Think you might burst?

I remember getting back in the car after a Youth Alive rally, feeling pumped up and hyped like you do. I just wanted to talk about the night, talk about God, spout the joy I was feeling like a fountain. But everyone else was tired. It was late and we had to drive an hour home. Nobody else was talking. I remember sitting in the car staring out the window, feeling like I might literally burst... even in  a car full of young Christians, I felt like no-one else wanted to talk about God like I did.

I wonder if Jesus had other conversations. I wonder if some nights he was just like, "Hey, I've had a long day of healing the blind and the lame. Lets kick back and watch this episode of "The Real Housewives of Jerusalem."




Ok, so Jesus would never have watched that show; I also can't imagine him having many conversations that didn't revolve around God either.

I mean, he must have talked about a lot more than what is recorded in the Bible. Before he began His ministry he was a child, and there's quite a few years in there when we don't really know much about his life. But even then he was talking with the teachers in the temple at the age of 12.

I've had that youthful enthusiasm beaten out of me a little bit - not because anyone does it on purpose, but through what we seem to look at as 'maturing'. There's more to life when you're an adult. You've got responsibilities. Enough sitting around talking, you've got to get on with your life as well.

I want that feeling back, the one where I'll burst if I'm not talking about God. If God is real in our lives, can we ever talk about Him too much? If 'real life' means putting God in a certain box and only opening it at Church or church events, and then putting Him back in when I go to work and about my daily life - then I don't want that life!

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said.  But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”  Luke 10:38-42

If I believe my life is nothing without God in it, then how can I do anything but talk about Him, think about Him, share Him and meditate on Him day and night!?  Celebrate what He has done for me and given me?

I know it doesn't work like that. But it should. We should be bursting, overflowing.

Even after writing this post I'll probably end up going and watching TV, or doing something else rather than reading the Bible or talking to God. And I know God created the world for us to enjoy and live in, so it's not wrong to have interests and hobbies and jobs. And not everyone is called to be a minister or a missionary (although perhaps we all are, in our own ways). But how can we not strongly desire God to be infused in every single part of our lives?

 It just baffles me how I can feel something so strongly at one moment and then feel so much apathy the next.

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.  Romans 7:15

How do you keep that flame alive, that passion for God, even when you haven't just been to a conference or rally? Why do we find it so hard to sit at the feet of Jesus like Mary? When was the last time you did? Is your faith just one compartment in your life, or is it in everything?