“A soul cannot seek close fellowship with God, or attain the abiding consciousness of waiting on him all the day without a very honest and entire surrender to all his will.”
It’s the “very honest” that grips me. It’s one thing to be honest, but very honest? It requires me to examine dark corners that I would rather leave hidden. If I’m very honest then I would have to admit that I don’t surrender well. And I want to surrender well. So I hide from the truth that surrender doesn’t work without honesty.
Surrender without an honest examination of our hearts leaves us deceived into thinking we’ve surrendered, and the deception leads to frustration because we don’t experience freedom.
This waiting on God brings me to deep waters and the discovery that I need God much more than I ever realized. It’s in the waiting that I discover layers of my heart that haven’t been relinquished to him. I realize that I’ve given him a pseudo-surrender, but failed to give him my honest heart.
My honest heart defaults to insecurity and comparison: two enemies that vie for the death of my soul and the defeat of God working and moving in me. So today I’m going to tell you a secret.
The secret to an honest surrender lies in building an altar based on the character of God. His character is only good. It is faithfulness, it is strength, and it is our everything.
If I know that he is faithful, then I can trust that he won’t run when I am at my ugliest. If I know he is truth then I can relinquish the lies I believe. When I realize that his love is never-ending and nothing can separate us, I’m willing to be honest with my fears.
It’s knowing his character that allows me to surrender all.
And it’s surrender that transforms me. Without surrender I cannot be a living sacrifice or experience his transformative work in my heart. My Christianity turns into a list of tasks to accomplish rather than a relationship to develop.
When we fail to get to know God we rob ourselves of the light he can bring to our darkness. Do you have pockets of your heart that are deep? Do you have secrets that you fear bringing to the light?
He knows the deep, he knows the secrets, and he’s waiting for you to invite him into those raw places. He’s waiting for you to acknowledge his faithfulness and love towards you. Will you take steps today to build an altar based, not on your fears of what might happen, but on who God is? Will you open your Bible and let his words soothe your soul?
The Giver of light gave me the gift of flickering light after a long season of darkness. Hope flashed briefly in the darkest of soul night where I had wandered searching his word, playing God-music, fellowshipping with the body of Christ, praying and waiting for Light. I waited a long time for that flash. But I knew this hope:
Isaiah: 30:18 “Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.”
Waiting.
It speaks of inaction, of watching paint dry, of pointlessness. Yet it’s not.
Andrew Murray describes best:
“Waiting in the sunshine of his love is what will ripen the soul for his blessing. Waiting under the cloud of trial, that breaks in showers of blessing is as needful. Be assured that if God waits longer than you wish, it is only to make the blessing double precious.”
God certainly waited longer than I wished. Much longer. I feared I would never hear from him again. I feared that my Christian life would be shallow. I feared how much longer I could go through the motions.
But I learned much in the dark and when His Light pierced through I knew this:
God longs for your heart. Your heart that says yes to him even if the red sea doesn’t part or the flames consume or the lions devour or the waters overtake.
But the only way you can give him your heart is if you understand the power of his presence in your life.
Not the power of his promises, although they are mighty. It’s his presence that our hearts should most long for yet we substitute his promises for his presence.
It is possible to experience both—his promises and his presence—and we should experience both because if we don’t then we have things a little mixed up. It’s mercy and grace and judgement in one package that transcends comprehension.
[bctt tweet=”Seek God’s presence no matter what. Seek his promises and his presence will be lost.” username=””]
Why? Because God longs for a relationship with you. And relationship comes when you enjoy and long for his presence. He wants to know you and be known by you. Waiting on God will bring joy and peace and also discomfort because if we are to make him known he will continue to rid us of anything that is not of him.
My dark night? It was rooted in anger at God. An anger I didn’t know was there until God pierced the recesses of my heart and brought it into his light.
His judgement or conviction is something we don’t need to fear if we know his presence. When we know his presence then we know his heart is for us, that he thinks good thoughts towards us, that he makes good out of bad.
But if we don’t know the power and beauty of his presence then we fear conviction and believe it leads to depravation. But it really leads to freedom. Freedom to be who he created you to be. Freedom to choose him and his ways. Freedom to live for him and in him and through him.
The Lord longs/waits to be gracious to you and blessed are you when you wait for him.
If you are in a season of waiting for God to be gracious to you, may I offer you this? Keep waiting. Keep leaning. Keep trusting. God may be growing you in this waiting time so that you experience a double blessing when the sun breaks through the dark, dark soul night.
A double blessing of his presence and his promise.
These are not my favorite words. Sometimes they induce a temper tantrum, foot stomping, roll on the ground kind of response.
But God, in his infinite grace and mercy, draws me closer to him with these very words and I think of this Andrew Murray quote:
It [patience] is the highest expression of our faith in his goodness and faithfulness. It brings the soul perfect rest in the assurance that God is carrying on His work.
I’m bringing your a video devotional today and sharing how I deal with those pesky words of “wait” and “patient.”
The Giver of light gave me the gift of flickering light after a long season of darkness. Hope flashed briefly in the darkest of soul night where I had wandered searching his word, playing God-music, fellowshipping with the body of Christ, praying and waiting for Light. I waited a long time for that flash. But I knew this hope:
