Are you hungry?

I am.
I am hungry for more.
More of what?
God.
This morning, Rodney Howard Browne was at our church and his message was about being hungry for God. He was talking about how people wait until they are in desperate situations to really get close to God. Then when they are comfortable again and life is going good, they fall away. That is not going to be me. I had an amazing hunger for God in high school. My standards were so so so high. When I started my job at Eagle Street, that is when my standards slowly, but surely went down and down and down. Over almost 4 years. Looking back, I am frustrated at how slowly but continuously I was taken down so low that I began to even question if God was really real anymore and if this "Christianity" stuff was real or just a big joke. (I think sometimes we do need to question to make sure that we believe what we say we believe!) Thank God for a praying family and praying friends that lift you up! If it wasn't for all of them. I would probably still be continuing on that downward spin. I knew that something was wrong when people at my work started telling me, "You're so much cooler now than when you first started working here." What did that mean, really? It meant that I had conformed. Conformed to their standards. To the world. It's tough staying strong in a bad environment if you're not grounded in your faith. And that is where I found myself. I was 2 different people. The one that I hated being, and the one I wanted to be. I feel like I finally have a breakthrough and can get back on track to where I once was. Close to the Father. Always hearing His voice. And to think that the world tried to convince me otherwise and I even bought into it. Today, today I could FEEL His presence. I cried. This is all so much. I see Jeff read the Word EVERY DAY. Do I? It'd be embarrassing to answer that. Although I am exposing myself. This is nothing but real. That's all I've wanted to be lately. Just completely real. None of this fake stuff. People don't like that anyway. People want realness from you. Acting fake just makes others feel intimidated or unworthy or just plain bad. Real. It's what I want. I don't like sugar coatings. I don't like it when people beat around the bush about the truth. Just keep it real and honest, right? My family means the most to me. When I see them pressing into God, it makes me want to press into God. When I see their hunger for God, it makes me hunger. And I don't care if my friends from Eagle Street are reading this. Read it. It's who I really am. When I see them being blessed by being obedient to the calls God has placed on their life, it makes me want to be obedient too. No more messing around. I feel like until I was able to FINALLY quit at Eagle Street, I could not FULLY get my breakthrough. It was a stronghold. And I know my family has been praying for me. I can FEEL it. It was like the last few times I worked there, I didn't even like it anymore. I wanted so badly to just leave. It was like God finalized things within me and I no longer desired to be there. I was reading in Sparkling Gems recently about how you cannot be friends with the world and also be a friend of God. If you are a friend of the world, you are an ENEMY of God and He will do what He can to get you back. Thank you, God, for not giving up on me and doing everything to get me back! Here I am now! Ready and willing! Man, I can just feel it. The presence. It's so refreshing. I can't sleep. How can I? God is doing great things. I could not thank more, my siblings for being such great examples. It means more than you know.