I sat down at the piano here in my living room a few nights ago. My wife was at her computer in the office, and the girls were busy playing some game on their computers. It was quiet, and I was alone...
Sat down at the piano, and began to play the old chorus:
Just to walk with Him means everything to me
Just to know He's real, His Hand is leading me.
Let this world go their way
Pass me by, let me be;
Just to walk with Him means everything to me.
As I played, I realized that I had stopped pursuing that dream. When I was pastoring, I was so hungry for it, it consumed me. It was all I thought about. I felt like I was finally learning His heartbeat, drawing near to Him.
When I was evangelizing full-time, I felt it. I played and sang and ministered and preached in so many churches---yes, even though it may've been one, maybe two services a weekend---but there was an anointing that came over me, a passion to minister to people in the Spirit. And that passion bled through (at least, I believe it did) in most, if not all, of the churches that I was privileged to minister in. I walked with Him during the week; I walked with Him alone in the hotel rooms; I walked with Him while seated at a piano, while preaching, while reaching.
And then, a few months ago, I found myself back in the secular workforce. The brook had dried up evangelistically, and I was making a decent living, trying to support my family. Good job, good money, long hours, hard work...but I was content here if this is what God wanted.
And I realized that I had lost the passion.
I was content to live for God, but I wasn't hungry to know Him. I wasn't craving His heartbeat like I used to.
I am being transparent, and perhaps this will close doors, turn someone off to inviting me. But I am being honest.
There is a difference in living for God, and walking with Him.
Consider the difference between a servant and a slave. Both live to serve their master, yet one does it without the chains of servitude. What holds him to his master's beck and call is an ear pierced with a mark of love and loyalty: "I love my master...I will not go out free." The other does what is expected, yet perhaps there lies within his heart a hint of bitterness, resentment: "This man saved me from certain doom when he purchased me from the auction block; yet all my life I will be forced to do what he asks, and never what I would do for myself."
Oh God, that I might discover the heartbeat of a servant, a "love-slave", if you will, once again!!! I sit here and I am crying, because somewhere, Shubert came back to life, and the carnal nature was found trying to weave its own way back into the picture...
Bring me again to Calvary's cross; let me kneel in the shadow of that ugly old tree, let my eyes once again view the brutality of Your death, and my ears hear the mocking of the crowd, the screaming of the multitude, and Your voice through it all. Let me once again realize that, in this beautiful relationship that I enjoy, I have given so little, and You have given so much.
Let me once again find my place at Your feet, and close my ears to the siren song of the world, of the carnal nature that says, "Do your own thing for once in your life." Let me realize again that this really is about You, not because You are some narcissistic Saviour, some self-serving master that demands toil and servitude, but because You gave everything for my salvation.
You alone, the God of all creation, the Holy One, the King of all Kings and the Lord of glory...You gave up Your throne, your righteous robes, your Majesty, to condescend to my level, to reach out to me when I would not reach out to You.
How could I have ever forgotten?
Remind me...
And let me walk with You again.
And may I always listen.
For someday, somewhere, sometime...Your voice, that sweet, gentle voice that has spoken peace to so many storms, that has calmed so many of my fears, that has reproved and instructed me on so many occasions...
That voice will issue not a command, not a request...but an invitation:
"Come, for all things are now ready."
