Thursday, July 23, 2015

So Bad It Hurts

"Dear God, I don’t want anything, I just want to run to Jesus Christ. I want Him so bad it hurts."

Here I sit on my sister’s bed during prime blogging time (those beautiful hours between midnight and 3 a.m.), telling myself that even decaf coffee after 5 p.m. is a bad idea. My sister is in India and I miss her...and her bed is more comfortable than mine – not that that matters when I’m wide awake. So what do I do when I’m wide awake instead of sleeping? Tonight I’ve been reading other people’s old blog posts while listening to an audio Bible.

My favorite old blog post is from three years ago and was written by Adam Young, the musical genius besides such musical projects as Owl City and Sky Sailing. It is a piece he wrote while in a post-surgery drug fog, and he had no memory of writing it when it was found.


If you are brave, or if your brain works like mine, click on that link. Most of it doesn’t make sense, but sometimes making sense isn’t the point. It is a thing of beauty, taking mismatched word pictures and creating a tapestry of color. And if you look closely, you will find golden threads woven among the bright hues.

Drugs alter one’s state of mind; that is a fact. But the person is still there, and in many ways more accessible because all practiced guard has been removed. Because “Hercules Goes Bananas” was written while Adam was on prescribed painkillers, there are pieces of himself that showed through without inhibition. Several of these moments provoke me to love Jesus more, but none more than this:

“Dear God, I don’t want anything, I just want to run to Jesus Christ. I want Him so bad it hurts. I need Him...Oh my God, all I want to do is live to make You proud." - Adam Young

Matthew 12:34 says, “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.” (ESV) When the filter was removed, what came out of Adam was, “I want Him so bad it hurts.”

My life’s cry

In many ways I feel like I’ve never moved on from the cry that formed in my heart as a girl. When I was twelve, I first penned the words, “God, I want to want You.” One thing have I desired, and that one thing I will seek: to dwell in the house of the Lord, to gaze on His beauty and inquire in His temple. I want to want Him more every day.

Maybe someday I’ll face a situation where my filter is removed, or maybe when persecution comes I will be forced to choose between my Lord and my life. No matter what I face, I want the overflow of my heart to be this: No matter the cost, no matter the loss, no matter the sacrifice, I want Jesus.


Oh, that He would grant to me that I may want Him so bad it hurts.

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