On my way to Kennesaw tonight, I was thinking and listening to music, and rolling over a handful of Bible verses in my head. I have felt recently a distance from God, certainly because of sins that I do not fight as I ought, but also what I would call a lack of passion. Routine sets in. Routine, pattern, ordinariness of life. I read the Bible, and I talk about it a lot, and then I talk about it some more, then I write about it... But my prayers have been wooden, they have felt old and tired and lacking in passion and vigor and fervent belief.
I have learned some in the past couple of years about the importance of spiritual disciplines. I really am attracted to the idea of having a long and disciplined obedience in the same direction in which I become more like Christ. But lately I have conceptually chopped up my future into manageable bits, and my fear is that I have put safe and tidy constraints on what I will let God do with my life. I have pre-managed my own sanctification and portioned it out into reasonable and safe portions.
And again, my sins are ever before me, and they sap me of energy, and while they should drive me to my knees in repentance, they have simply driven me into a sort of disintegrated doldrums, a sort of intensely weird situation of being productive in talking about God without being brought into his mighty and joyous and terrifyingly holy presence to actually talk to him. It is a tragedy to talk about God without talking to him.
I think it is a soul-crushing sin to procrastinate in desiring God. For how long might that desire last? Dear reader, and I speak this to my own heart, please do not wait a single more second before acknowledging God in fear, love, trust, prayer, and passion. Let us love him.
As I was sitting at the gas pump, looking out at the wind swaying the trees beneath God's beautiful canopy of sky, I was struck with what can only be described as a fresh energy, and it was God's grace to come and break through my blah-ness. And the thought that most clearly broke through was this... I need to go to war! I have such a peace-time, lethargic mentality about life and ministry and marriage and sanctification. I need to live my life with war-like zeal! Jesus is purifying for himself a people who are zealous for good works! And I am mostly zealous, it seems, about tweaking a theological system that exists in my brain, while I am lethargic about bearing with the weak and the hurting.
Why am I not zealous for good works? Let me ponder quickly some reasons...
1. I am lazy. That is a sin.
2. I care more about spending my time the way I want to spend my time than helping other people. Even if the way I want to spend my time is mainly religious.
3. I am distracted.
4. I let guilt come over me, even when I have been forgiven.
5. I do not have a heart enough for the lost.
6. Perhaps I don't believe deeply enough the things I say I believe.
7. I have not fully grasped God's grace.
8. I am wary of "good works" because I am concerned about wanting my salvation to really be by God's grace alone. Intellectually, I know this is dumb. Yet my heart probably goes there.
I don't know. It could be some complicated combination of those things plus a million other things.
But through all this, I prayed something like this prayer...
God, break through. Come to me. Widen my chest, my heart, my soul, and my mind. Come and fill me with your presence and your power. I do not want a love and an indwelling that is bland and weak and powerless, but I want your very presence, and I want the power that raised Jesus from the dead, and I want the power that will inflame my soul. God, set me on fire! Set me on fire! Set me on fire, and train me by your grace to know you! God, let me know Jesus. Just let me know Jesus. All things are loss, all things are dung in comparison to that. God, I do not want simply things that you can give me, but I want you. I want more of you. I need you in me. Forgive me! Have mercy on me! Kill my apathy, help me to kill my laziness. Plant within me a zeal. Help me to live and die well. God, get all glory from every single inch of my life and soul. Be glorified! Your kingdom come. God, give me a supernatural energy and a supernatural power that is beyond me, that is beyond my planning, that is beyond my ability to manage. Inflame my mind and heart with the beauty of the Gospel and prepare me to go out with a war-like mindset. Father, recall to my mind with gravity my past sins, not to be accused, but to serve as ballast and as constant reminder of your very great grace. I need you. Father God, you are all I need. Prepare me for war. Give me energy to fight. Come, Lord!
And then, I prayed this line, and as I did, I felt a resolve and a peace, and I got goosebumps. I love it when God grants a holy chill to run up and down my spine. I love getting chills about the greatness of my God, though to be sure, the foundation for my faith is in Christ as revealed in the Word, and not the chills I get. This is the prayer thought that riveted my attention... Father, for your name's sake, dress me for war.
I want to live at war and lean into it with all the energy that God powerfully works in me. I have written this as a call to a war-time lifestyle, and I hope God will not let you get away from this entry without grabbing your heart, grabbing you by the face and telling you to really look at him. He is worth more than this world, he is worth more than your sin, and he is worth all the energy within your body for the rest of your entire life. Display with your life, as I seek to do with mine, the surpassing value of knowing and serving Christ Jesus. If the intense excellencies of Christ really do touch your life, they will not abandon us to wasted lives. Friends, we only have one life to live, and God may require yours or mine this very hour. Only one to live, and what will we do with it? Seek and find the superior, sovereign, boundless joy of God. It is there, and it puts to shame our tiny imaginations.
I found it as awesomely cool confirmation of the Spirit's working and speaking to my heart when my brother, unaware of my earlier praying, posted this video to my facebook wall.
I end with this... Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. (James 4:8)
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