Most of us have the same recurring experience week in and week out. We show up to church. We sing songs of worship to God. We hear a message about God. We have a powerful encounter with God. Maybe during the songs our passions are stirred. Maybe during the sermon something really hits home. Maybe during prayer time or at some point during the worship experience God speaks in a clear, profound, or direct way. We walk away passionate and excited about knowing and pursuing God more. But then Monday morning rolls around and as soon as our feet hit the ground we have zero passion, zeal or excitement for Jesus.

Youth Ministry

If you are someone who regularly attended church growing up, you probably went to youth camp. And if your experience has been like almost every other student, then here’s what happened…

Your youth pastor and leaders got you pumped up about camp six months before actually going. You show up to camp and after five sweaty, intense, and passionate days/nights of experiencing God, you walk away feeling on top of the world. You’re going to go back to your school and take it over for Jesus. You decide to never cuss again. You are never going to look at pornography. You decide to read the Bible two hours a day and pray for at least 30 minutes a day for the rest of your life. That first Wednesday you get back from camp you and the entire youth group are on fire for Jesus! That second Wednesday back, you and maybe 3 other students are still on fire. By the third Wednesday back from camp school is around the corner, you have walked into more sin then you did before camp, and you feel so far from God and you wonder if God could really use you for great things.

Ethiopian Religious Upbringing

I’ll tell you a little of my story. Up until the age of nine, I hated church. My wild Ethiopian mom forced me to go to a Pentecostal Baptist church with her and it was boring. My brother and I regularly skipped Sunday school and did dumb stuff instead. During this time I had my first meeting with her senior pastor because while skipping class my brother and I tied up a kid and apparently nearly killed him by almost cutting off his oxygen flow. My dad made us go to an Ethiopian Orthodox church, which meant that in order to have communion I had to eat from the priests hand in front of the whole church along with the other 40 kids who were bored out of their minds.

So when my buddy, Austin, asked me to come to church with him on Wednesday nights I was wondering why in the world anyone would want to experience the nightmare of Sunday morning twice a week?! After a year of asking me to go I finally decided to show up because he said there would be hot girls and pizza.

Over the course of the next seven years though, I experienced the recurring living nightmare. I was drawn to church in a profound way. I went to church on Wednesday nights, felt God in a powerful way, and by the next morning he didn’t seem anywhere near. I desperately wanted to experience God in my bedroom like I did in the sanctuary. I yearned for a vibrant prayer life that wasn’t tied to a worship service. I wanted to regularly read the Bible outside of Sunday mornings. I wanted to feel God as powerfully as I did on Wednesday nights but it just never seemed to happen.

The Bible’s Claims

I’m writing this as your brother who struggles to walk with God day in and day out. I’ll tell you up front. It ain’t sexy. What I mean is that pursuing God day in and day out is not something celebrated, seemingly attractive, or easy to do. But there are astonishing statements in the Bible that makes this pursuit the most important thing in the universe.

Psalm 16:11 says, “You make known to me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” King David said this and he had unprecedented access to sex, money, and power on a scale that you and I will probably never have. Yet he says God is better and offers more satisfaction to the soul. In Philippians 3:8 the Apostle Paul says, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” Don’t just gloss over this verse because you want to finish this book as fast as possible. Read that verse again. This is borderline insanity. Paul is saying that if you gained all of the things that you day dream about and never know Christ, it would all be for nothing.

C’mon!

So here’s my invitation to you: journey with me. Join me on this path of knowing and experiencing Jesus more in our actual day to day lives. I’m inviting all of us to take a baby step today. Maybe a one sentence prayer. Maybe pick up the Bible and read and meditate on one verse. I don’t know what your step will look like. My hope is that we would walk away seeing more of God’s nature, character, and heart. My hope is that we would see God for who he actually is and desire to pursue him day in and day out. My hope is that when we don’t feel like following Jesus we would pursue him anyways because we know that our joy and satisfaction is at stake.

What step can you take in the next 24 hours to pursue him more deeply?