El Qanna
The conference I so desperately wanted to attend last month is called onething. The tagline is, "One desire. One pursuit. One answer. God alone." The whole point of the conference is the why and the how of making God (or Jesus) the one thing of importance in life. Somewhere around 15,000 people attended. Bonus: it was free.
That weekend changed my life. Something I've realized for a while is that, if God really is who I believe he is, he deserves a lot more of me than I'm giving. In fact, he deserves it all. I don't want to be half-hearted. So, I had high hopes that this conference would be just what I needed.
Well, it was. But not because of the program, or any talk. Rather, because God met me there. (This is probably going to sound kinda weird to some. Oh well.) While worshipping him, he spoke to me through one of the songs that we were singing. (Incidentally, it was "Relentless" by Misty Edwards.) He said, "I burn with love for you." There was such a ferocity to his love, a burning intensity, that I at once understood what he meant when he talked about himself in the Bible as being jealous. The revelation of his love for me left me weeping.
("The jealous God", a name God self-applies in Exodus 34:14, is "El Qanna" in Hebrew. Hence the title of this post.)
I learned a lot at the conference, and I got quite a bit out of it. But eclipsing everything else was this acute awareness that I am loved by the living God. How glorious! Since then, I've been amazed at how easy life is. If I'm starting to get bummed about something, I remember--oh yeah!--God loves me! I'm his child!
Really, truly, this is life. Everything else just happens, just takes care of itself, when I walk in the knowledge of his great, passionate, firey love for me. Am I worried? Hey, don't be: God's got everything under control, and you can trust that he desires the best for you. Depressed? How can depression or frustration or pessimism stand, when the light of his love shines on it? Tempted? Pshaw, what sort of pleasure can sin offer, compared to this?
Anyway...I'm not trying to preach here or anything. I wanted to document the occasion that changed my life, and how it did.
That weekend changed my life. Something I've realized for a while is that, if God really is who I believe he is, he deserves a lot more of me than I'm giving. In fact, he deserves it all. I don't want to be half-hearted. So, I had high hopes that this conference would be just what I needed.
Well, it was. But not because of the program, or any talk. Rather, because God met me there. (This is probably going to sound kinda weird to some. Oh well.) While worshipping him, he spoke to me through one of the songs that we were singing. (Incidentally, it was "Relentless" by Misty Edwards.) He said, "I burn with love for you." There was such a ferocity to his love, a burning intensity, that I at once understood what he meant when he talked about himself in the Bible as being jealous. The revelation of his love for me left me weeping.
("The jealous God", a name God self-applies in Exodus 34:14, is "El Qanna" in Hebrew. Hence the title of this post.)
I learned a lot at the conference, and I got quite a bit out of it. But eclipsing everything else was this acute awareness that I am loved by the living God. How glorious! Since then, I've been amazed at how easy life is. If I'm starting to get bummed about something, I remember--oh yeah!--God loves me! I'm his child!
Really, truly, this is life. Everything else just happens, just takes care of itself, when I walk in the knowledge of his great, passionate, firey love for me. Am I worried? Hey, don't be: God's got everything under control, and you can trust that he desires the best for you. Depressed? How can depression or frustration or pessimism stand, when the light of his love shines on it? Tempted? Pshaw, what sort of pleasure can sin offer, compared to this?
Anyway...I'm not trying to preach here or anything. I wanted to document the occasion that changed my life, and how it did.