When I open to the Lord in the morning and turn to the Word, I usually find it easy to pray and tell Him I love Him. But then doubts and extraneous thoughts will sometimes come in, and I don’t seem to be able to go back and get into the Word with an open spirit. What should I do when this happens?
Don’t do anything. The psalmist tells us to “be still” (Psa. 4:4; 46:10). Strength lies in being still and restful. Human beings, even the most slothful, are active, busily engaged in this or that. Even lazy people are busy being lazy. Before we were saved, we were busily engaged in worldly pursuits and entertainments. Afterwards, we became busy in another way. Then we may have backslid and been busy in that realm. After being restored, we became busy in seeking holiness, victory or spirituality.
All such busyness cuts off the way for the Lord to come in to work Himself into us. Consider how busy Saul of Tarsus was as he traveled that day toward Damascus. Out of his desire to serve the God of his fathers and to protect the law of Moses, he was scheming to wipe out those devilish followers of Jesus of Nazareth. As he was busily pursuing his concept of a godly life, the Lord came in and called a halt. Later he spent a period of time in Arabia. By such seasons of enforced quiet the Lord reminded him to cease from his activities and just pray, leaving the work in the Lord’s hands.
Every seeking Christian needs such a balance. The Lord would put a stop sign on your busy street. The heavenly vision arrests you in whatever you are doing. You are left with nothing to do, because you realize that what you do in yourself is rebellion, even if it is seeking the Lord. God’s intention is to have Christ thoroughly worked into your being, but in your spiritual seeking you have no concern about this. Your spiritual seeking is going in the opposite direction, only considering your intention.
I have spoken much about this matter of God’s intention in recent months, because I am burdened that most of the saints in the Lord’s recovery do not see it. If they did, the recovery could not have gotten off the track the way it did these past few years. The saints were deceived because the heavenly vision was not strong and clear. The vision not only extricates us from the world; it stops our spiritual seeking as well. When the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they were cut off from everything Egyptian and restricted to what was heavenly. After the leeks, garlic, and onions of Egypt, they now had nothing to eat but manna from the heavens. We must be on this same restricted diet today. Our one food is Christ; our one work, to build the tabernacle and carry it day by day.
Please do not feel I have given you too profound an answer to a simple question! We all need to be stopped, even from our spiritual seeking, by this heavenly vision.
Sometimes I find myself striving after some aspect of Christ I’ve heard about in a message, instead of being content to keep feeding on the manna.
We need the church to sustain us. To keep enjoying and experiencing Christ, we need encouragement. If some among the children of Israel had proposed other ways to eat and live, that would have been rebellion. Is not this the state of Christianity today? In the eyes of man it may be doing many good works, but those very works, in God’s eyes, are rebellion. Where can God find a people feeding on Christ and building up His dwelling place? He must have such a people, for His purpose to be fulfilled and for Him to have the ground to come back. Otherwise, He has nothing to come back to.
Home | First | Prev | Next