Running Toward Love

A dear friend of mine is famous.  Many of you reading this probably know who she is, or at least one of the characters she has played on tv.  Another one of my dear friends started an incredibly successful theater company in the city years ago which has hosted plays so wonderfully good that they were nominated for and/or won coveted awards.  I went to school with both of these women and have watched their respective television and theatrical careers take off and fly with bold beautiful colors.  And I sit here tonight after witnessing one of them soar through the thespian sky... and I am burning with jealousy.

WHY am I telling you this?  Well, part of the reason is because, though I am not always good at it, I believe in being real... I believe in honesty.  And while there are some things that probably should be shared with discretion and some that maybe shouldn't be shared at all, there are some things that I believe can and should not only be shared, but thrown off.

I was laying in bed trying to go to sleep tonight and instead of my mind entering a dream state it kept playing over and over again my frustration at not having my dream career in acting.  Just typing that makes me feel like an idiot.  But struggling with it leads me, or rather leads the Spirit within me, to ask the question of myself: "What do you thirst for?"  WHAT, indeed?

Matthew 5:6 falls smack in the middle of Jesus famous "Sermon on the Mount" and in this particular verse He tells His listeners: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied."

And I lay looking at my ceiling with an unquenchable thirst to act.  For real.  For REAL?  Not for righteousness, but to act.  And I am certainly in no way satisfied.  I am thirsting for the wrong thing.

I know I was created with certain gifts and talents and that having a desire to use them is not a bad thing... but the particular way I feel with this thing... i know it's not good. There are moments, hours, days sometimes that it consumes me and has wreaked havoc on my heart and made it a bitter thing.  And I don't want to be bitter... I want my dreams to be God's dreams for me and in His own time, not my own on either count.  I said earlier that some things not only should be shared but should be thrown off.  This is one of those things for me. Not the talent, mind you... but rather the consuming thirst.

I don't want to be consumed by this thirst... for it to be my enemy.  If it exists at all within me, I want it to serve as a catalyst for joy and good and life - not bitterness and destruction.  To be shaped by God and to serve His purpose.  Truth be told, I am disgusted with myself that this desire to make a name for myself can compete so fiercely sometimes with my desire to make a name for Jesus... to bring His Kingdom to pass in ways that have nothing to do with fame and fortune and everything to do with bringing a little girl home to be a part of our family.

I can't believe I can so easily lose sight in my heart of what is truly important. Of what is eternal.

"But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness..." Matthew 6:33a


The Kingdom of God.  HIS righteousness.  For there is no one righteous apart from Him.  If I am to be satisfied, I need to be thirsting for what actually satisfies.  And Jesus tells me it is He who satisfies... and I am to drink deeply of Him.  I am sitting at this keyboard tonight begging God to change my thirst... to make my heart hungry for Him... to remind me that the longing, the thirst I have that is so deep to change the world, to make all that is wrong right again, to feed hungry stomachs, to bring a little orphan home to us and make her our daughter and an orphan no more...  these are the heart of God.  These are the cravings I need to feed.


Maybe I'll be able to pursue acting more substantially than a minute-long monologue here and there in my lifetime... I do love it so.   But if I truly believe that my life is only at the beginning of eternity, then I know I can trust God with my dreams.  And I know that His Spirit will thrive within me if I throw off these jealousies, this coveting demeanor that only looks for my own gain... if I turn my will over to the One who made me for Him and for better purposes than I could ever dream up.


A little girl... my daughter... has infinite greater worth than a gold statue.  In fact, compared to any one single human being's life, nothing compares in worth.  It is people that my King died for.  People He gave everything up for. My daughter... my children... that He rescued in His resurrection.


So I will throw this crap off.  And keep moving forward.  I leave you with song that speaks to and quickens my thirst for righteousness.  Jon Foreman's "In My Arms." A song about my God's love for me... and my longing for our daughter.

May you thirst for the One who truly satisfies and run full-force toward Him.