Treasure Hunting for God

Asked for a devotional on how I deepen my relationship with God, I came up with the following.  Sadly I couldn't fit a Cowboy Mouth or Adele song in the 1hr I had to write it:

Weep for yourself, my man,
You'll never be what is in your heart
Weep Little Lion Man,
You're not as brave as you were at the start
Rate yourself and rake yourself,
Take all the courage you have left
Wasted on fixing all the problems
That you made in your own head – Mumford and Sons

My relationship with God deepens through any number of processes, events, practices, and encounters.  Yet often the most meaningful, life changing moments come seemingly randomly while focused on some organized process aimed to an end, much like following a map to the X where the treasure will be found.  Yet, rarely do these “treasure” seeking missions turn out as simple as the map makes them out to be. Along the way things happen which cause me to look more deeply at myself, to see what my personal motivations are, to hear the music that is playing as I walk along side others, to see the world more deeply through better understanding myself and those I’m traveling with. 

Ten thousand words swarm around my head
Ten million more in books written beneath my bed
I wrote or read them all when searchin’ in the swarms
Still can’t find out how to hold my hands – Avett Brothers

Sometimes what we find even at the end of these adventures is the thing that changes us.  Sometimes we think something is the answer, but when we look at it deeper it actually changes us and changes the questions. Our relationship with God is deepened by realizing that the everyday has great amounts of spirit moving throughout it and it leaves us caught in a tension between realizing what it is that we could have done differently and working to reorient ourselves on the path we’re now on as the people we’ve become.  This constant state of flux and searching makes up life itself and pulls at us so we can’t just be comfortable as who we see ourselves to be.  When we are willing to not just focus on an end, but to see the means of life as ends unto themselves, we find ourselves continually moving, changing, growing, and ever more faithfully searching for who we were made to be. 

In these bodies we will live,
in these bodies we will die
Where you invest your love,
you invest your life – Mumford and Sons

Awake My Soul.