Some of the girls on my squad and I are doing a forty day prayer challenge for the last forty days we are on the field. It’s only day three and I’ve already learned some crazy things. The first of those is that for most of my life I’ve viewed Jesus as a hippy and happy go lucky friend I can bring my problems to. I asked myself this question: am I serving God the Savior and Creator of the universe, or do I treat Him like He is here to serve me? This question resonated with me and led me into a deeper desire to serve Him above all things.
Growing up I pictured Jesus as a guy I need to go to to fix all my problems. It is true that He is loving and wants the best for me, but this watered down version of Jesus I was raised to see and approach in such a laid back manner led me to give Him watered down reverence, respect and praise. He deserves so much more. He is not watered down but rich and my reverence, respect and praise ought to be rich too.
In the past couple of days I’ve tried to remain in constant communion with the Lord. At first it was as though I was giving Him a to-do list for my life. They were, “Jesus will you please fix this,” prayers. As I’m learning about His heart, my prayers have shifted. He is taking my eyes off of worldly things and making me crave spiritual things once again. Now my prayers resoundingly say this, “can I just be close to You and see Your will and hear You speak today? Lord, can You show me Your holiness?”
When I started to pray this way, a desire grew for everything I previously knew about Jesus to be demolished. I wanted my perception of the Lord to be transformed by Him alone. I wanted to see Him for who He truly is rather than how modern culture and I had made Him out to be. He is instilling truth in my heart. He is a Teacher, a Father and most importantly He is holy.
In Revelation, John describes the throne-room. The Father’s dwelling place. Jasper, rubies and rainbows exploding in light surround Him. Lighting and thunder roar from His throne. In the center of the throne, four living creatures praise Him endlessly day and night. They sing, “holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty who was and is and is to come.” As these creatures praise Him, the twenty four elders surrounding Him fall on their faces in reverence and praise. They are face to face with our God, lost in wonder and awe.
Many things about this stick out to me, but the most prominent is this: the people who see Him for who He really is, face to face with Him in His presence, cannot help but to bow in reverence and sing His praises.
My friend gave me the idea of ministering to Lord. Instead of constantly coming to Him with all the things we need, we sing to Him of the miracle He is. We tell Him of His goodness and give Him the praise He deserves. I am not saying not to come to God with prayer requests, but I am saying we need to make the time to recognize and honor Him for His greatness. Once we realize these things we realize the God we are dealing with. Once we are close to Him we see how truly enormous and awe striking He is.
“The low view of God is the cause of one hundred lesser evils, but a high view of God is the solution to 10,000 temporal problems.” A. W Tozer
This is a glimpse of the way I believe I am called to love our heavenly Father. Awestruck by the Creator. Serving, revering and praising Him like the ones who see Him in heaven do.
