Beginning explanations...

When the thought of starting a blog first crossed my mind, I had this brilliantly brilliant idea that I decided wasn't so brilliant upon further contemplation. Funny how that always seems to happen with me... My idea was to set myself apart from all other blogs by NOT having my first post say basically the same thing as every other first post by every other blogger: "I'm starting a blog for such and such a reason [normally not really a reason at all]. Here's an explanation of my name." End of first post. Guess what? I'm about to do the same boringly predictable thing. So if you expected something randomly different (just because I am the definition of randomly different), you can quit reading now, k?

(Here comes the boring part.)I know I won't be able to fully explain why I chose the blog name that I did, but I'm going to attempt to at least try. I was listening to a sermon the other day (Saturday, if you happen to be a stalker and are taking notes) by Matt Chandler, pastor of The Village in Highland Village, Texas (and no, I don't have an address for you stalkers). The sermon was about how passionately in love with God Old Testament heroes and early church leaders were, and Chandler questioned why we are not so passionate about Him as they were.

David's soul yearned for God like a deer in the middle of a desert during a drought. The deer desired water and knew he would die without it, and David desired to know God in the same way. David yearned to know God more (O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water"). This wasn't just a want like, "Oh I want that iPod sooooo bad!" It was a deep inner longing that had to be filled. It kept David awake at night, contemplating how he could know God more ("On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night"). David was grieved when he found his soul no longer wholeheartdly pursuing God and prayed, "Return to me the joy of my Salvation!"

David says other radical things in the Psalms like "Your steadfast love is better than life" and "Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere" and "One thing I have desired of the LORD, that will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life" and many, many others. David was chasing after one thing with his entire life-knowing God more.

David recognized what so many of us miss; we are all gonna die some day. "Well, duh," you think. No, think about it. When we die, everything we've worked for on this earth is going to be worthless. Solomon, David's son, was the wisest and one of the richest men who ever lived. He had everything anyone could have ever asked for. He had money, fame, women (yes, that's plural), wisdom, etc. He had EVERYTHING, and yet he wrote an entire book (Ecclesiastes) about how worthless everything is because we can't take anything with us when we die. (No U-Hauls will follow your hearse.) When we stand before God someday, He's not gonna care whether we drove a fancy car, lived in a nice house, had the highest college degree possible, or were popular. All that's going to matter in that day is whether we truly know Him or not.

The apostle Paul in Philippians three lists ways he could take pride in Himself: "circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless." He is basically the epitome of the godly man of his time. Yet in the very next verse he says, "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ...I want to know Christ." Compared to knowing God, all those things were like filthy trash. Paul recognized the surpassing worth of knowing Christ, and we see just how much he longed to know God fully by what he says in Philippians 1:21 and then 3:8: "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings." Paul wasn't just interested in following God when things were easy. His pursuit of knowing God wasn't about to stop in the face of suffering or even death. Paul knew he would never fully know God until his death, so he longed for death. No matter what it took to know God more, Paul was willing to do it.

Habakkuk expressed this same unconditional pursuit of God in Habakkuk three. "Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior." This is such an unusual attitude-'Who cares how everything else goes if I get God?' is what he says.

Chandler ended the sermon with a question: Do we know God? Are we passionately pursuing the only thing in life that truly matters? Knowing Him? "The question about an activity should never be, 'Is this right or wrong?'" Chandler admonished. "The question should be, 'Will I get more of God by pursuing this activity?'"

With this blog, I hope to know God more and make Him known. By the power of the Holy Spirit working in my life, I hope to be able to catch a small glimpse of just who my Savior is and think through some of His amazing attributes by writing. My life is a novel God has written. As I live out every chapter, I hope to grow to know Him and long for Him more.