anticipation

Today, for the first time that I can remember, I experienced true anticipation.

The church service today was centered around communion. The message and the music was focused on preparing our hearts to partake in communion. It was a very encouraging, sobering, and reflective time.

One point my pastor made was that communion leads us to anticipate the returning of Christ. When we take communion, we are looking forward to the time when Christ will return and celebrate with us. How awesome will that be!

This past week as I prepared to take communion, I had to ask God to forgive me for many things that I struggle with and that I’ve been convicted of lately. The more time I spent in prayer, the more I’ve remembered and experienced the refreshing grace of God in my life. God is so big. So mighty. So powerful. And yet he knows where I struggle and is willing to forgive me for my failures when I ask. How awesome is that.

Today as I sang with the congreation and praised God for His grace and what He did for me on the cross, I realized how much I long for Christs return. In the past, I’ve been more foccused on what I want to experience and do before the Lord returns. I don’t want to miss out on the good things here on earth!

But as I worshiped and prayed, this huge longing and desire to be free of these frustrating sins and earthly bondage flooded over me. Oh how I long to be in God’s presence with no distractions, nothing hindering my focus, and nothing getting in the way of pure and undefiled worship. I long for Christs return.

I long for the healing of broken bodies, when beautiful Kenyan children are no longer stuck in wheelchairs (that don’t work) with physical impairments that make daily living painful and lonely.

I long for famine to end, for families to be reconciled, and for cancer to be obliterated.

I long to pray without distraction, to praise without my mind wandering, and to fall so in love with Christ that nothing else matters.

I am anticipating the return of Christ eagerly.