there's no escaping the truth, there's no mistaking it's You

This has been "one of those days." The kind where technically, everything is absolutely perfect, but deep down something's bothering you that you can't even really put your finger on. This week I find myself running headlong into every situation that will require full brain power, therefore leaving none leftover to think. Reason being that thinking leads to feeling and feeling leads to carring, which can cause all sorts of trouble. This applies not only to relationships but just about everything else in life too, I'm learning.

So when I finally decided to go to bed tonight and got to the point where there was no more noise or responsabilities to distract me, it all started rushing in and I began to feel kind of miserable. Just that empty lonely meaningless ache that cannot be reasoned away. So in a last-shot attempt at distracting myself, I decided to just jump into my devos for the night. And this is the passage I came to:

"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14)

And this is what J.C. Ryle had to say about it: "God the Son shares with us a common experience of living in a fallen world. His understanding of us is not therefore theoretical but personally experienced."

This was somewhat comforting, because it seemed so appropriate to the things I has been dealing with before I started reading. It's cool to realize that Christ has empathy and not just sympothy for what I'm dealing with. But I still felt pretty empty and disatisfied, although I couldn't put my finger on exactly why. When the God of the Universe is stooping to spoon-feed me encouragements at exactly the time I need them, how can I possibly still feel lonely?

Then it occured to me- I'm human. As such, I'm always going to want things like a physical face to react to the things I'm saying, or a physical arm around my shoulders to support me, or a physical voice to encourage me. We humans are crazy about this stuff, about relating to one another. But it's funny, because so often when we build friendships and hang out and invest time and money into one another, it's for the simplest, most insignificant things. While the deapths of love possible between two humans is on one hand phenominal, on the other hand it's very basic and simple- a kind of "you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours" arrangement.

All this to say, I realized in that moment that wanting and seeking after a relationship with Jesus Christ is harder than befriending other people. It's not as natural, or as easy. It's like cultivating a taste for anything really worth enjoying in this life, from fine wine to jazz music. It will always be easier to drink cheap soda and listen to popular radio, but in the end of the day, it won't be as fufilling. So if I can get past the shallow, silly things that I want out of other people, I will discover that what I really want is Christ. That the song and dance of human relationships is fun and even necessary, but not by any means the best out there.

Here's an example of one of the ways in which Christ makes a vastly supperior friend to any we will find on this earth:

"Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people." (Hebrews 2:17)