All I Want Is You

Worship

I was listening to the CD Glorious when the last track began playing. Though I had listened to this CD countless times before, it was my first time to hear this song. I wonder how I could have missed it.

Standing there, I suddenly felt God's gentle presence in the room. "I'm here."

It was the kind of song I had been longing to hear, and sing:

I was made for loving You

I was made to worship

I was made to give You praise

All of my days, oh Lord

My all is for You

Cause when I'm with You

My heart is satisfied

And when I'm with You

My spirit can fly

When I'm with You

All the cares of my life

They just fade away

'til all I want, 'til all I see

Is You

(When I'm With You, by Klaus Kuehn)

As I began walking to work, and passing through the woody place as I always do each morning... I was listening to the song. How refreshing it was! I was like a thirsty doe at a waterhole, drinking sweet healing waters to my heart's content.

How I wished that walk would never end. I could have stayed there all day.

Yes, Lord, when I'm with You, my spirit can fly ... all the cares of my life just fade away ... 'til all I want ... 'til all I see ... is You.

"All I want is You."

And in a brief span of time, I was brought back to an important event in my life.

It was early 1996, right in the middle of a decade of spiritual pruning for me. From 1989-1999 I can say that God was turning my life upside down, and it was a decade of going from one crisis after another. A great financial loss, my dad's lingering illness, then the simultaneous deaths of both my own and Ernie's father. We could not grieve for each other because we were both mourning our own individual losses. Then, a false accusation hurled at us coming from dear brothers and sisters in the church we had called our own.

I did not know which loss was greater -- the death of a loved one, or the death of a sense of home in the very household of faith to which we thought we belonged. So much deep, indescribable pain in my heart ...

And then in the midst of it all, God speaks this startling message to me: "Let go of your prejudices. You have to come up higher."

I was attending the Visayas Prayer Congress at that time, and one of the speakers was a Pentecostal minister. I decided not to attend his session that day. Later, however, practically everyone was talking about that one particular session and I realized that I had missed out on something very special.

With a sense of regret, I began thinking, "It's because of my prejudices." And that was when I sensed God wanted me to go up higher.

That evening, in response to what God had spoken in my heart, I purposely went to the church where that same speaker was going to minister.

He spoke on a topic that wasn't entirely new to me, how God entrusts true riches to us only when our hearts are ready. It was actually a timely message, but I didn't think much of it then. At the end of his message, he was ready to minister to the people, and began asking anyone who had a need to come to the front. He called it "the Lord's altar."

I really felt I had so much need inside of me. But I said to myself, "No I won't go to the front. I will just quietly remain in my place, and ask God to minister to me here." I began crying out in my heart to God, "All I want is You, Lord. I don't want answers. I don't want solutions. I don't want provision. I'm not even asking for vindication, or the healing of relationships. ALL I WANT IS YOU!"

It was a heart cry so deep, so intense, and I had never really felt that way before. All along I had been asking God to give me back what I felt I had lost. That evening, I didn't want anything. "All I want is You, my dear Father. There is nothing else I want right now... only You." Tears were streaming down my face.

I don't remember how I ended up being in front. Someone must have gently led me there. As the minister stood in front of me, and began praying for me, I felt the warm and intense presence of the Lord, I couldn't stand. I had to kneel, in worship and in awe.

And all of that came back to me this morning ...

How my spirit soared in worship! I was made for loving You... I was made to worship ... I was made to give You praise ... All of my days ... My all is for You ... Cause when I'm with you ... All the cares of my life, they just fade away... 'til all I want, 'til all I see... is You.

"All I want is You, Lord." Let it always be so in my life, Lord, until I see you face to face.