Pastor Brian's Article for 03/30/2008

The writers of the Psalms fill the book with calls to be closer to God.  As we have already mentioned, closeness to God starts with prayer.  If your experience is like mine, you have had times of shallow prayer.  You reach the point where you are tired of being at the shallow end of the pool.  You want to go where the water is deep.  You want to have that deep intimate walk with God.

There are two things that keep us from having a deeply intimate time in prayer with God.  The first is that we don’t pray for that intimacy.  Second, we don’t pray for such intimacy because of the shallow relationship we have with Christ.  It is not that we don’t love prayer; it is because we don’t love Christ. 

There have been some who have wished that they could have only lived during the days our Lord lived on the earth.  They say if they could have only seen Him, heard Him and touched Him, they would dearly love Him. Such thinking is a fallacy, because through the Scripture and through prayer, we can see Him, hear Him and touch Him. 

I do not say to my wife, “I love talking to you.”  I say to her, “I love you.”  My desire for conversation arises from my love for her.  Intimacy with God arises from our desire for God.  No one has to tell a hungry bird to eat.  Hunger will seek out what it needs to satisfy itself.  If there is a hunger for God, God will see that it is satisfied.  If we want to be people of prayer, we need to hunger for God.  If we want to be faithful servants, we need to hunger for God.   A love for God and a hunger for

God go hand in hand.  The intimacy that we desire in prayer will only come as our love for God increases our hunger for God.

What is the key to this cycle of love and hunger for God?  It is simply the element of time.  It is essential that we spend time in the Scripture and time in prayer, but it is also essential that we participate in His greatness.  Unlike the silliness that we sometimes engage in with friends or members of the opposite sex during dating and courtship, God is a person of greatness.  We participate in His greatness as events in the Scripture inspire us.  We participate in His greatness by seeing what He does in our lives and in the lives of those who follow Him.  In the everydayness of life, God reveals his greatness if we will just look for it.   We need to be like the maiden of the Song of Songs who is pursuing her lover through the city.  We need to pursue God’s greatness, and as we do our love and hunger for Him will grow. 

The mistake that we should not make is in thinking that His indwelling will illicit an emotional response as a sign of His indwelling.  When God fills us with his glory it will awaken our emotions, but what is important is the indwelling and not the emotional response.  Emotional responses often come in large groups, and emotion is often substituted for true union with the Holy.

It can be a fearful thing to think of union with the Spirit.  Intimacy with the Holy may terrify us, but as we wait before Him, the silence absorbs our fear.  We are enveloped in oneness.  The deep longing in our soul to know God calls out to His deep longing to be known.  There in the quiet of the moment, the tone is set for our union with Christ.

That Jesus May Be revealed,

Brian

Taken from The Hunger for The Holy, Calvin Miller, chapter 5

Scripture References:

Romans 11:12-14   – The Hebrew people were chosen by God to witness to all nations. But instead, they became self-centered and mismanaged the blessings God provided. Mismanaging or withholding our witness or money diminishes our influence for God and good.

Judges 11:31, 34-40 – "......then it shall be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the sons of Ammon, it shall be the LORD'S, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering."

When Jephthah came to his house at Mizpah, behold, his daughter was coming out to meet him with tambourines and with dancing. Now she was his one and only child; besides her he had no son or daughter.  When he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, "Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low, and you are among those who trouble me; for I have given my word to the LORD, and I cannot take it back."  So she said to him, "My father, you have given your word to the LORD; do to me as you have said, since the LORD has avenged you of your enemies, the sons of Ammon."   She said to her father, "Let this thing be done for me; let me alone two months, that I may go to the mountains and weep because of my virginity, I and my companions."  Then he said, "Go." So he sent her away for two months; and she left with her companions, and wept on the mountains because of her virginity.  At the end of two months she returned to her father, who did to her according to the vow which he had made; and she had no relations with a man. Thus it became a custom in Israel, that the daughters of Israel went yearly to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in the year.