Ephesians 1: 17-18 says:
I keep asking that the
God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your
heart may be enlightened in order
that you may know the hope to which
he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and
his incomparably great power for us who believe.
So let’s recap. First, God our Father is the one who gives the Spirit of wisdom and
revelation. He gives us these so that
that we may know him better. Second, God our Father is the one who enlightens
our hearts. And again, the purpose
of this is that we may know the hope to which he has called us.
God does it. We receive it. God gets the glory.
Over the course of this trip, my life has changed. I am a
different person than I was when I first arrived in Gainesville,
Georgia eight months ago.
But now I have hit a wall. Not in the sense that I have no more room to grow—I
will continually be undergoing that process for the rest of my life!—but the wall
that I’ve hit is that I can’t do anything
to get further in the growth process.
I want to know God more. And the means by which this will
happen does not come through my own hands, but through God’s. He gives the
Spirit of wisdom and revelation (Eph 1:17).
He enlightens our hearts (Eph 1:17).
He gives us strength (Eph 3:16). He
makes us righteous (Phil 1:11). And
to top it off, he gives us grace (Eph. 4:7).
Nowhere in any of these verses does it say that I do anything.
Yet still I try to remain in control. Still I try to justify
in my head that being in God’s will means doing more or being better. Recently,
when I have sat down to spend time with God, I have had the feeling of being stuck. I don’t know where to begin or
what to do. As I said in my last blog (I want to KNOW the Lord), my goal, my
hope, and my focus, is to know the Lord better. How do I get there?
I’m a practical person. I like practical steps. Give me a
list of what to do and I’ll do it. But tell me that there’s nothing I can do,
and then I get stuck. Which is where
I’m at. But the Lord has brought me back to those verses in Ephesians 1:17-18.
And I’m left with no steps. No practical ones anyways. The only step is to (and
excuse my Christianese language here), let
go and let God.
I’m left only with my prayers. Prayers asking the Lord to give me the Spirit of wisdom and
revelation so that I may know him
better. Prayers asking that the eyes of my heart may be enlightened by him so that I may know the hope to which he
has called me. Prayers for God to do it, that I may receive it, and that HE may
get the glory.
