It was subtle, so I didn’t notice it at first. And then one day I looked around and realized that most of the things I wanted when I was much younger, I no longer want. But it goes deeper than that.
I was having breakfast with a friend recently and she asked me what I’m looking for in community. I told her that I had come to a place of wanting to be around people who just want to talk about Jesus, that not much else interests me, and I wasn’t sure why. She nodded in understanding and dubbed it “a narrowing” and that term just felt so perfect. A narrowing.
When I was in my young decades – 20’s, 30’s and 40’s, the space of my life was filled with oh so many things. Family and work. Fears and pain and wants and dreams, and a past I was trying to outrun. At the far end of my 20’s, Jesus moved into that tattered, crowded space, and I had no idea of the narrowing that had begun and now, three and half decades later, I see it, and it is a joy to behold.
My narrowing is still in motion, and it’s painful at times, but man do I find it to be beautiful. I wish for a narrowing for us all. Instead of the wideness of everything this life has to offer, I want us to find life in the narrow space of the one thing, and to feel utterly satisfied in that space.
“One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple.” Psalm 27:4
It is the space of His presence, where the need for company narrows to just the One, and the desire to be with Him eclipses every other desire.
Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” He said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.” Mark 10:21
It is the culling of our idols. Letting go of the one thing most of us lack—the giving of it all, especially that which is most dear. The ability to lay down what we have held so close. Everything that gives us our sense of security, or allows us to feel in control. What provides our comfort and gives us value. It is a painfully necessary narrowing, this one.
“The Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has made the right choice, and it will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:41-42
When the many things get crowded out by the one thing. In this narrow space, we find the value of being, over doing and we finally understand that doing must flow from being, or it will wear us out.
He answered, “Whether or not he’s a sinner, I don’t know. One thing I do know: I was blind, and now I can see!” John 9:25
My thirst to know the ins and the outs and the greek and the hebrew and the what the when and the where has been narrowed to one thing. I was blind and now I see and I want to know the God who did that. This has been the continual, sweetest, narrowing for me – the pursuit of the heart of my Father, who pursued my heart first.
Sometimes I still strain to make space for other things, only to find that those things do nothing to satisfy the true longing in my soul. So I pray for the narrowing to continue in me. And I pray it for you.
May you find that God has been narrowing your life in all the best, even painful, but beautiful ways.
Karla Jo Wasion 