Larry Crabb
February 6, 2003
2:30 pm
Message Summary
We can follow the Spirit into experiencing God to such a level that we experience profound joy despite our pain, said Larry Crabb in his second of three Founder’s Week afternoon sessions. Crabb wrestled with unmet desires in Christians’ lives and how they foster a hunger for God and also provide opportunity to speak spiritually vitalizing words into other peoples’ lives.
What really awakens an appetite for God? Crabb offered that times of suffering reveal a person’s deepest desires. Perhaps the person cherishes marital happiness, godly children, good health or any other noble goal more than his or her relationship with the Lord. Yet until that person says, “I’d rather have God and nothing else than everything else and lose God,” the person misses the doorway into the heart of God.
However, when that person seeks God not in order to obtain second tier blessings but hoping to know God’s heart, then comes what John Owens described as the enjoyment of each member of the Trinity uniquely and distinctly. And those experiences of God’s person lead us to exclaim, “Isn’t God good? even in difficult times because we value communion with God more than blessings from God.
Then, believing that “life is not about me. Life is about him and knowing him,” we can enter deeply into other peoples’ stories. Crabb challenged his audience to feel the pains of childbirth for others, desiring that they know Jesus intimately and hold him as their primary desire. And armed with that vision, we can speak powerfully into each other’s lives.
Student Response
My choices aren’t really about me. I must funnel everything through the grid of what draws me closer to or pulls me from the heart of God. Life is also sometimes discouraging and frustrating. My goals are unmet sometimes. My friends’ best attempts at encouragement and good advice sometimes ring hollow. And sometimes God doesn’t meet me in that place with a fresh breath of spiritual fervor. Sometimes he just lets me wallow in my frustrated desires so that I realize my desires are misplaced. For only then do I discover how much I long for God—and only that motivates me to chase his heart.
—Dale Harris, Senior, Pastoral Studies major