Christmas Eve, eh? Hm. That's nice. Anyway, I've been thinking a lot about my motivations today. I think that however imperfect my methods or even however selfish and manipulative my strategies, I am ultimately (generally) motivated by a deep-down, earnest desire to know and honor God. Not that this is something to be applauded - it is not my doing - but it is very real, and it is more and more shaping the way I think and live. I've come to realize that this passion is truly and increasingly the greatest motivation for anything I do - stronger even than my laziness or my lust or my desire for men's praise. It is an obsession; a craving. It is a desperate hunger that gnaws at my soul. Of any longing I have yet experienced, this is the most difficult to satisfy, and requires the greatest diligence to sustain. And yet I just recently realized that I truly want this passion. I strain and struggle to increase it, and it is my greatest fear that it may some day subside. Oh God, I cry out to you this one request: do not let this longing slip away! Spirit, groan for me. Words fail me, but I cry out to you Father, from my soul: Lord, do not let this longing slip away! Rather increase it. Fill me with this one obsession, that it may flush out all my sinful or worldly desires. Let me become, if it pleases you, no more than a humble, longing soul, weeping and groaning to know you and do your will. And Lord, in what passion you have already allotted me, I would wish for these longings to be fulfilled. I humbly and earnestly ask that you would reveal yourself to me and replace my will with your own. But more so I submit to your great wisdom. I accept your perfect timing and I ask that you grant me the patience and faith to wait on your perfect will. God, you are so great. My lips fail, but my spirit worships you. I exalt thee, I exalt thee, oh Lord.

I spent many months praying that God would increase my longing to know him and do his will, believing that this was the best thing I could desire. And then I spent many months beating that longing out of myself, because it was ruining me. I can't help smiling at the irony: I prayed that God would increase this longing (but also that he would not leave it wholly unsatisfied - he always seemed to miss that part) and if ever I've had a prayer answered, this was the one. And then for a long time afterwards I was sure this was the worst thing that had ever happened to me. Be careful what you pray for; God has very selective hearing.