I curl up on the carpet in the sun. His warmth is on my back. I want feel Him smiling today, but like a fussy child fighting her Father's arms, I look for evidence to show that I have failed Him. I pull out reasons for Him to abandon me, and reasons for Him to walk away. I just know I would deserve it if He did.

I keep forgetting that He's real and personal (skin-close) and not at all manipulated by me. I keep forgetting that He's kind and gracious and that above everything else He really wants my heart. My heart is always in process during life's ups and downs, but the process is unto something good that He wants to come of it.

What is it you're wanting? You have goals, don't you?  I ask Him.

God, Your goal isn't just to patch me up, dust me off and show the world how good you are at fixing things. Though that will inevitably happen as a part of your way-over-the-top-kindness, it's not your goal. If it is then I feel like I'm screwing up your plans every time I evaluate my progress from the last 5 years.

Your goal isn't to manufacture a hardworking, fruit-bearing labor-robot for your kingdom. Though I will bear fruit and work in your kingdom (with joy), that's not the direction you're aiming for. If it is, then I'm afraid of you,  because I know I haven't been obedient like I should have and I'm falling behind on my salvation-quota.

Father, what is your goal for me?  

This is a question that will be answered, and answered over again, in quiet moments with Him; in stillness, on soft days, when my heart is up against His chest. It's a question that's going to be worn down like my favorite dog-eared page in my favorite book. Marked with a 'forever-ness' that I don't quite grasp.

I have to believe that the faint etchings of that answer I'm waiting for, are being carved into me even now, and one day it'll be carved as deep as a sapling-turned-cedar with countless rings of growth solidifying its existence.

One of those layers, part of the answer, is rather hidden behind all my activities. He doesn't just want me to check off my lists and obey His rules, He wants me to know Him. I mean, there's a reason Jesus is called "the Word". He has a word to share with us. There's a reason He became flesh. He wanted to get closer enough to us to speak our language. (Certainly God knows that us finite beings have a hard time understanding the infinite.) In all His doings both in the past and in my present, His goal is the same. That I would know Him. 

In my ever-changing circumstances, He wants me to know Him. In my weaknesses and fears, He wants me to know Him. In my quiet moments and through whatever got me here - where I'm sitting before Him - He wants me to know Him. 

If your heart is wondering the same thing, pull up close to the Father and just ask. Ask Him about His goals for you. Let Him redefine the perspective you're living from. Let Him carve new answers into your heart, and grow deep roots in the soil of the truth.