Sunday Sermon - O Lord, Won't You Buy Me...

O Lord, Won't You Buy Me... - July 25 sermon.mp3

Text of Sunday Sermon

Luke 11:1-13

Oh Lord, Won’t You Buy Me…

James Sledge                              --                                July 25, 2010

When we were down in South Carolina a couple of weeks ago for my mother-in-law’s birthday, I hit the scan button on the radio to find a local station.  The pickings were a bit slim, so when I heard a Beatles song, I stopped it there. 

Sometime later, they played a song I haven’t heard in years.  It was Janis Joplin singing a cappella, “O Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?  My friends all drive Porches, I must make amends. Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends, So Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz?”  A second verse asks for a color TV, but I think I like the third verse best.  “Oh Lord, won't you buy me a night on the town?  I'm counting on you, Lord, please don't let me down. Prove that you love me and buy the next round, Oh Lord, won't you buy me a night on the town?”

We laugh at the lyrics because the requests are so patently absurd, and yet they are not so unlike some of my own prayers. 
Who among us hasn’t, at some point, prayed to win the lottery, or, if like me you’ve never actually gotten around to buying a lottery ticket, prayed to come into a big chunk of change by some other means? 

What sort of things do you pray for?  Do you expect God to meet your requests?  What does it mean if God doesn’t do as you ask?

When I was growing up, I somehow got the notion that getting what you prayed for was a good measure of your faith.  If you believed in Jesus, really believed and didn’t doubt, it would happen.  Which of course meant that failed prayers could be traced back to your doubt or lack of faith.

My childhood notions of faith and prayer had a nice parallel in Santa Claus.  You asked Santa to bring you stuff, and getting that stuff was contingent on you believing in Santa Claus.  A failure to do so could jeopardize you Christmas morning haul.  There was also that business about being good.  Santa is apparently a pretty lenient judge, but being bad could also interfere with getting your Christmas list filled.

Now at first glance Santa Claus looks to be a pretty powerful and influential dude.  He has all kinds of magical powers and abilities, and he can influence the behavior of millions of children.  But it occurs to me that Santa isn’t actually in charge of very much.  There’s a formula or contract that he’s a part of, and if children work the system right, he has to run himself ragged doing what they want.  In this whole Santa Claus business, Santa isn’t really the one in charge.  It’d the kids.

I think that our notions about prayer sometimes reveal a similar sort of Christian faith, one where we are in charge and God is under contract to us.  As long as we meet the terms of the contract, God has no choice but to give us the goodies.

And that brings me back to what we pray for and how we expect God to respond.  Our prayers say a great deal about our image of God and of ourselves.  They give some pretty good clue as to what lies at the very core of our faith.

When you ask Christians about the core of their faith, most folks will give answers that in some way place God or Jesus at the center.  But when you ask questions about prayer, it gets a lot more varied.  And our answers to questions on prayer sometimes describe a faith where we are at the center, and God, like Santa Claus, is supposed to do our bidding.

Now it is true that Jesus says faith no bigger than a mustard seed would allow us to move mountains.  Faith can accomplish tremendous things.  But I don’t think Jesus means that having enough faith turns God into a cosmic Santa.  And today’s reading helps Jesus’ followers understand what sort of tremendous things to pray for.

When we are at the center of faith everything is measured by how it impacts us.  Am I happy?  Do I have enough?  Am I going to heaven?  Is my life fulfilled and meaningful?  The questions tend to be different in different times and cultures because they are our questions and our notions of happiness and fulfillment shape them. 

But when his followers ask Jesus for prayer lessons, the model prayer he gives them doesn’t function this way.  It starts by praising God.  Then it asks that things on earth be set right.  That’s what “Your kingdom come” means.  It is asking that things on earth conform to God’s will.  And when this prayer finally gets to the wish list part, the requests are very modest, enough for the day, God’s forgiveness contingent on our forgiveness to those who have hurt us, and protection from temptation or judgment.  There are no sports cars, no color TVs, no “the good life.”  Rather it is a prayer for a simple life where God provides all we need and our world is reshaped to become the sort of place God intends it to be.

Jesus gone on to encourage us to be persistent in prayer, saying that if we know how to give good things to our children how much more God can be counted on to give good things to us.  But if God is the parent and we are the children, that would seem to presume that God gets to decide what is best for us.

I have known the occasional parents who seem to think that their children get to decide what is best for them and the parents’ job is simply to provide whatever it takes to keep them happy.  Such parents are usually perpetually frustrated by the impossibility of this task.  Their children tend to make everyone around them miserable.  And the children themselves are usually frustrated and unhappy to boot.

It turns out that children rarely know what will actually make them happy.  They rarely can perceive what is actually best for them.  We adults are often only marginally better, and we engage in all sorts of self destructive activity that we hope will make us happy.  And yet I still make judgments about God based on how well God responds to what I think is best for me, on whether or not God responds to me in the way I would like. 

I saw an article the other day that suggested that when the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray they weren’t looking for a better prayer technique or pose.  What motivated the disciples’ request was seeing the intimacy Jesus had with God.  They were asking, in essence, “Lord, teach us how to love and trust the Father the way you do, that our prayer lives would increase in fullness and honesty.”[1]

You know, we church people are often a funny sort.  We are drawn to God.  We feel a genuine pull to connect with God.  Yet we often seem frightened of getting too close.  We want to enlist God in our lives and our causes, but we resist turning our lives over to God.  We resist the very thing the disciples saw in Jesus and wanted for themselves.  Often churches have abetted this problem, failing to demonstrate a faith that would prompt anyone to notice our intimacy with God and say, “Teach us to love and trust God the way you do.”

I love the Church.  But from time to time, the Church might do well stop worrying about doctrines, rules, worship styles, and politics, and get back to Jesus, to gaze lovingly and longingly on the person of Jesus.  What if we set aside all notions of what faith and Church are about?  What if we let go of all our images and expectations of God and simply gazed on the face of God in this 1^st Century, Palestinian Jew?  What if we dwelled there long enough that like those first disciples, we started to long for the same sort of trust and intimacy with God?  Might we be able to say with them, “Oh Lord, teach us to love and trust the Father as you do, that our prayer lives would increase in fullness and honesty, that your presence and love would become so palpable here that others would long to become more like us.”

Make it so, God; make it so.

---

[1] Peter W. Marty, “Reflections on the Lectionary,” The Christian Century, July 13, 2010, Vol. 127, No. 14, p. 21

Spiritual Hiccups - Alone and Afraid

Today's gospel reading contains the famous story of Peter denying Jesus. I've always marveled that the early church preserved this story about the abject failure of one of its key leaders. But there it is, prominently displayed in all four gospels. When Jesus had earlier told Peter this would happen, Peter was full of bravado, insisting he would never do so and, in some accounts, promising to die with Jesus. But when the moment comes, he curses and swears that he does not know Jesus, has never met him.

Much can be drawn from this story. Bold words don't necessarily lead to bold behavior. But on the flip side, colossal failures and even betrayals don't disqualify us from serving Jesus. It would seem that Jesus did not hold Peter's failure against him at all.

But I found myself pondering how it was Peter went so quickly from bravado to betrayal. Was it simply that he was all talk? I don't think so. Too many other episodes show a Peter who could act in bold ways. I wonder if Peter wasn't feeling terribly alone that night. He had been Jesus' constant companion for a very long time, but Jesus had been taken from him. All alone, Peter's fears overwhelmed him. He was all "fight or flight," and fight wasn't an option.

Being alone, really alone, can be terribly frightening. And we people of faith sometimes try to be faithful and religious all on our own. I'm not referring to individualism, though I suppose that is a problem as well. I'm talking about living our lives without much sense of Jesus' presence.

In one of his books, N. Graham Standish speaks of church meetings where we, in essence, pray at the beginning, then ask God to go get a cup of coffee while we do our work. Then when we're done, we ask God to come back in and bless our actions. As an individual, I often wrestle with issues facing my congregation, or struggle with what I am called to do, all by myself, with little sense of Jesus with me. But without Jesus there with us, our fears can bubble up, can frighten us and even overwhelm us. We become more reactionary and primal in our behaviors, and we often regret our actions or decisions later.

Give us some sure sense of your presence, God. Put your Spirit in us that we may never be alone.

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Wisdom from Richard Rohr

THE AUTHORITY OF THOSE WHO HAVE SUFFERED

Question of the Day:
What am I seeking through my religion?

If religion is not primarily a belonging system, but is truly a transformational system, one would need, it seems to me, a very different kind of authority. One needs the experience and conviction of someone who has walked the journey himself or herself. One needs the authority of a person who can say, “I know what God does with pain, because of what God has done with mine.” And not just the authority to say, “You must believe in this and you must believe in that.” This utterly changes the focus of spiritual authority.

For me, almost the best litmus test of whether a person has healthy or unhealthy religion is, “What do they do with their pain?” Because pain is always part of the deal, as Jesus, the Jewish prophets, and Buddha agree.

Spiritual Hiccups - What the Bible Says

Most of the Christians I know speak of the Bible having authority. But what they mean by that comes in many shapes and sizes. Literalism with regards to the Bible seems to be more popular today than it was 50 years ago. For example, the number of Christians who say the believe in evolution has shrunk significantly while those who believe the Genesis creation account is historically and scientifically accurate have increased. (The fact that there are two different creation stories with different orders of creation seems to have escaped these folks, but that's a different blog entry.)

What got me thinking about this was today's morning psalm. It rattles off the attributes of those whom God welcomes to the Temple, those whose lives are pleasing to God. The list includes those, "who do not slander with their tongue... who do not lend money at interest." This got me wondering about biblical authority because slandering with the tongue and lending money at interest seem to be pretty popular in our culture.

I certainly don't claim any sort of personal purity here. I've done my share of slandering with the tongue and I've bought investments that amount to lending money at interest. So how is it that I can claim the Bible as an authority?

I think this is a question that more Christians need to take seriously. Saying "God said it. I believe it, and that settles it" is all well and good. But what about God saying not to lend money at interest?

The worst answer to the question of biblical authority seems to be, unfortunately, the most popular answer: to read only the parts I agree with. I'll quote those verses that support my views and conveniently ignore those that don't. Big problem with this method is I become the ultimate authority, not the Bible.

So how does the Bible have its own authority rather than simply conforming to mine? To go back to tongue slandering and lending at interest, when I slander with my tongue (or computer blog), it's wrong and something I need to apologize for. But when it comes to lending at interest, it depends. How can that be?

I'm reasonably convinced (by the Bible) that God is not capricious, that God does things for good reasons. And when I look at those places where God prohibits lending at interest, they all seem to be about not oppressing the poor. In the ancient world, one where there was rarely a need for private citizens to raise lots of capital, lending at interest was often used to trap the poor in inescapable debt. (The "company store" of the early 20th century often functioned this way.) But in the modern world, money lent at interest is often used to allow someone to start a company which then hires people who would otherwise be unemployed and poor. In that case, lending money at interest helps the poor. So I think that biblical authority on this issue says, "It depends." Some sorts of lending at interest - the sort designed to trap people in debt - are sinful, but other sorts may not be.

The big question is, "Am I truly recognizing the Bible's authority?" I think I am. What do you think?

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Spiritual Hiccups - Trust

Do not put your trust in princes,
in mortals, in whom there is no help.
When their breath departs,
they return to the earth;
on that very day their plans perish.

These words from Psalm 146 are echoed in many other places in the Bible. Those who put their hope and trust in human agents and institutions will ultimately be disappointed, but those who trust and hope in God will be vindicated.

But I have observed that most of us are quite selective in how and where we trust God. And there are some interesting fault lines dividing "liberal" and "conservative" Christians. Conservatives will argue against large scale government social programs and health insurance but support massive military budgets. And liberals will often argue for reductions in military budgets and actions, but support expansion of government spending for social programs and regulation. It seems that both sides at times puts its "trust in princes." We just disagree about where and when.

One of the very real problems for Christians of all stripes is our tendency to domesticate the faith to suit our purposes. We all selectively read our Bibles and we all create God in our image. And liberals and conservatives alike simply ignore Jesus when he tells us that wealth is one of the biggest hindrances to us being a part of God's Kingdom.

I wonder what the faith might look like, what our congregations might look like, if we spent less time trying to convince ourselves that we were truer to the faith than those other folks, and spent more time getting serious about what Jesus calls us to do, both the parts we like and the parts we don't.

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Sunday Sermon - What Really Matters

Spiritual Hiccups - Love

In his letter to the Christians in Rome, Paul says, "Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law... Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law." Jesus also speaks of loving one another, and he says that the two greatest commandments are to love God with all our being and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Jesus also refuses to limit the scope of our neighbor to people who are like us, as his parable of the "Good Samaritan" shows.

Given all the talk of love in the New Testament, you would think this would be the defining mark of Christians. Even people who weren't Christian would say, "Well I don't agree with their beliefs, but they sure are the lovingnest folks I've ever seen." So why is it that we so often come off to others as narrow-minded, judgmental, and shrill? Why are there so many Christians who seem angry much of the time?

In the US, I sometimes get the sense that many Christians are angry at what they perceive as a loss of power, prestige, and influence in our society. They're mad about rising pluralism and secularism, and they want to "take their country back." But Jesus refused to be the political Messiah that many of his followers wanted him to be. Jesus never said anything about aspiring to earthly power and influence. Rather he talked about being willing to suffer and give up everything for the sake of the Kingdom. He said to resist evil with love and to pray for those who persecute us.

You likely heard that Gandhi at one point in his life seriously considered becoming a Christian, and he frequently drew on Jesus and the New Testament. But because of some very negative experiences with Christians, he rejected the faith. Once when asked why he rejected Christ considering how much he seemed to emulate him, Gandhi responded, “Oh, I don’t reject your Christ. I love your Christ. It’s just that so many of you Christians are so unlike your Christ."

I have to think that if we focused more on love, Gandhi, and lots of others, might not have thought this way.

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Sunday Sermon - What Really Matters

What Really Matters - July 18 sermon.mp3

Luke 10:38-42; (Amos 8:1-12)

What Really Matters

James Sledge --- July 18, 2010

When I come into the office each morning, like a lot of folks I turn on the computer and check my email. Often I find something there that I need to deal with, but if not, there are usually other tasks. There’s a sermon to write, a bulletin or newsletter to work on, a meeting to prepare for or attend, a visit to the hospital, and so on. I actually like the fact that my days can be quite varied, with different things popping up from time to time. Sometimes it’s a little busy or hectic, yet it’s often rewarding work, so I’m not complaining. But sometimes I get to the end of a long day, and it dawns on me that the one thing that there was no time for in the day was God. Oh I might have worked on a sermon that had something to do with God, but I’ve not actually talked to God, been aware or God, or tried to find God.

If this happens to me as a pastor more often than I care to admit, I can only imagine how much more of a struggle it is for others. A business woman gets up early in the morning and gets ready for the day, all while dragging sleepy children from bed and out to school or day care. In this tough economy, her company seems to expect more and more work out of her with less and less staff to help her. Many days she eats lunch in her office as she catches up on some correspondence. And then she must still pick up children, do something about supper, attend a child’s softball game, and so on. She has a lot more reasons than I do not to have found an hour, or even a few minutes, to engage in some sort of significant spiritual discipline.

In some of the research done exploring why fewer and fewer Americans participate in the worship life of a congregation, a significant number of people cite the fact that Sunday morning is often the one time that they can really relax, can sleep late and catch up on their rest, can spend time with family.

I know that some of you live busy, harried lives. And it’s probably not because you want to be a captain of finance or get your name in Forbes magazine. You’re just trying to get by, to do what you have to do to pay bills, raise a family, cover the mortgage, put gas in the car.

I may have already been thinking about the busyness that gets in the way of my own spiritual life when I first looked at today’s Luke passage. Perhaps that explains why I saw it in a light that I hadn’t considered before. I’ve often viewed Jesus praising Mary for ignoring her domestic duties, for taking the “masculine” pose of a disciple, as something meant to empower women, to say that Jesus calls women just as surely as he does men.

I still think that is a significant piece to take away from this passage, but what to do with Martha. It’s been pointed out to me many times, often by a woman, that Jesus would have gotten nothing to eat that night and not had a clean bed to sleep in without Martha. Martha is the one who engages in biblical hospitality. This is much more than being kind and friendly. It is a hospitality that cares for the stranger, in this case welcoming a traveler named Jesus into her home. Of course once you welcome a guest into your home you have to find something for him to eat. And it’s not like Martha has a refrigerator or a microwave or any prepackaged meals. Welcoming Jesus into her home meant a lot of work. No wonder she needs a little help from Mary.

But because Jesus doesn’t back Martha up when she asks him to make Mary help, I think there is a tendency to label Martha as bad in some way. We’re a little uncomfortable with it, but Jesus does say, “Mary has chosen the better part.” And so Martha isn’t just hospitable and busy, she is worried and distracted. It says so right there in our Bibles. But the truth is, you don’t have to translate it that way. In fact, when I looked at the passage in the original Greek, I saw that our Bible uses “distracted” to translate two completely different words. And so I took a stab at a translation that didn’t want to label Martha as bad.

Here it is: But Martha was burdened by her many tasks, and so she came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are concerned and troubled by many things; but one thing is necessary.”

To my ear this translation sounds less like Jesus fussing at her because she’s prone to burn the candle at both ends, and more like Jesus inviting her to let go of a few cultural expectations and responsibilities. Jesus knows that she is doing precisely what her society says she should. And he is inviting her to find a new freedom, to let go of everything she had been taught about what was necessary and discover what truly is. Who knows, maybe Jesus even said, “You come and sit beside me, too. Later, we’ll all get dinner ready together.”

The last couple of years, I struggled a bit with my own spiritual life. And to be totally honest, at times I’ve gotten a little miffed at God, more precisely, at God’s silence. But lately I feel like I’ve been making some progress, and I think maybe today’s Scripture is some help to me, and perhaps to you as well.

It seems to me that both our readings have something to say about God’s silence, about why it is sometimes hard to find God. The reading from Amos rails against the rich who build and maintain their wealth at great cost to the poor. Amos threatens a great silence, a famine of hearing the word of God to those who come to church each week and drop their offerings in the plate, but who fail to care for the poor or order their daily lives as God desires.

But then Luke’s gospel introduces us to Martha, who also misses God’s word, not because she is doing something evil, but because she is trying to do what she thinks is good.

I suppose that both Amos and Luke have something to say to me, and perhaps you as well. Oh I would never actually cheat a poor person out of any money or take advantage them intentionally, but then again I don’t get too worked up about having a cheap, abundant supply of fresh food at Giant Eagle or Kroger thanks in large part to the hard work of often abused and always underpaid migrant workers. But if I’m not nearly as bad as those condemned by Amos, I am very much like Martha. And if Jesus, in his great compassion, is trying to invite her to discover what is truly necessary, what does that say to me, or to you?

Jesus clearly tells Martha, and me, that there are choices that must be made. Lots of things, even good things, can push God away. We all have to have money to live, we all need food, people have to work, but Jesus says that nothing is as essential, as necessary as sitting at his feet, which is a way of talking about being his disciple.

One of the core callings of all Christian disciples is to help those around us catch a glimpse of God’s coming Kingdom, God’s reign, God’s new day, whatever you want to call it. In this Kingdom, God’s will is fully done, the poor and the oppressed are lifted up, the peacemaker is exalted over the warrior, and people trust that God will provide enough for the day without worrying about tomorrow. I know almost no one who thinks this describes the world we live in. So how is it that I and so many other Christians seem so at home in this world?

We live in a consumer culture that preaches a full life if you accomplish enough and acquire enough. It demands endless striving and busyness from us. It produces endless anxiety about getting more and about hanging on to what we already have. Yet for the most part we Christians have embraced this culture as if it were fully compatible with our faith. Worse, we often view faith or spirituality as one more consumer item, another piece to be acquired in order for life to be full and good. But Jesus tells Martha, and me as well, that we won’t find much of God in such a faith. If we’re really looking for God, if we really want to hear God, if we really want to discover true life, we will have to realize what is truly necessary, what really matters. And then, oh then we will really have something to share with the world.

Spiritual Hiccups - Being

We live in a world that values production and efficiency, that honors those who can "get things done." We size people up by what they do. It's the first thing we ask when we meet someone, "So, what do you do?" My religious traditions speaks of all people having a calling, something they are gifted for and meant to do, so clearly we think doing is important. But does our society's focus on doing have a downside?

I arrived at this question after reading Matthew's account of Jesus being anointed with costly ointment by an unnamed woman. The disciples object to this waste, thinking it could have been sold and the money used to help the poor. But Jesus cuts them off and praises the woman.

For some reason, I immediately remembered Marva Dawn's book on worship, A Royal "Waste" of Time, which contains the subtitle The Splendor of Worshiping God and Being Church for the World. Being Church, a waste of time; Dawn doesn't seem to worry too much about getting anything of "value" done in worship. She makes light of something my denomination has in droves, special Sundays that deal with some issue. We have Theological Education Sunday, Higher Education Sunday, Domestic Violence Awareness Sunday, Race Relations Sunday, Health Awareness Sunday, and many more. There's not a thing wrong with the motivation for any of these Sundays any more than it was wrong for the disciples to be concerned about the plight of the poor. But - I agree with Dawn here - worship is us being with and praising God. It doesn't need to accomplish something.

I we can speak in similar fashion about our spiritual lives. There's a great deal of interest in spirituality in our culture, both in and out of churches. And sometimes I think this hunger is brought on, in large part, because we are so defined by our doing that we don't know who we are. We don't value being enough to connect with our true selves.

Jesus did incredible things, so he was a doer. But all his doing grew out of his being. Jesus spent countless hours in meditation, in prayer, in fasting, and in time alone with God. It was there that he honed his identity. And it was there that he was nourished and equipped for what he was called to do.

Who are you? Not "What do you do?" but "Who are you?"

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Spiritual Hiccups - Living Right

Today's reading from Matthew is "The Judgment of the Nations" (or Gentiles, depending on how you translate). I've never been clear on whether to read this like a parable or as a prediction of things to come, but one point seems clear, God's judgment ends up surprising a lot of folks.

Jesus was speaking to Jews when he said this, and they likely heard it differently than you or I. To Jews, "the nations" (or Gentiles) referred to those other folks, the non-Jews, the people not a part of our faith. Perhaps that means that as Christians we should read this as "The Judgment of the non-Christians" or of "the Pagans."

Regardless, this judgment raises questions about what matters most to God, getting our belief structure ironed out just so, or aligning our lives with God's priorities. These Gentiles are judged as righteous when they unwittingly care for "the least of these."

If this judgment is about those folks, the people who aren't members of our churches, what are we in congregations to take away from this? A very tentative thought I have relates to the occasional Christian obsession with formulas. Believe in Jesus and get saved. But Jesus' words on the judgment of the pagans makes me wonder if we in the Church don't sometimes miss the point. Granted, it requires believing Jesus' word is authoritative to even have this discussion, but does the Church exist primarily to convince folks of the formula or to demonstrate and teach the way of life Jesus modeled?

John Calvin, the Reformation leader who began the tradition that birthed Presbyterians, often accused the Roman Catholics of lapsing into superstition, believing that certain rites magically guaranteed your standing before God. I wonder if the modern day Protestant Church hasn't sometimes lapsed into a new form of superstition, where a few correctly worded phrases magically guarantee our standing before God (even if we don't actually do very much Jesus told us to do).

And pagans who never had a clue scratch their heads and enter into the Kingdom.

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Spiritual Hiccups - Longing

I've written before about experiencing God's absence, seeking God's presence but not finding it. Such times can be very frustrating for those who desire God in their lives. At times such unfulfilled longing can seem like torment.

However, such longing may be God's way of inviting us into a deeper relationship. This longing may be a gift of the Spirit that beckons us. Psalm 42 seems to come out of a time of both longing and despair, a time when the psalmist's soul is cast down and enemies taunt him saying, "Where is your God?" Yet out of this dark night of the soul comes a deep awareness of the psalmist's intense need for God. "As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God."

It is easy to fall into a cursory relationship with God, a business-like, contractual relationship where we believe and do certain things in hope of some payout. But God knows we need something more. We were created out of God's love for love - love shared with God and with others. And sometimes the experience of unfulfilled longing may be just what we need to draw us out of our comfort zones into pure love.

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