Is God my greatest need?

This week when Holy Spirit led me to pray through Psalm 23, I barely made it through the first verse without having to stop and ask if I really lived in and believed this. Verse one says,

“The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.”

I shall not want - that got me. The NIV puts it as “I lack nothing”, the Passion Translation as “I always have more than enough.” I stopped and thought about the list of things I want and have been stuck on for months. A few days before this, God had pointed out that sometimes my wants and desires start to grow too large in my mind and begin to assert themselves as my greatest needs. I wake up thinking about them, I catch myself planning and dreaming of them throughout my day, I go to sleep assuring myself of how great it will be when I get them. My wants and desires have risen higher than they should, I’m often battling these thoughts and struggling to quiet them when I spend time with Jesus. I come to my Shepherd so distracted by all the things I want that I can hardly hear His voice. Do I believe that when Jesus is my Shepherd I lack no good thing? I think so, but then all the distracting thoughts get loud and I wonder if maybe I don't actually. I was challenged realizing that I wasn’t coming to Jesus as my Shepherd who had already satisfied everything I could ever want, I was coming to Him as if I had to convince Him to give me the things I wanted/needed. Like a child at the store I kept picking up things and begging Him to buy it for me, and I felt unheard and unprovided for when He put those things back on the shelf.

But even in this conviction, I started to wonder what are we supposed to do with our wants and desires? If God truly is the One I cling to and the Shepherd I'm following, should I have these huge wants that consume my thoughts? I believe that as my kind Father, God wants to hear about the things on my heart and give good gifts. But what do I do when the things I think are good for me are different than the things He says are good for me? How do I pray for, submit, and entrust my dreams that are a "no", or are a "not yet" - and how do I get them to stop being at the forefront of every thought? How do I keep these things in their rightful place below God? The Amplified Bible puts Gods response to our needs this way:

"Seek My face [in prayer, require My presence as your greatest need]"

Psalm 27:8

So like all things, it comes down to us making the choice. A choice to seek God and behold Him as our greatest need, or to succumb to the long list of wants that we will fight for as if they were the Most High God in our lives. I'm convicted by this, and also, truthfully, I feel tired by it. I feel tired of choosing God as my greatest need and submitting every thought and desire that tries to steal the spotlight. I feel frustrated that this is still a choice I have to actively make and ask God to help me with - I'm thankful and annoyed all at once that the point of this is to teach me I will never stop needing God to help me rely on Him. I love the Lord so deeply, and also in this moment I feel fatigued by the daily choice to keep my eyes fixed above this world when I'm still asked to live within it. I've again come to the important understanding that a life of pursing Jesus is hard, and that it continually requires self-sacrifice and trust. I feel like this sounds a bit dramatic - but I think it's a lie to pretend that the day to day of following Jesus does not put strain on us and that our struggles aren't valid if they aren't due to big things. After all, He is the one who invited us to take on His yoke and His burden (Matthew 28:12). A yoke is the wooden piece that connects oxen to each other and the plow they have to pull. Jesus' yoke replaces that of the world, and He promises us His gentle presence and His rest, but its still a weight. When Jesus offered His yoke He didn't mean life would be a breeze with no pressure, but that the weight would be predominately held by Him, and He would train us to walk beside Him under it.

So this is where I am - a bit tired from the pursuit of God but longing to be closer to Him - and this is where the next few blog posts will be heading as I seek the Lord as my greatest need. I'll look through a few people in the Scriptures, and will talk through some of my thoughts as I process questions that come out of this fatigue, and maybe I'll be the only one who will benefit from these - but that's okay with me.