 NIV
The pleasures for a season are unable to satisfy for a lifetime.
Career…
Success…
Money and things…
The lure of our flesh…
Busyness…
Hobbies…
Only God can bring us true fulfillment.
We don’t realize it but we’ve always been looking for God; just looking for God in all the wrong places when we choose the path which tempts us down the road of our destruction.
There is a path before each person that seems right,
But it ends in death.
Proverbs 14:12 NLT
We are sheep without a Shepherd when we travel the path of our choosing.
There’s a cruel world out there ready to devour us when we go it alone without God.
Sheep have no sense of direction…
Sheep are wanderers…
Sheep are followers…
Sheep are unable to defend themselves.
There’s a tug of war with the world for our heartstrings, but God is relentless in His quest for the longings of our secret place.
He’s the author of our aching, our hunger, our groaning, our desires for something more and His undying love for us will go to extreme measures to seek us out.
Reckless Love
By Cory Asbury
…
There’s no shadow You won’t light up
Mountain You won’t climb up
Coming after me
There’s no wall You won’t kick down
Lie you won’t tear down
Coming after me…
…
Our Shepherd will leave the ninety-nine sheep to go after the one which has strayed; not returning until His lost sheep has been found.
The journey back to the ninety-nine sheep, the Shepherd keeps that which was lost safe and close to Himself.
(Luke 15:4-7)
God is longing for a surrendered heart to cry out for Him….
THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD…
Because…
He refreshes…
He guides…
He comforts…
He protects…
Our cup overflows in Him…
(Psalms 23)
Growing up during a Sunday morning altar call in our small Southern Baptist Church with those wooden pews and stained glass windows of home and organ quietly played as the Lord wooed our hearts to Himself for the secret place…
Softly and Tenderly Jesus is Calling
By Will L. Thompson
Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling,
Calling for you and for me.
See on the portals
He’s waiting and watching
Watching for you and for me.
Come home
Come home
Ye who are weary
Come home.
That Sunday while God beckoned His children to Himself through the song playing in the back ground…
Come home…
Come home…
This thirteen year old took those steps of surrender to an old fashioned altar to make a public confession how I gave my life and heart to Jesus at church camp a few days prior.
Being a good person or growing up my whole life in church didn’t save me from an eternity without God; but confessing my sin and asking for forgiveness and thanking Jesus for taking my place on the cross to die an unspeakable death for my guilt would, allowing me to live with Him forever.
For God so loved the world
That he gave his one and only Son,
That whoever believes in him
Shall not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:16 NIV
You Lord, are my Shepherd!!!
I treasure you in my aching, my hunger, my groaning, and my desires for more of you in the pull of my heartstrings.
I embrace you in the longings of the secret place.
