I really love Misty Edwards, as an amazing sister in Christ and a wonderful woman of God. There are countless times God served me in miraculous ways through her music or teaching. I just came across this awesome article written by her and I thought I'd share it, so I don't lose it.
'What is the point?!” That is a question I found myself asking many times throughout my life. “Why do I exist? What is the reason for this thing called creation?” I would often relate to the writer of Ecclesiastes when he wrote of life under the sun being a vanity and a grasping for the wind (Ecc. 2:11.) I would sit and imagine all of the great things that I could accomplish with my life, the impact that I could make or the pleasure I could attain. I would stretch my imagination to the fullest and then at the end of the daydream all I could think is, “After all that I die…I die”. No matter how great I could imagine myself the end of the matter was the same. Everybody dies.
Growing up in a Christian home I gave my heart to the Lord when I was very young so I believed I was going to Heaven but my agony wasn’t a matter of where I was going but why I was here. I knew there had to be a reason for this moment in time and that reason had to be found beyond the grave. The brevity of life was ever on my mind and the only way to make sense of it was to discover the link it has to the next. The continuity of life and the things that build that bridge would give me absolute purpose and an unshakeable “reason” to exist.
Eternity is written on the hearts of all men. (Ecc. 3:11) Some try to deny this internal knowing but it is there none the less. I heard a program on the radio days ago and the topic was the fear of death. People were talking about how overwhelming of a fear it is. Some said that would wake up in the night in a cold sweat in a panic that they were dying. Others said the thought of death drove them to substance abuse or depression. We often live with deep feelings of the frailty of life and we are unsettled on how quickly it is passing. I can remember sitting and thinking of “forever”, trying to grasp eternity even as a child. It is written on our hearts. This is an inescapable heart cry of every culture and every human because God put it in our hearts like a magnate that would pull us to Him
Jesus said, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” (Jn. 17:3) He is not only talking about the introductions to faith. Eternal life is not only quantity but quality. He says, “That which remains is the knowledge of Me.” The knowledge of God is the lifeline to eternity. Knowing Him is the thing that crosses over and therefore defines my ultimate reality. I had to encounter this God. I had to know Him! I had to have more than rhetoric and language, more than empty theology or vain philosophy. I wanted to know the Uncreated and to understand this One who inhabits eternity. I love truth more than anything in life and understanding God was the key to understanding the truth about me. To know what He was thinking and feeling became my sole passion. I wanted to know more than just the ‘what’ of His creation, I had to know the ‘why’ behind the ‘what’. Why did God create? Why the free will? Why did He put us in a garden with a choice and a chance to say no to Him? Why an enemy? Why the struggle for righteousness? Why the pressure? The pain? The pleasure? Why? I had to get to the heart of the matter to discover the reason for my existence.
God is the Creator. He could have created in any way He wanted because He is the author life. This whole thing was His idea. He is the one who is orchestrating human history. Sometimes we think that God was like a mad scientist up in Heaven when all of a sudden He mixed a few chemicals that caused an explosion and “Poof! Creation!”, as if God didn’t think it through but just ‘managed’ His mistake afterwards. We approach God as though He were cleaning up a mess by sending us Jesus as if it wasn’t His plan all along. Surely God is not that aimless. He had a dream, He had a vision, a goal, an aim. He thought this thing through and there was something He was after.
When we answer the question to what God is looking for we find the answer to what we are looking for. There is no other source of satisfaction because He is the Creator of our desires and they are given to us to draw us to Him. Life will never make sense until we get the bigger picture of a God who was searching for something. We are only satisfied in satisfying Him. We were created to answer the longing in God’s heart but what is He longing for? Nothing is hidden from Him so what is He looking for? He possesses all things so what does He want?
The Lord has given us the “transcript of His soul” to let us in on the deep things of His heart. In His Word He tells us the ‘why’ behind the’ what’. From Genesis to Revelation we see the golden thread of what God is looking for. He has laid His heart bare, opened it wide for all to see and over and over He would say, “I’m after your heart. Love Me! Love Me!” He said “It is not to mysterious or hard to figure out. Love Me!” (Deut. 30:11-16) He is looking for hearts that are loyal to Him (2 Chron. 16:9). He is searching for hearts who are after Him. (1 Sam. 13:14.) He is searching for worshippers who love Him (Jn 4:23-24). Jesus give us a whisper of what the Father is looking to find for the Son in Matt 22 when He says, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a Father preparing a wedding for the Son.” It all comes down to love because God is Love. The Father will have a family and the Son will have a bride. We are a part of something so much bigger than meets the eye.
The whole process of human history is producing a story of love so vast and astonishing that it will sustain us for eternity. We will hear this story told and be awestruck as we look back on the history of humanity and see how the hand of the Potter knew the right amount of pressure, fire, gentleness and fierceness that was needed to produce sustained love in a multitude of people for billions of years. There will be a multitude who He gave a free will, that would chose to love Him for all of eternity as they remembered the love story of this age. The Holy Spirit will put the First Commandment in the hearts of men and women and the plan will not fail. God is not a mad scientist who made a mistake. He is a Father preparing a wedding for the Son and the Son will give the Father a family. We are the object of their affection, their prize possession, the very inheritance of God! This is the hope of our calling. O that we could grasp what it means to be the inheritance of God! But what do you give a God who has everything? The only thing He doesn’t have, our voluntary love. That is the gift we have to give Him.
As these truths began to find their way into my understanding I set my heart to pursue a life lived for love. The problem was, I didn’t know what love was! I thought of love as an emotional bliss, poetry, romance or even a passive personality and charity. I wanted to do something radical, something extreme, to change the world and leave my mark on this planet. Desire for impact pulsed in me like a time bomb. “Live for love?!” Could this really be the answer to my dilemma on the purpose of life? “Love?” It sounded good on paper and made for a good song or two but when it came to the mundaneness of my daily life I couldn’t grasp it.
What is love? Love is more than romantic notions or even a passive toleration and a few good deeds. Jesus isn’t your boyfriend nor is He a humanistic hippie. His Name is Jealous Jealousy (Ex 34:14). Our God is an all consuming Fire who wants to takes over. (Duet 4:24) Song of Solomon says it like this, “Set me as a seal upon your heart, As a seal upon your arm; For love is as strong as death, Jealousy as cruel as the grave; Its flames are flames of fire, A most vehement flame.” (Sos. 8:6) Love is not passive but it is passionate burning desire.
We must love the Way He loves if we are going to become His heart’s desire. In the gospels you hear the voice of the Bridegroom beckoning us into abandonment, “Take up your cross and follow Me. Leave it all behind and come after me. Say goodbye to houses and lands for my sake and follow Me.” This is the voice of a Bridegroom who gave all for the sake of love (Eph 5:29-32). Jesus Himself defined love like this “Greater love has no one than this, that to lay down one’s life for his friends” (Jn. 15:13) He loves us with all of His heart, soul, mind and strength and what He wants is a people yoked to Him in this kind of love. We are equally yoked to this shoreless ocean of Love not by the size of our love but by the all of our love. Though our all is small the point is all. He wants to be loved the way He loves, completely given in abandonment.
Loving God is not a onetime prayer that brings assurance of salvation. He wants us to become mature and He would further define love when He said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments”(Jn. 15:14; 14:15; 21; 23) To love Him is loyalty to the Truth and it involves an active pursuit of righteousness from the inside out. The Sermon on the Mount is one of the primary guides to the fullness of love. These three chapters are severely overlooked and misunderstood in the body of Christ. In them the Lord laid out the clearest path to love and yet so few apply it. I dare you to read the Sermon on the Mount every day and actually try to live it for an entire year and see the effect it has on your heart. The more we pursue this lifestyle of Love the more we see our weakness and the more we hunger, thirst and mourn. The very reaching for mature love produces the attitudes in our heart that catch His eye. We must reach to give Him what He is looking for from our heart, soul and mind. These are primarily internal realities that overflow externally. He isn’t mostly asking for your money, your talent or your ministry plan, He is asking for your heart! You could be one of the greatest men or women in history regardless of your social status or your life circumstance. These are not the things that define a man but the things that define a man are the issues of his heart.
What is going on behind your face? That is where so much of life takes place. There is a world on the inside of you as vast as the world on the out and this is where His eyes fall. He peers straight through your exterior right into your core reality and evaluates you according to your heart. (1 Cor. 3:12) There is a war on the inside and it is the arena to demonstrate love. Without a free will there is no love. Every time we say no to our flesh we are stoking a fire, every time we turn the other cheek, pray for our enemies or fast and pray in secret we are stoking an internal fire that will eventually consume us. Living before His eyes, knowing that He sees the movements of our hearts, is the most powerful and exhilarating way to live. You can’t touch a man or a woman who lives in the power of this Love. They are people the world is not worthy of. You can put them in prison, beat them, spit on them and ridicule them but they are untouchable, unmovable, rooted and grounded in love. (Phil. 3:17)
In Matthew 22:37-40 Jesus sums up the entire word of God and says it all comes down to love. He say, “‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matt. 22:37-40)
Impact God and you will impact men. The energy starts inward and becomes an inferno of love. A man or a woman on fire will change the world and won’t end up burnt out in the end. The First Commandment always leads to the Second. Every light that shines is a light that burns. When you are on fire in love For God many will rejoice in that light and come into the fellowship of the flame.
There is a reason behind Creation and a Holy Heart who dreamt up this dream. We aren’t just vainly spinning on this ball called earth. It wasn’t an accident that we are here because there is something bigger going on. This is the “womb of eternity” and we have barely begun. These years are crucial as we are being formed into the image of Love. God is Love, looking for love therefore He fashioned and formed us in His image and we are created to love Him and be love by Him. We each have a strategic path of pressure and blessing that is working in us an “eternal weight of glory”. (2 Cor. 4:17) It is not in vain! In a moment, we will stand before the Author of our lives and we will see the wisdom of loving Him. If you don’t quit you win!
I look back on the wrestling of my youth and the longing to know “What is the point?!” and I see the hand of God. I still have that feeling of the brevity of life but instead of being oppressed by it I am liberated. I know where I am going and I know why I am here. I was created by His will and For His pleasure…for His pleasure, this is why I exist. Every moment counts because He sees my heart. I want to be able to stand before Him and say, “I did it! Here’s my heart on fire with passion for Your name. I didn’t quit! Even in my weakness, I didn’t give into shame or condemnation! In my disappointment I didn’t give into bitterness or cynicism. Though you seemed hidden, I didn’t give into unbelief or offense. I stayed faithful through the dark night of faith. Here is Your inheritance, Your reward, the gift of my love.”
Everybody dies, no way around it but there is a “why” behind the “what” of this life. The more than meets the eye is our hope and our future. Without hope we are in despair but as those who know the end of the story let us run the race with endurance, on fire with love, as burning and shining lamps. This wisdom will be justified. There is more than “life under the sun” and we have a lifeline to life above it.
