God Comes Where He’s Wanted
March 7, 2023 | Jonathan Kerhoulas
There’s a phrase I’ve been mulling on for the last few weeks. It’s haunting in its simplicity and compelling in its potential. That phrase is: God comes where he’s wanted.
I’ve had to really stop and consider the implications of this idea. God comes where he’s wanted. I’ve poked and prodded it, wondering what it might mean for me as an individual and disciple of Jesus, for us as a community at Trinity, and for the broader western and global Church.
This last Sunday I shared with our congregation about my experience attending the Asbury Outpouring – a unique movement of God that began on Feb. 8th after a Wednesday chapel service on the campus of Asbury University. Nineteen students decided to linger in Hughes Auditorium after chapel ended, sensing the Spirit’s prompting to continue in prayer and worship. Throughout the day, other students joined the nineteen, returning to the chapel, hungry for a continued experience of God’s love. The next two week would prove that they weren’t alone in their hunger for more of God.
To read more about the Asbury revival, consider these links:
From Feb 8 - 24, reports say that nearly 50,000 people from all over the world descended upon the tiny rural town of Wilmore, Kentucky to be a part of the worship services at Asbury University (and across the street at Asbury Seminary). As a graduate of Asbury University (2003), it was a joy to take my oldest son, Mason (13), to be a part of the revival for two days. While there are plenty of reports about what did and didn’t happen during the two-week outpouring at Asbury – the main impression I walked away with after our time in Wilmore was of the beauty and rarity of holy longing for more of God. If nothing else, the people who journeyed to Asbury were spiritually hungry and they narrowed the satisfaction of their spiritual pangs upon the one thing that could fill their souls: God himself.
To many, it felt like God was uniquely present at Asbury. My own theological convictions and understanding of the God of Christianity lead me to believe that God is present everywhere, that He dwells through the Spirit amongst his people, that He’s accessible to any and all of us through the ordinary means of grace any and all the time. But – the spiritual hunger, the longing for more of Jesus, the desperation in the hearts of those who were present – the idea that “God comes where he’s wanted” – this left an indelible impression upon my heart.
David Thomas, in a short treatise entitled “To Sow for a Great Awakening,” takes the time to review some of the key ingredients in the great Christian revivals and awakenings throughout history. While many have pointed to strategies, methods, and even preaching as fundamental to spiritual awakening, Thomas discovered a lesser known but essential aspect of every renewal movement, what he describes as, “A kind of spiritual posture found among some who were the catalytic core—a spirit of urgency and audacity, an attitude of brokenness and desperation, a manner of prayer that could be daring and agonizing.” God comes where he’s wanted.
As a pastor in Southern California, this gives me both tremendous hope and pause. The pause comes from the realism that as San Diegans we can easily mute our spiritual hunger through the things on offer in and around our beautiful city. We don’t (often) live desperate lives. Most of the time we can find something to take the edge off of our physical and spiritual hunger pangs. The hope comes from the conviction that only the Holy Spirit can awaken the human heart to desire more of God. Secularism, pluralism, individualism – these aren’t barriers for the God of Christianity. What may appear improbable to man is always within the realm of possibility with God. Even in our late-modern moment, God is at work in the hearts of men and women of all ages, calling us back to himself, using tears, and pain, and grief, and pandemics, to stoke in our souls the longing for a movement of God in our time and place.
Will you begin to pray for a deeper desire for more of God and God alone? James 4:8 says, “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” This doesn’t undermine the glorious gospel of grace that we all celebrate so dearly. It’s simply another invitation to believe that God comes where he’s wanted. Let’s, together, pray that this will become the anthem of our hearts, the animating principle of our apprenticeship under Jesus, and the vision that drives our spiritual formation. Let’s refuse to settle for lukewarm Christianity. In its place, let’s pray for that we at Trinity become a catalytic core, marked by a spirit of urgency and audacity, an attitude of brokenness and desperation, a manner of prayer that could be daring and agonizing.
God comes where he’s wanted. Let’s want Him, friends. He wants us. Let’s want Him.
