Thirsting: Quenching Our Soul's Deepest DesireSample

Wild Openness Toward God

In His sermon on the mount Jesus taught, “If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them.” I believe that’s not only a physical invitation, but a spiritual one too. Yes, it’s about sharing with those in need, but it can also be an invitation to a liberating way of living. To live a spirit of wild openness toward God. One that gives up our need for performance and self-sufficiency. A life lived poor in spirit, with a contrite heart and a deep openness to divine communion.

Why not spend a few minutes each day with God, taking off the tunics of shame, guilt, and self-preservation you use to cover your deep self. As if to say to God, “See, I’ve nothing to hide. All my failure, all my beauty, and everything in between is Yours. Only let me have You and Your presence always.”

Day by day allowing God into the places you’d otherwise avoid, you may find your inclination to hide in the shadows diminishing. You may notice God’s compassion more, His quiet and forgiving love, and a greater absence of the pride within you that tries to prove and perform its way into His presence.

In one of his later letters to the early church, John wrote: “We love, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). The truth is, we just can’t love God enough. Any love we can give Him springs not from ourselves and our own strength, but from the very love we’ve received from Him in the first place.

We don’t change via willpower and discipline or through knowledge and information, but by opening ourselves up persistently to that love. Our part is to keep saying yes, to bring our minds and bodies into our new true identity as Beloved, to remind ourselves of the magnitude of this story.

To God’s pruning and watering we say yes. To our winters and our springs we say yes. To our darknesses and storms, we say yes. To the watering of the rains, we say yes.

To our awakening, flourishing, and beautifying, we say yes.

Take a deep breath and open up your places of shame to God. Come out of hiding, allow His loving eyes to see you. Say yes.

This plan is presented to you by Thirsting by Strahan Coleman. To learn more about this book, please click here.