When You're in Love

A few weeks ago I finished reading a book by Francis Chan called Crazy Love. It's a great book and I highly recommend. I think one of the chapters that really got me thinking was chapter six called When You're in Love.

In it, he quotes one of John Piper's books:

The critical question for our generation - and for every generation - is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ was not there?

This really hit me. Is it possible that I am looking forward to heaven because of the good things and not because Jesus will be there? If I am really in love with him, I should desire him for who he is and not for what he gives me. If heaven were a place that had none of the good things listed above, I should still be looking forward to it because Jesus will be there.

Maybe you can relate. I don't have any answers or great words of wisdom. But what Chan writes later on in the chapter is encouraging. He uses Psalm 63 as his example.

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. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. -Psalm 63:1-5

I can only pray that this would be true of my life. You know that feeling when you are so thirsty you just can't take it anymore. That's what I want my love for God to be. It's not something that is easy. It's a relationship I continually need to invest in, but I know that in the end it is the most satisfying of all relationships. I encourage you to seek this relationship too.