Soaring to a New Level
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One cannot find love, joy or goodness by scientific analysis. Neither can one find spiritual truth by intellectual analysis.
Limit yourself to studying a painting with an electron microscope or X-ray machine and you might pride yourself in going far deeper into the painting than the average person but you will completely miss what the artist intended to convey. Similarly, if you limit yourself to the tools of Bible academics you might pride yourself in your great knowledge, but you will completely miss the message God wants to convey.
To explode to new heights in biblical revelation we need an invasion of the supernatural that hinges on us praying along the following lines. It is worded to help us glimpse the breath-taking beauty and wonder and joy of our calling.
Lord,
Like a finger on a hand, I was created to be in exquisite union with you. As a body needs its head, only with you am I complete. You are my love, my life, my joy, my hope. Only with you can I soar to my glorious potential. Without you I am pathetic. With you I am everything. So keep me ever mindful of my glorious dependence upon you. May I not frustrate myself, harming my Christ-bought potential for eternal greatness, by trying to see, be or do things without you. In you I am free.
Only you can open my eyes to the spirit realm as you did to Elisha’s servant who suddenly saw the so-close but invisible armies of God (2 Kings 6:17). Likewise, only you can open my eyes to the exciting mysteries in your Word.
I thrill in the knowledge that because of Jesus’ priceless sacrifice I have the mind of Christ and am indwelt by your very Spirit. Nevertheless, I shudder to consider how little this is so far manifested in my life and thinking. I beg you to deal with everything within me – most of which I am probably not even aware of – that is refusing to let you rule in me in the powerful, non-human way that you long to operate.
I can understand your truth only to the degree that I have your heart. Only when your beauty becomes part of my lifestyle can I hope to appreciate the beauty of your ways. That necessitates letting you rip everything ungodly from my life. I know I must abandon the soft life and embrace the way of the cross. I am scared about what that might entail but it is the only way to the abundant life that you freely offer. You alone are the God of all comfort. Any other apparent source of comfort is a vapour that will turn to poison.
Not only are you passionately and selflessly devoted to my eternal welfare (as demonstrated by Christ crucified), you alone have infinite knowledge of the past, present and future and can match that with infinite wisdom. Like a fish out of water, so am I when I’m out of your will. Help get this critical truth into my head. Etch it into my brain.
Like the ugly duckling discovering he is a beautiful swan, so I am discovering my true identity whenever I find in your Word more of how you want me to live. I am only fully alive, achieving my highest when, empowered by your Spirit, I am living your glorious Word.
To shrink from your liberating truth is like a shivering child fearing warmth, and yet too often this is how I live. Not to obey your commands is like money never spent, food never eaten, warm baths of pleasure never luxuriated in. Change my whole way of thinking that I might continually relish discovering and doing your will. To see as you do, I must, as it were, see through tear-filled eyes at a God-hating world. Fill me with compassion for those who despise me. Make my heart tender.
I must take on your nature or I will always find bewilderingly incompatible your love and wrath, your mercy and judgments, and so many other aspects of your perfection. Either I yield to your longing to make me pure, selfless and righteous, or else biblical concepts like turning the other cheek, it being more blessed to give than to receive, and so much else will seem nonsensical to me. Without your holy, eternal perspective, I’ll never understand even fellow humans like the apostle Paul who, despite horrific torture and deprivations, kept talking of joy and “light, momentary” afflictions so inconsequential as to be beneath attempting a comparison with future glories.
As I’ll never see what lies ahead unless I keep moving forward, so I’ll languish in ignorance unless I’m daily living more and more of your Word.
As a vine bursts into seasons of fruitfulness only if it endures times when it seems nothing but a dry, twisted stick, so I must persevere, seeking your face and reading your precious Word no matter how dry it sometimes seems. May I cherish your word more than a starving man with his last crumbs.
Keep prodding me to courageously press against the tide of popular thinking – even popular Christian thinking – whenever it clashes with your full and glorious truth. Break me out of the straight jacket of human thinking so that I might soar with you. Stop me from swallowing half-truths. Take me way beyond my natural intellect and morality. Give me no peace while I’m content to settle for second best. One by one, expose my blind spots and deal with everything within me that saddens you. Don’t let me get away living a shallow life. May my every moment bring you joy. May I give you my best and receive your best.
I can do none of this alone – and I thank you that I don’t have to – but in your love for me you wait for me to cooperate. And in my love for you I want to dedicate to you my every effort.
I yield to you, like a brush to the artist, like a drowning person to his rescuer, like a lover to caresses.
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