Conviction and Loneliness

Last night(Wednesday) was the SolidGround meeting. For those of you who are scratching your heads and going "W.H.A.T. is SolidGround?" SolidGround in the monthly singles meeting. There you go, now you're up to to speed. You're welcome. :)

Anywho, this month's main topic was Loneliness, which was covered in the book we're going through as a group, Paul David Tripp's "A Quest for More". Not a bad book, let me tell you. In the chapter, it talked about how our lives, our thoughts, our actions are to display a love for Christ and a longing to be with Him. It then talked about how that longing in our souls as a good thing, it is a driving force to pressing into God's Word, into prayer. If we love something, we spend time pursuing the object. If you have a spouse and you actually love them, you want to know what they like, what they enjoy, what gives them pleasure, and you try to do those things. In that same way, we should be going to the Bible asking "What do you love, Jesus? What brings You joy?" And then, seeing what He enjoys, we should try to do those thing, because we love Him and want to please Him.

Then came the not-so-fun part, realizing that our hearts have a sinful nature, and that nature wants us to delight in other things, in the creation, not the the Creator. We were then asked the question, "What things are you tempted to delight in instead of Jesus?" And the question took a little while to really sink in, and as I continued to ponder it today, it finally clicked. My friends are where my joy is. I try my hardest to spend time with my friends at any moment of time, making myself available to any of my friends at any time I can, whatever the consequences. Friends aren't bad things, of course, in and of themselves, but the fact is that they are where my joy has been found for quite some time now. It took a lot of signal flares and warnings and even conflicts to realize this, but now I do. And now more than ever, I need your prayer and accountability. I don't want to delight in my friends primarily, I want to delight in Christ!

Thanks as always for your prayers, encouragements, and comments.

—Zack