by Rhonda Rhea     @RhondaRhea

Thrills. Different people find them in different ways, from different places, according to different personalities and various likes, dislikes and individual pain tolerances. Personally, I get a real charge from an all-day trip to the mall. I get a real “charge.”

Get it? … Never mind.

Anyway, if you offered my husband a choice between going to the mall and being covered in poison ivy, you might as well go ahead and pass him the calamine. He said the other day, in a perfectly serious voice, “I think every time I go shopping, it actually takes years off my life.” Honestly, I think the man would choose a kidney stone over the mall.

On the other hand, he actually enjoys a long bike trip on a nature trail. That would be my kidney stone. I’m sorry, but the thought gives me chills. Not the good kind. I have such a hard time getting past the snakes, heat, bugs, and the probability of straining all the muscles I’ve so carefully hidden under all these layers of cellulite. Ah well. To each his own. Or his kidney stone.

Thrills may vary from person to person and from stone to stone, but there is only One who should thrill us to the very soul. Jesus should ever and always be the absolute thrill of our lives. I love the hymn that includes the phrase:

All that thrills my soul is Jesus
He is more than life to me…

Several times a day I have to ask myself if He really is more than life to me. From the clearance sale at the mall to the scenic nature trail, is there anything that threatens to take the attention that He deserves? He is the Maker of all we see, the One who holds it all together, the absolute reason for it all. He is all of life. No, He’s more than life.

How easily life can become more to me than my Savior. I wish I didn’t have to admit that. I wish I didn’t have to admit what a spiritual wimp I can become at even the slightest distraction. But Colossians 1:17 reminds me that, whether I recognize it or not, He truly is and has always been more than life. “And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.” Life. More than life.

Every breath we breathe is at His discretion and under His direction. “It is God who directs the lives of his creatures; everyone’s life is in his power” (Job 12:10, GNT).

Know what’s funny? As it turns out, life in His power is the place of ultimate thrills. Heart-pounding, to-the-very-soul thrills. There are people in this world who leave no stone unturned when it comes to thrill-seeking. Maybe even no kidney stone unturned. Oh how I want them to know that as He becomes all that thrills a restless soul, that soul is transformed—and so thoroughly and eternally satisfied. Yes!

Incidentally, I was itching to say that allowing the Lord to satisfy a soul is sort of like “heart calamine.” But then I thought you might think I was being rash.

For your consideration: Is God the life of your writing? Does spending time with Him at the computer or with pen and paper thrill you like riding a bike on a mountain trail or going shopping or whatever your kidney stone is does? We’d love to hear your thoughts about this in the comments below!

Rhonda Rhea is a TV personality for Christian Television Network and a humor columnist for great magazines such as HomeLife, Leading Hearts, The Pathway and many more. She is the author of 12 books, including Fix-Her-Upper, co-authored with Beth Duewel, and a hilarious novel, Turtles in the Road, co-authored with her daughter, Kaley Rhea. Rhonda and Kaley are also excited to be teaming up with Bridges TV host, Monica Schmelter, for a new book and TV series titled, Messy to Meaningful—Lessons from the Junk Drawer. Rhonda enjoys speaking at conferences and events from coast to coast and serves as a consultant on the publishing team of Bold Vision Books. She lives near St. Louis with her pastor/hubs and has five grown children.