at His pleasure.

I prayed for grace on my way home from church last night. Not to understand grace, nor for the ability to explain it. But to feel it.

Sometimes, I'm afraid that I am more in love with the church than I am with God. So I remind myself that my fears make God no less real, no less God, even if true.

Nevertheless, I often think that an indicator to me that my love for God transcends an interest in the church would be my life flooded so fully with Christ's love, that I begin to live to help others know Him.

But then...I'd have to know Him. I worry that though I understand, and can explain His love and His grace, I don't feel them so fully that I'll go out to share them. Then again, William Seymour began preaching the evidence of tongues long before he ever spoke them himself. He studied the Bible, and moved across the country, and allowed himself to be mocked and ridiculed, and put everything on the line, all for something he himself had no personal evidence of, and all while seeing so many others around him receive this glory. That's faith.

In the 5 or so minutes on Battlefield between 65 and Glenstone, it occurred to me that I don't need to really, deeply feel His love to know it exists, to give it to others, and to pray for it.

Whether or not I ever fully feel and grasp His love for me won't change the truth of His existence. Wesley's "peculiar warming" of the heart won't make me certain.

I can become discouraged by my own lack of feeling, or I can keep moving, and pray. Last night, I chose prayer. Tonight I choose prayer. By the grace of God, I'll choose prayer again tomorrow.

Prayer for what? For peace, and obedience. For a heart after God. That's what I pray for, often. "Father, let my heart desire You. Even if nothing works out, even when I don't want anything to do with You, keep something stirring in my heart. If I ask now, will You be faithful to me when I've forgotten You, or worse, rejected You? Because I know my heart is fickle. I know that my mind intrudes on the soul, and the world obscures You. I know I can't promise to love you for always, or even for the next week. Will You help me love You? Will You keep my heart towards You because I asked?"

No act of will can bring my heart to His. He draws.

Some people don't find this sovereignty of God very comforting. Hearing that He will "have mercy on whom [He] has mercy, and compassion on whom [He] has compassion," is unsettling.

I understand that, I do. But I prefer such words on His sovereignty to words on His kindness, or Grace, or unfailing Love (though I enjoy those, too).

Maybe because I don't always feel God's love, or fully connect with His grace, I'm comforted to know that no matter what I feel, my role is ordained. No matter the circumstances of my life, I exist at the whim of a sovereign God.

I once read an interview with a CIA operative, who was asked about taking orders from an administration with which he disagreed. He said that his political affiliations didn't matter. He served at the pleasure of the president, without regard for what that president believed on any particular issue.

So with me.

I serve at the pleasure of the living God.