“I am desperate for Your touch….In a moment You can turn a life around…” Do you live with that perspective … bump into it now and again in some special moment … or just wish you could get there? I guess if I were writing that lyric I would have said ‘I want to be desperate for Your touch‘. I’ve had my moments when my heart was wide open and I felt that God was working on changing me. I can’t manufacture those moments, structure them, nor even put my faith in them. If there is anything we know about emotions and feelings, they’re about as dependable as a weather forecast.
But I long to escape from the academic and sterile, correct and collect Christianity. No, I don’t want to be incorrect nor afraid of academics. But I want to sing my heart out not really caring if I’m in tune or not. My neighbors might not appreciate such reckless abandon, but I have a much higher calling than their melodic hopes. And truthfully, I don’t want to be the only one. I am desperate for His touch, and at the same time I do not want to look like it. Broken hearted and disappointed in my own sin, I privately pour it out to God. Then when gathered with my Family I provide the great example of the one who has it all together.
There’s something missing as we quote and study the writings of Apostle Paul – something that we overlook. The confessional nature of Paul’s letters fascinate me. “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me” (Philippians 3:12). “For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out” (Romans 7:18). “I hope you will put up with a little of my foolishness; but you are already doing that” (2 Corinthians 11:1).
Let Your love take me deeper, pull me closer to where You are, ’cause all I want is more of You. And I’ll surrender to Your love, forever humbled by the message of the cross. Yes, this is a wonderful prayer for us to embrace. Let Your love take me deeper. We are overcomers, who have yet still much to overcome. Impossible without His love and power, we cling to Him. Another songwriter of another generation wrote, “Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling; naked, come to thee for dress; helpless, look to thee for grace; foul, I to the fountain fly; wash me, Savior, or I die” ~ Augustus Montague Toplady, 1763.
