need.

every so often (well, rarely, but it came to mind today) i hear people talk about how "nice" it is to have their religion in their life because it makes their life better, easier, or happier. i hear how "refreshing" it is for them to go to church and get a new start on the week, or how "grateful" or "thankful" they are for Jesus' death and resurrection or whatever plan of salvation they believe in.

 i thought long and hard about this today.

and i have decided that my faith it isn't "nice" and "refreshing", and i am not just "grateful" for all of it.

harsh, perhaps. but that's not how it is.

because there is so much  more to it than that! the more i get to know Jesus, the more i realize that i'm not just thankful for him, like i would be for a new sweater or a nice dinner out. the more i know him i realize just how much i NEED him. not need in the "i want" sense, or need in the "i really like it," or "it's comfortable," "it's safe," or "routine" sense. i mean "need" in the sense that i would be destitute without him. i wouldn't be whole, i wouldn't be complete, i wouldn't be me. the bible mentions it so many times, but i didn't fully understand it until i experienced it...put into words we humans can actually understand, i really do thirst for God, and i really do hunger for his word. like an addiction to anything, God is almost like a drug, like i never can get enough of Him, always yearning for more.

so this leads me to the question, why? why is it that we are incomplete without Him, all of us yearning to be satisfied and made whole (so many of us fulfilling these desires to be fully and completely loved and accepted in other ways, with other distractions and obsessions)? my answer is not because we have fallen and adam sinned once, but because we still are fallen. we are all born broken with these desires to be fixed, with a yearning for God that nothing and no one but HE can fulfill. all of us are empty, and only His love can fill us, all of us are dead and only His death can give us life.

"just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. for just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous." ~romans 5:18-19

(i love this verse because it shows how complete God's plan is, showing that adam's disobedience put us all in a place where we needed to be rescued, and that Christ's obedience was the only thing that could pull us out and make us whole again!)