This post will be dramatically different from the last 2 by the way.
I went to a worship night at our church. I wasn't even sure I wanted to go because I had such a difficult week with my crappy attitude, and well, my flesh loves to wallow. But that morning in church the speaker dropped about 7 verses that have been running in my mind for the last couple of weeks and I thought maybe - just maybe - the Lord might be trying to tell me something - so I decided to press in.
I got there and went to the back where they had a couple tables set up under a dim light so that people can study with the worship music in the background. I read over the verses again... one of them - Psalm 30: 6-7 - stood out:
When I was prosperous, I said,
“Nothing can stop me now!”
Your favor, O Lord, made me as secure as a mountain.
Then you turned away from me, and I was shattered.
Then up front they were singing ... Blessed Be the Name of the Lord
Blessed Be Your Name
In the land that is plentiful
Where Your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your name
Blessed Be Your name
When I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed Be Your name
Every blessing You pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name
Blessed be Your name
When the sun's shining down on me
When the world's 'all as it should be'
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there's pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name
Every blessing You pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name
You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name
I am having a vocal chord issue right now - they are overworked so singing actually hurts - but I sang anyway and listened in to the words, remembering my need to praise even when you don't know how. The line 'you give and take away' from Job is something that I have thought on recently and then heard repeated during the sermon that morning. I read Psalm 102 as well, but nothing stood out again. Then Psalm 103... but everything still felt dull so I decided to go back over my journal/blog entries to read through all the verses that had even vaguely been highlighted for me in the last few months ... so I could read my thoughts in context hoping for an answer that had already been given that perhaps I was just missing. I realized that God may have given me a reason for His silence and I had just missed it. I read the recent rants but then went all the way back to when we first moved here.
In one post called 'submission' I read a quote from Murray again that continues to echo at me...
Children of God, we must go down deeper into the grave of Jesus. We must cultivate the sense of impotence, and dependence, and nothingness, until our souls walk before God every day in a deep and holy trembling. God keep us from being anything. God teach us to wait on Him, that He may work in us all He wrought in His Son, till Christ Jesus may live out His life in us! For this may God help us!
Christ had a perfect life, given by God. The Father said: “Will you give up that life to me? Will you part with it at my command?” And He parted with it, but God gave it back to Him in a second life ten thousand times more glorious than that earthly life. So God will do to every one of us who willingly consents to part with his life. - Andrew Murray - The Master's Indwelling
OH BOY ... what did I do when I read this the first time?????!!!!
I prayed this ...
'Jesus I submit ... I do not want what my flesh wants anymore. I want You to come flooding in and take over - put me in the grave - empty me out, crush my evil desires, kill my flesh, put down my rebellion, suck away my pride. Remind me again just how small I am - and how much I need you to come in and do the things I can only dream of.'
I ASKED FOR THIS. This silence is a direct answer to this prayer. I asked to be put in the grave! I asked to be emptied, killed, crushed... to be reminded of my ridiculous need for Him - to remember my smallness!!!!! I ASKED FOR THIS!
But I had no idea what I would get.... I pictured the usuals ... sin pointed out, confession, healing... BUT what else would I get but silence ... what else would the grave be like if there was no resurrection? It would be me dead in the ground - being nothing. There would be total quiet - total nothingness.... (I need to think on this more)
He is emptying me out.
(Part 2 coming next!)
No comments:
Post a Comment