Crushed.

“We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit." - A.W Tozer

In middle school a friend's older sister would read Seventeen magazine, and let her younger sister have all the celebrity posters that came in the magazine. My friend's room was covered from wall to wall with faces of Dylan and Cole Sprouse, Zac Efron, Nick Jonas, and every other Disney male headliner from 2005-2008. She had an insane crush on Troy Bolton from High School Musical, so Zac Efron was the focal point. She even had a Zac Efron poster on her ceiling so that he would be the last face she saw before she went to sleep every night. She had a crush, and it permeated every. single. aspect of her life. She had Troy Bolton binders, Troy Bolton locker accessories, Troy Bolton T shirts...the list goes on and on. She was obsessed.

When you're crushin' on someone, you become the kind of level three stalker that every FBI agent wishes they could be. You creep on their social media pages, you know where they hang out, you figure out what types of music the person is into, you look for common interests, you try to do everything you can to learn about that person. Then, you do just about anything you can to get that person to notice you. I had a crush on a guy a couple of years ago, and I tried to get him to teach me how to play golf because "I've always wanted to learn how to play." and I started going to basketball games and following basketball on TV because "I've always liked basketball! I just never have time to get into it recently because of school." 

Ya'll. 

My name is Melissa Jennings, and if you know me at ALL (or even just barely) you know for a big fat fact of life that I do not sport. I do not like sports. I do not play sports. I do not follow sports. I do not athlete. God gave me a lot of different talents, but He forgot to add a pinch of hand-eye coordination.

And I went and told this boy that I loved golf and basketball. 

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

And he actually took me to the range and taught me how to swing a golf bat (yeah yeah yeah, I know it's a club...golf bat makes way more sense though) and I was so excited. I had on a little visor, my favorite tank top, and my favorite pair of shorts on. Definitely feeling pretty good about myself. And I'm swinging and knocking golf balls into the field when I swing really hard (in an attempt to show off I'm sure), hit myself in the head, and then in a stunned stupor I jerk the club down & stab the guy in the gut before dropping the club on his foot. Guess who didn't get invited back to the golf range ever again? 


(me.)

I lied when I said I liked sports, obviously, but it didn't feel like a lie when I told him. I genuinely believed I would learn to love sports if that meant that this guy would like me back. I didn't care what I had to do...I liked him, and I just wanted him to like me back. I don't care if you're a guy or a girl- everyone has a crush story where you did something dumb for someone you liked. Eventually you get so tired of trying that you just give up and move on.






Here's my thought that I've been trying to sort out recently...

I think sometimes Christians crush on Jesus without ever being in a relationship with Him. Or maybe that's just me? Because here's what I've suddenly realized about myself:

I go to church to learn about Jesus. I want to learn as much as I possibly can about Him so that I can do things that He would like for me to do. I was in the church choir. I served on the women's ministry team. I was involved in my college group. I volunteered in youth groups and children's ministry events. I was in the building any time the doors were opened. I wanted to all the good things so Jesus would notice me and like me back. I liked Jesus...I wanted Jesus to like me back. I'd even lie and volunteer for things that I didn't enjoy doing at all, just so I could say "Look Jesus! See me? Notice what I'm doing? Isn't that great?" And I'd say in my head "Now Jesus has to like me even more now..."

But eventually, I just got tired of trying so hard. I got burned out. I got defeated by how discouraged I was in this never-ending cycle of "do more, be more, try more, add more, keep on keeping on..." and I gave up. I lost interest in this idea of a Jesus who would never like me back, and I moved on to other things.

Sound familiar?

Instead of being in a committed relationship with Jesus, I've just been crushing on Him. I've stalked Him, I've admired Him, I've maybe even admitted to liking Him a time or two. I've talked about Him, I've gone and supported lots and lots of His events...but I haven't been in love with Him.

When I realized this, it hit me like a freight train and completely uprooted my life. I started to seek out what it meant for Melissa Jennings to have an authentic relationship with Christ, and I found answers in places I never would have expected. 

But can I just tell you what a difference I've seen in my life over the last few months as I've found myself falling in love with Jesus again?

I spend more time in the bible...like...outside of church settings. Not in preparation for a bible study or anything, but because I genuinely want to hear from God. And because I have suddenly realized that God really is capable of doing that through His word.

I worship when I'm driving around in my car. I don't just have KLOVE or Air1 playing in the background, singing with the catchy choruses of certain songs. I have playlists of songs that move me to tears and I am honored and so excited to have the opportunity to sing words of praise to my Savior as I commute from place to place.

I pray. I am honest with God and tell Him exactly how I feel with no reservations. I tell Him everything now, whereas before I just told Him the stuff I assumed He wanted to hear. 

I am learning so so much, because I am actively searching for a relationship with God instead of just admiring Him from afar.

And don't you just want to smack me on the head and tell me I should have had a V8 or something? This is the ENTIRE point of Christianity, and I somewhere along the line I just...forgot? How ridiculous is that?!








I heard Matt Chandler say recently in a study on Phillipians that nobody stumbles onto Godliness by accident.

If I'm being honest, I didn't understand what that meant at first.

"Of course you can stumble onto Godliness. People flip through the radio stations all the time and stumble onto K-LOVE or AirOne. They hear "just the right song" at "just the right moment." People interact with christians in grocery stores and are encouraged or blessed through those conversations or meetings all the time."

My thought process was that people don't always intentionally do things that impact their spiritual growth. Sometimes God just uses our circumstances, or where we are in a particular season of life, to bless us or bring Him glory. I don't believe in coincidences; I prefer to call those little moments "God-Things" and since we can't plan for "God-Things" we stumble upon them.

Right?

Well...not exactly.

My definition was way off. I thought Godliness meant moments or aspects of life that made you think of God. Sooooo going to church, spending time with christians, going on church trips, or doing your homework for bible study were all parts of being Godly. Don't get me wrong: those aren't bad things! They are good things that can bring God glory, and draw us closer to Him. But if we do these great 'Godly things' with misplaced intentions, then they aren't worth doing at all. Doing good christian-y things isn't what makes us good christians. Godliness is about how we imitate our Heavenly Father and how we implement a Christ-like attitude into our heart.

And that seems so basic, doesn't it? As christians we go to church,we sing songs about Jesus, we paint Jesus on the walls of our children's church hallways, we put the Jesus fish on the back of our car, we go to every Christian movie that hits a theater, we shop at Lifeway, we have NIV ESV MSG AMP and KJV bibles sitting on bookshelves next to our commentaries on Calvinism or the latest book by Keller or Platt. We make it look like we have Jesus everywhere!

But, like I said, doing christian-stuff isn't the thing that makes you a Christian. It's like the illustration that says standing in a garage doesn't make you a car. Staring at the gym from my seat in Starbucks, sitting in running shoes, drinking from my Camelback, and reading articles about optimal running trails doesn't make me a runner. I'm only a runner when I'm training or running. (And, for those who are wondering...I am not a true runner very often.)

A relationship with God isn't something that happens on accident. I don't accidentally become a woman of valor by going through the motions of the good church girl. I don't accidentally get my sins forgiven somewhere along the line of living a moral life. I don't accidentally fall in love with God by not spending any time with Him. A relationship is formed by pursuing Him. By striving to live a life that looks more like the one that He led. When I choose to wholeheartedly go after Him, He will reveal that He has wholeheartedly been going after me since the day I was born...I've just been too stubborn to notice. 

"To count on the fact that we are dead to sin and alive to God is something we must do actively. To do it we must form the habit of continually realizing that we are dead to sin and alive to God." -Jerry Bridges The Pursuit of Holiness

There is so much more to the Christian life than stalking Jesus out on Sundays. We don't have to try to prove ourselves to Him, we don't have to work extra hard to get His attention, we don't have to do extravagant things to hold his affection. He loves us, despite anything we say or do.

May the weight of that truth crush all the other ideas that you've had up to this point in your life and permeate every aspect of the future life that you lead. My dear friend, there is so much more freedom in living a life where you feel unconditionally loved by the loving Father who created you...