absence makes the heart grow colder

Whoever decided to get people to start saying "absence makes the heart grow fonder" was a liar. While this adage may prove true during a short period of absence...I highly doubt it would work over a long period of absence. And one thing is certain: Absence is not the best way to have a relationship with someone.

It is definitely not the best way to have a relationship with Jesus.

As I let Jesus back into my life, I'm becoming more and more aware of how little I've been hearing his voice lately. This doesn't mean that he hasn't been speaking to me, it's that my ears have been too stopped up to hear him. If I want him back in my life, I'm going to have to stop starving myself.

It reminds me of a line in the Caedmon's Call song entitled "Sacred":

could it be that everything is sacred?
and all this time
everything I've dreamed of
has been right before my eyes

when I forget to drink from You
I can feel the banks harden
Lord, make me like a stream
to feed the garden

We hear so often the passage from Jeremiah 17:7-8 about being like a tree planted by the waters, but this line takes it a step further and is about being the waters. It is true that God needs to be the "water" in our lives, but aren't we called to "water" others? To encourage them in their faith and to nourish their hearts? The writer is saying that when the living water isn't coming from God, our "banks" harden. Our hearts, which are where we experience revelation from God and compassion for others are no longer able to experience. We become like the dry bones in Ezekiel (ezekiel 37:1-14). How wonderful it is, then, that God is able to bring life even where there is death! For "breath entered [the bones]; they came to life and stood up on their feet--a vast army" (ezekiel 37:10).

Lauren and I were talking about this at the CCF Fall Retreat: that we have to be spending time with God so that our spirits are soft enough to encounter God in worship.

Hosea 12 talks about the people of Israel "feeding on the wind" and "chasing after the wind" instead of God. In chapter 13 God says to them:

"I have been the Lord your God ever since I brought you out of Egypt. You must acknowledge no God but me, for there is no other savior. I took care of you in the wilderness, in that dry and thirsty land. But when you had eaten and were satisfied, you became proud and forgot me. So now I will attack you like a lion, like a leopard that lurks along the road. Like a bear whose cubs have been taken away, I will tear out your heart. I will devour you like a hungry lioness and mangle you like a wild animal" (hosea 13:4-8).

This may sound crazy to some people, but this speaks life to me. I need my heart to be torn out because it is filthy! Praise be to God, who chooses to attack me instead of letting me wander away from him!

Praise to the God who refuses to let my heart grow cold through absence. =)