My Longing For 2011

I can't believe this is my 3rd time doing this on the blog  but as a New Year rolls around, once again God has put a longing in my heart for 2011...(you can read 2010 here 2010 Heart's Desire and 2009 here, 2009 Heart's Desire)...

In the past, I always felt like God was laying something on my heart that needed some work...  To love more like Him...  To guard my heart and not be so worldly...  But something is different this year... 

It began on Christmas Eve with a skit our church did at our Christmas Eve service.  It was very simple, but the gist of it was 3 different people trying to give Jesus the perfect Christmas gift when all He wanted was them...  Simple, but profound and it got me thinking...

I spend SO much time trying to serve Him that sometimes I forget to just spend time with Him and know Him...  One of my favorite verses, I would probably even consider it my life verse, is Philippians 3:8:

"What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ..."

Paul considers all things garbage compared to knowing Christ...  A big house...  garbage compared to Christ...  A cool vacation...  garbage compared to Jesus...  A new car...  rubbish compared to Him...  I could go on and on...  But whatever it is that grips our hearts is garbage is compared to knowing Jesus!

Paul goes on in verse 10 and says simply, I want to know Christ...  I want to know the power of His resurrection...  Paul even considers suffering as an opportunity to fellowship with Jesus and know Him more...


If you know about Paul, then you know that he wrote most of the New Testament, he planted numerous churches, you could say that God used him to help firmly establish the early church and strengthen the church for all time...  Wow, can you imagine being used by God like that?! 

But from Philippians 3:8 and 10, it's clear that Paul had one primary mission in life...  and it wasn't about what he would do...  It was all about who He would know...  everything else was the overflow of knowing Jesus!

How wonderfully simple to have a single focus in life!

So as I head in to 2011, I'm setting my heart on knowing Jesus more...  Yes, I want to serve Him more... Yes, I want to know victory over the things I still struggle with... Yes, I want my heart and my life to reflect Him more...  But I believe that all of that will come when I FIRST know Him more!

I don't want to make any big sweeping commitments about how much I'll write on my blog this year (I can never seem to follow through on those)...  but I would love to share some of this journey with you...  So I will do my best to write, at least weekly, something I'm learning about knowing Jesus more...

I want to leave you with the words of a beautiful song by Casting Crowns...  To Know You... I think it says beautifully what God has put on my heart for 2011...

To know You is to never worry for my life
To know You is to never give into compromise and
To know You is to want to tell the world about You
‘Cause I can’t live without You

To know You is to hear Your voice when You are calling
To know You is to catch my brother when he is falling
To know You is to feel the pain of the brokenhearted
‘Cause they can’t live without You

More than my next breath
More than life or death
All I’m reaching for, I live my life to know You more
I leave it all behind, You’re all that satisfies
To know You is to want to know You more
To know You is to want to know You more

To know You is to ache for more than ordinary
To know You is to look beyond the temporary
To know You is believing that You’ll be enough
‘Cause there’s no life without You

All this life could offer me
Could not compare to You, compare to You
And I count it all as loss
Compared to knowing You, knowing You

All this life could offer me
Could not compare to You, compare to You
And I count it all as loss
Compared to knowing You, knowing You

And I count it all as loss
Compared to knowing You, knowing You