Anybody, it probably doesn’t even matter if you’re from the Outback in Australia, anybody that has played sports has heard those words.  Your losing in the fourth quarter in a football game against your arch nemesis and the coach yells, “Who wants it?”  “We do coach!!”  The shouts reverberate off the locker room walls.  The interview with the star rookie after losing the championship will usually include something like, “I guess they just wanted more than we did.”  What does “wanting it” have to do with anything?  If you’re good, you win.  If you practice, you win.  I can want it all I want to and it won’t change the fact that I’m fifty and long past my prime for winning the Boston Marathon.  Wanting it seems to make no difference in practical living.

We had been up for more than 24 hours straight setting up a defencive perimeter.  Temperatures had dropped below freezing during the night in the desert and knowing that an attack was immanent kept us from doing anything that might help.  Many of us in the scout units had not even brought cold gear with us, knowing our need to travel light, quiet.  So we froze, painfully.  The enemy came with force and strong numbers.  The scout unit I was with was able to “sniper” and harass them from multiple angles but it kept us running.  But hey, at least we were warm.  The attack was repelled and our training mission was completed (sorry, no true heroism displayed in this instance).  The exhaustion we felt, however, was very real.  That’s when the rain started.  Being the radio operator for Captain “Buck” Buchanan did not allow much time for repose so when he surprisingly said, “you guys take a break,” we didn’t argue.  The picture that I saw later showed me, still fully clothed with my rucksack still in place, helmet on, weapon in hand.  I had simply laid down and fallen immediately to sleep.  I wanted sleep pretty bad.

I had fallen in love, asked her to marry me and she even said, “yes!”  The date was set, the rings were bought and she even had one of them on her hand.  But pornography had been an ever-present evil in my life for some time.  I lied to keep her with me.  I prayed and confessed, read scripture, got counsel.  But could not rid my closet of that skeleton.  We were married and in time the truth came out causing so much damage to her heart, to our lives.  I wanted freedom.  I wanted it so much, needed it.  But I could not want it enough.  For as much as I wanted freedom, there were things I couldn’t let go of, tethers that I couldn’t cut.

The God we serve came down from heaven to win our hearts.  It is often said that He bankrupted heaven to redeem us.  I want Him but that is nothing compared to how much He wants me.  As I complain about all that I don’t have, and worship from an ungrateful heart, I realize that it is His pursuit of me that changed my life.

So what will I do?  How can I appropriately respond to that?

Invade me Lord!  You want me!  You can have me!  All of me!!!