Your face is beautiful
And Your eyes are like the stars
Your gentle hands have healing, there inside the scars
Your loving arms they draw me near,
And your smile it brings me peace
Draw me closer, oh my Lord,
Draw me closer Lord to Thee.

Through all the craziness of the day, I had precious little time to just Breathe. Lately my alone times with God have been shoved into my drive times, or snatched moments throughout the day, rather than a more consentrated block of time toward the end of the day.

This isn’t the way I want to live my life. I want it to be focused on God, where HE gets the best of my "time slots", not just slotted in where I have time. For all the frustration and loneliness I had in Cyprus, one thing I had plenty of was time alone with God. Even then it didn’t feel like "enough"… can a person really get "enough" of God??

But here, in the US… there are just so many distractions. So many things I "could" do, "should" do, want to do. God so often gets put on the "when I get to it" list. I don’t think He likes that much.

Today I heard Him calling… well, more like felt the strong pull of His heart. Kerry, my boss, was bouncing around the office like a ping pong ball, taking calls, booking interviews, and doing God-knows what else — He reminds me of some people in my past. My old Type-A friends, and a lot of executives I knew in the industry. You know, those people who always seem to have it all together, always look perfect, and never crack under the pressure.  So life, the universe, or whatever, heaps more and more upon them in some silly, vain attempt to find their breaking point. Let me give them all a piece of advice: give it up. I don’t think Kerry has one. With all the running around he did, I never saw him sweat. Which is just wrong. But that’s beside the point…

Things got crazy fast, and I, unlike Kerry, was sweating like a pig. It’s been far too long since I’ve been in the thick of things like that, and I wasn’t liking either the pressure or who I saw myself becoming under it.

That’s when I felt the pull. "Get out. Go for a walk. Take a drive. Step away. It won’t fall apart without you. But you will fall apart without Me."

Captivate us, Lord Jesus.
Set our eyes on You.
Devastate us with Your presence
….Falling down.
Rushing river draw us nearer.
Holy fountain consume us with You.
Captivate us, Lord Jesus,
With You.

I grabbed my purse and car keys, and headed out on the pretense of getting some lunch. Even as I entered the elevator to go down to my car, I felt the exhaustion creeping into my soul. I need, Jesus, I whispered. I need.

This is our "code". Years ago I recognized I had a "soul need", one that nothing I tried could ever touch. Finally, in desperation I cried out to God, "I need! I don’t know what I need, I just know I need! Can you fill me?"

Your voice is powerful
And Your words are radiant bright.
In your breath and shadow
I will come close and abide.
You whisper love and life divine
And Your fellowship is free.
Draw me closer, oh my Lord.
Draw me closer, Lord,
To Thee.

When God decides to answer a question, He doesn’t go half way. He took the next few years of my life to show me just how fully and completely He can fill me, in all the cracks and crevasses of my Needing. Today my soul-need was particularly deep, and as the elevator headed to the parking garage, I took some time to Breathe, to  fill my soul with the fragrance of God. To allow Him to breath fresh Life into every fiber of my being.

It was the best elevator ride of my life.

Captivate us, Lord Jesus.
Set our eyes on You.
Devastate us with Your presence
….Falling down.
Rushing river draw us nearer.
Holy fountain consume us with You.
Captivate us, Lord Jesus,
With You.

I had gotten a message on my cell phone from a friend in LA. As I drove down to Arby’s I listened as she poured out her heart in voicemail, a request for prayer. She, too, has been fitting God into her time slots because the fast pace of LA life has made a disaster of her Day-timer. — Well, okay, she doesn’t have one of those, but if she did, it would’ve been rendered useless long ago.

I wept as I listened again to her message. Why is it, Lord, that we say with our mouths we long to worship at Your feet all day long, yet our lives speak to a totally different set of priorities? How can this be, that two single women with no major family or career commitments can find their days so totally tied up with "To Dos" that they have no time for the only One who can, and longs to, fill them completely?

Let everything be lost in the shadows of the light of Your face.
Let every chain be broken from me as I’m bound in Your grace.
For Your yoke is easy, Your burden is light
You’re full of wisdom, power and might
And every eye will see You…

I listened as my friend told me of her weekend, of hurts too deep to fathom in just the few minutes we had, and of frustrations, discouragement… and her soul-need. I hung up with her, turned to Jesus and said, "Help my friend…. please! Help my friend!" That’s all I could think to say. All that she had spoken of, all that stirred in my heart, it all came down to that one thing. My friend needs, Jesus. Only You can fill her. Please help my friend!

I don’t know if her "lesson" on God’s ability to meet her soul-need will take nearly as long as mine (I’m a slow learner), or what paths it will lead her down… But, a strange thing happened to me in the process of giving my heart over to her pain: God filled my soul-need.

Whether it was my time in the elevator inhaling deeply the amazing aroma of Jesus, or taking the time to ask God the hows and whys of my life and that of my friend, or the simple act of telling her how much I love her…. I don’t know. But somewhere in those thirty minutes, God revived my spirit and fed my soul.

I am continually astonished by God’s constant presence in my life. He makes Himself obvious to me in powerful yet subtle ways every single day. And every time, it surprises, amazes and humbles me. You would think this to be enough to completely captivate me. Forever. You would think.

But the lure of the physical world often captivates me more, then takes me captive to all it’s sparkling nothingness and sucks me dry of Life. I need Jesus to captivate me. And re-captivate me… a thousand times over and back again… Perhaps that’s how He designed me to be… a constant needing for Him, who alone can not only fill me, but captivate me, completely.

Captivate us, Lord Jesus.
Set our eyes on You.
Devastate us with Your presence
….Falling down.
Rushing river draw us nearer.
Holy fountain consume us with You.
Captivate us, Lord Jesus,
With You.

"Captivate Us"  written by Nathan & Christy Nockels – from Watermark’s The Purest Place album