What Do You Desire?

"Whom have I in Heaven but You? And there is nothing on Earth that I desire besides You.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."
~Psalm 73:25-26

Have you ever been in a situation where your knees gave out, your heart beat wildly, your stomach rolled and your blood ran cold? I have and it's a horrible feeling. My adrenaline level was so high, I thought I would pass out because my brain felt as if everything was in slow motion but my body was in hyper overdrive. I know the physiological reasons why it happens - our "old" or primitive brain goes into fight or flight mode and there's a physical response beginning with a huge dump of adrenaline. It happens when we're faced with uncertain or extreme circumstances like being held at gunpoint, getting into a car wreck, or seeing a loved one injured. It can be frightening at the time, but it's a natural response that gets us in motion.

There's another kind of response that also begins in the brain and sends signals to our body when we fall in love. A combination of testosterone, norepinephrine and serotonin all have a contributing role through their neuromodulatory effects upon dopamine and oxytocin that tells us we are in love. While we like to say it's our hearts that fall in love, it's really a chemical reaction in our brains. That aside, we do have a physical reaction to those chemicals: rapid heartbeat, sweaty palms, giggly voices, increased sense of well being, butterflies in our stomachs, etc. All of the things that occur when we are near the object of our affection are what keeps us wanting to be around them.

But what of our love for God? Is that also a chemical reaction in the brain? How do we fall in love with what we can't see or touch? How do we maintain such a relationship? 

First, God created all of us to love Him (Isaiah 43:7). He calls us to love Him because He first loved us (1 John 4:19), and He called us into fellowship with Christ (1Corinthians 1:9).

Secondly, God put heavenly purpose into each one of us (Ephesians 2:10). No one was created by mistake (Jeremiah1:5) , no matter what our life circumstances might say. Each one of us was created for God's own glory (Isaiah 43:7) in God's own image ( Genesis 1:26, 5:1-2). 

We are special to God, and He treasures us above all of Creation. Learning to look at ourselves and see what God sees might be  difficult because this world has beat us down and told us we aren't worthy of that kind of love. But when we see ourselves and others the way God does, we experience a freedom we have never known before. It allows us to shake off the crud of the world that weighs us down and drags us backward.

No matter how our flesh fails, as long as we desire to follow God with all our hearts, He will be our strength forevermore.

"And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,  so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; being strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins (Colossians 1:9-14)."

Read Numbers 7

A Year of Blessings by Marie McGaha ©2018