Monday Music is a short (10 min) stop at the beginning of the work week to be guided through a time of scripture, contemplation and prayer. I hope you’re encouraged and strengthened by it. Click the follow button or leave a comment, I’d love to connect! – Seth

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PRAYER

My God, Father, Creator of the Universe. You have given life to all things and You are the very breath in my lungs. I praise you! I thank you! Turn my heart to desire nothing more than You. Make my thoughts and joys focused on You, the author of my faith! Without You, I have nothing. I yearn for all that You are. Amen.

LYRICS

VERSE 1
Holy design this place in time
That I might seek and find my God
My God

CHORUS
Lord, I want to yearn for You I want to burn with passion
Over You and only You
Lord, I want to yearn

VERSE 2
Your joy is mine, yet why am I fine?
With all my singing and bringing grain in light of Him

BRIDGE
Oh, You give life and breath
And in You we live and move
That’s why I sing

Lord, I want to yearn

A THOUGHT & SCRIPTURE

The first 3 verses of Psalm 84 are simple, yet paint a powerful and awesome picture: “How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord Almighty! 2 My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. 3 Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young—a place near your altar, Lord Almighty, my King and my God.

The composer of this psalm (or song), hits on something that we may tend to forget in our walk with Jesus. Our God is so fulfilling that there is this raw, organic, passionate, hungry, searching, yearning, even fainting desire for nothing but … Him. God. Even the sparrow, which is His creation, desires to be close to God, the King of the Universe. The King of our hearts. Our heart and flesh must cry out for Him.

I first heard this song years ago when a friend encouraged me to give it a listen. He told me that it was this song, which had reignited his passion for Jesus. It led him back to some of the verses mentioned in this post (as well as others). These words in the Bible reminded him (and eventually me) that being thankful to God is a good thing and worshipping and learning about Him are fantastic. Those are needed parts of life of faith following Jesus. It’s also important to repent and turn back to Him.

In the midst of my journey to follow Jesus, there was a core desire and deep-rooted passion that I had overlooked or forgotten somewhere: God desires a relationship. A powerful one. He demonstrated His love and whole-hearted desire for us when He sacrificially gave up His life for us when crucified on the cross. We deserved that fate, but He took it upon Himself. Now we have the promise of life forever with Him in Heaven. He restored that passionate, powerful, loving relationship with His own life. When we seek and yearn for Him with that same passion, we find that He’s been there the whole time. He wasn’t hiding from us, but He was in plain sight and we were just looking past Him, around Him or we just had our eyes closed.

When we yearn for God, we stop focusing on the things of this world that cannot satisfy us: jobs, money, sex, friends, winning, houses, power, notoriety, pride, etc. Those things cannot, in any way, fill us like God’s love and presence can.

Luke wrote this in his book of the Bible officially titled “The Acts of the Apostles:”

Acts 17:24-29 “He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn’t live in man-made temples, 25 and human hands can’t serve his needs—for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need. 26 From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries. “His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us. 28 For in him we live and move and exist. As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ 29 And since this is true, we shouldn’t think of God as an idol designed by craftsmen from gold or silver or stone.

After listening to this song many times and spending more and more time in God’s Word, I have begun to actually yearn for God. Want Him. Desire Him. Just Him. It’s a different position from my old way looking and interacting with God. Many times in the past, God was a loving friend who saved me, knew me, cared for me and left me with an amazing resource of His Word in the Bible. Then in response I prayed, worshipped, cared for others and learned more about Him. I think many people have a strong faith in this rhythm of life.

I found a deeper relationship when I stopped making it all about the things I was doing and made it more about being with the God who is. As I read scripture, I imagine Him pouring into me and soaking up all that He is. 

I yearn for Him like a sweaty kid yearns for a cool glass of water.

I yearn for Him like a wife yearns for her husband who has been on military deployment for months.

As we worship or pray or just go through our day, let us listen for Jesus’ voice and yearn for more of Him.

VIDEO – Sing, pray, listen and let God speak to your heart.

PRAYER

Lord, we yearn for You. More of You. More of Your joy in our Hearts. More of Your love in our minds. More of Your words of comfort on our lips. More of your perfect grace warming our souls. Let us drink of our Spirit and seek You above anything else. You are our desire. You are beautiful. Draw us near to You. Amen.