"A God Itch"

It's been a week since I last posted to my blog.  One may ask if I have nothing to reflect on in the past week, but as always there has been plenty going on.  For instance, I spent two days of the last seven cleaning out my garage and garage closet.  Oh my was that an adventure.  I also spent one day pulling weeds from the flower garden in front of my house.  There were lots of weeds and may I add that my hamstrings are still feeling the pain!  But the front of the house looks great!  The kids were with me for most of that work around the house, so trust me when I say there was plenty of blog fodder up for grabs!

The last couple of days, however, have been heavy with deep meditation.  I've wanted to blog, but instead I wrote last night in my prayer journal (you know, one of those books with actual lined paper and you use a pen to write your thoughts).  I needed that private time with my thoughts.  I needed to see the ink flow from my pen just as my heart's contemplations were pouring out of me in tears.  I needed to be able to read my prayers in my own handwriting, to know that I had released the questions I had been trying to restrain.  I had a need to pray and write, like an itch that had to be scratched.

Yesterday, as my husband Landon and I were slumbering away the morning, we talked and held each other in snug comfort.  As we were chatting, I had an itch on my right arm.  I needed my left arm to scratch it, but my left arm was wrapped up, unable to reach far enough to satisfy the itch.  I struggled a little against my husband and, thinking I was initiating horseplay, he held me tighter until I told him that I had an itch and I just had to get to it!  Oh the relief when my left arm finally made it across my body to scratch it's right side counterpart!

Landon made the comment that an itch was so amazing ... how your mind sends out that signal to scratch and you can't hold back - you must scratch!  He then said, "wouldn't it be something to have a God itch?  You know, have such a need for God that you can't do anything else till you scratch it?"  As I've reflected on his question, I've realized how important it is for us as believers to know a God itch when one comes along.

What made my arm itch yesteray morning?  I don't know exactly, but something did.  Maybe it was a stray hair from my head.  Perhaps it was a fuzzy from the blanket.  It might have been a tiny speck of dust that landed on my arm and tickled my nerve endings just enough.  But whatever it was, however small or large, the response was an itch that had to be scratched.

So how do we get a God itch?  And have you ever had one?  Ever had one of those moments when the need to meet with your Lord was so strong you couldn't do anything else till you fulfilled it?  I believe I had a God itch yesterday as I wrote (on paper with ink) in my prayer journal.  But what brings us to those moments?  What got me to the point that I just had to express my prayers in writing, something I used to do regularly but haven't done in a while?  Just like the blanket fuzz or speck of dust, God uses circumstances in our lives to cause an itch for Him.  A need that nothing other than time alone with Him can relieve.

The psalmist wrote of feeling a God itch when he said "As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God.  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?" (Psalm 42:1-2)  Nothing would satisfy his thirst, only God.  He had an itch that needed to be scratched.  I truly believe that each redeemed soul living here on earth and walking with the Lord should have a need like this for the Savior.  And when our desire for our Lord wanes, for whatever reason, God will give us an itch with His name written all over it.  You can try to ignore it, or get your mind off of it by thinking of something else, but that God itch will not go away till you steal away with your Lord and scratch it.

My own God itch is still in need of scratching.  One night of prayer did not satisfy.  I praise the Lord for bringing me closer to Him with this itch, and is it ever a big one.  Like the psalmist, my soul is panting for God, my itch is requiring my time...I must go now where I can meet with God.  I ask that each of you following my blog please be in prayer for the circumstances in my family that have caused this God itch.  May we draw closer to Him with every scratch ...