Over the past couple years, God has on me on a journey to prayer. I described it in this post:

Along with that, I’ve been seeking out like-minded believers locally with a heart for prayer, and I wrote this challenge to you (and myself) on May 14, 2010:

I know I won’t do it justice at all, but a few Scriptures come to mind to describe the work God has been doing as of late:

In His wonderful workings, God has been raising up a handful of like-minded men and women in our local church with a burden to pray.

Another Scripture that has continued to come to mind is Psalm 110:

Yes, the LORD will subdue His enemies, but by His electing and persevering love, He also subdues His friends! Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power! God transforms and conforms His children into the image of Christ, so we might walk in the works He’s ordained for us. That we might do things we once had no desire at all for! It is God who works in us through His Holy Spirit so we might desire and do His good pleasure, so we might say along with our Lord, “Not my will, but Yours, be done.” Through the working of His power, we are made willing to do His will! Paul wrote about that constraining love in II Corinthians 5, God’s love compelling and impelling us and pressing in upon us. He changes our desires – and first and foremost God becomes our chief desire, the pearl of great price, the all-surpassing treasure for which we would really sell all. We are His friends if we do what He commands, but His commandments are not burdensome to us for we are given His Spirit – as Augustine wrote, “Give, O Lord, what Thou commandest, and then command what Thou wilt.” Amen. Buried with Christ and raised by the power of God to walk in newness of life!

Our flesh does continue to fight God each and every step of the way, there’s a constant battle, but in His grace, God’s Spirit continues to strive with us. Nothing good dwells in our own flesh. Therefore, left to our own devices and our own abilities, we can’t make ourselves willing, we can’t make ourselves do anything – no matter how much we might try. We know the many resolutions we’ve made to do things, and we fail time and time again, but in the day of Christ’s resurrection power, God works in us to make us willing! God gives sufficient grace so we might turn away from our selfish, worldly desires and turn to God and bow to Him as Lord, so that the mighty scepter is not an oppressive, heavy burden, not a loveless dictatorship, but a light and easy yoke, a welcome Lordship and absolute sovereign rule. We serve a loving and gracious and wonderful Master! He opens our eyes to see that anytime we revolt and removing ourself from His Kingship and His Kingdom authority and go back to our own way is the way of death, misery, heaviness, and vanity – a trip back to the pig sty –– while in contrast, Christ’s way of obedience is the way of life and joy and peace and fruitfulness and fulfillment – truly a feast in our Father’s house! All that He has IS ours! First and foremost, all that He is IS ours! Hallelujah!

I keep saying I am delighted at what I’m seeing God doing (and I am trusting this is just the firstfruits we are privileged to be tasting!), but delighted is really an understatement. I’m trying to express that which is all but inexpressible…

I am delighted because…

(I know most of those things do overlap. )

I feel very much in a dream, much like the Psalmist who wrote Psalm 126:

And yet with all I have been seeing as of late, though I am certainly delighted with all of this, as I’ve reflected on God’s goodnesses to our congregation and to me in His workings that have now become evident over the past few weeks (and to note here: His workings at this church which have gone back years  and years before I got there!), nothing at all compares with the delight God Himself brings me! May I never become an adulterer and enjoy God’s gifts and enjoy ministry for God more than God Himself!

We are in a spiritual battle. I know the little foxes have been afoot and the lion is prowling; I have felt this keenly over the past couple weeks, but I am trusting that the God who has begun this work in us, the God who has made us willing in the day of His power, will bring it to completion to His praise, honor and glory!

  
“Luther says he never undertook fresh work, but that he was either visited with a fit of sickness, or some strong temptation. Prayer, meditation, and temptation are necessary accomplishments for every minister. May I follow him, as he did Christ.”

In the last few weeks I’ve been struggling as I’ve seen God uncovering the thoughts and intents of my heart, specifically His showing me my mixed motives for ministry as I’ve been trying to move forward in the opportunity God’s given to me in women’s ministry at our church (please see my last post here for more on that).

For example:

These are all things I’ve battled previously (and I realize they’re all really interrelated). But once again I must put on the whole armor of God and be intentional and make war on these sins.

As John Owen said:

There is no right moving forward with an evil heart, or a divided heart.

Jeremiah 7:23  But this command I gave them: ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’ 24  But they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and the stubbornness of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward.


I’ve been foolish and have hewn and been drinking of the broken cisterns, and I’ve not been happy at all.

When the heart is not right, we do not drink rightly. When we do not drink rightly, the heart is not right. Either way, we end up not happy. I want to be happy.  I am a Christian hedonist. There is no true joy at all apart from finding my joy in Christ. (All right, if you’re more comfortable with using the more sanctified-sounding words joyful or blessed in place of happy, you are welcome to do so.)

The only true happiness comes when we drink of the Living Water, as George Whitefield wrote (Monday, Sept. 22, 1740, p. 461):

If I am drinking rightly, I will not drink from the well of selfishness but from the well of selflessness.

If I am drinking rightly, I will not drink from the well of covetousness but from the well of contentment.

If I am drinking rightly, I will not drink from the well of fear but from the well of faith.

I felt somewhat like Whitefield did as he spoke about “sinning against so much light and love” (p. 334) for I have seen so much of God’s light and God’s love, therefore my sin seems all the more grievous and dark and despicable to me! I have drunk the Living Water and His joy, and yet here I was going back once again to drink from broken cisterns and stagnant water which only lead to heaviness and death.

This has all been building up in many ways, but this morning God’s sovereign mercies poured down from heaven on the dry ground of my heart as my Lord looked upon me as I was lying in bed. These words from Acts 8 (NKJV) came like a hammer smashing my deceitful, divided, hard and evil heart:

Last night, not very long after I’d come to the point where I was saying, “I don’t even know what to pray,” I opened up Whitefield’s Journals and found these words of Whitefield, which mirrored that same sentiment (he wrote these on a prolonged ship’s journey across the Atlantic (Saturday, October 7, 1738, p. 168)):

Amen. Thanks be to our good and gracious God, who does for us what we don’t even know we need and does for us what we don’t even know how to ask!

Surely He has done what seemed good in His sight, and what is good in His sight is always for our good. The chastening and discipline of the Lord is for His glory and is always for our good and our blessing.

Now my prayer is that God will continue and complete the work He has begun in my heart…

For the time being, I have to let God prepare the soil of my own heart before continuing on with any preparations for ministry work at our church.

For those who are led to do so, I would appreciate your prayers for joy and patience for me at this time so God’s workings through this time of testing might accomplish His purpose, and so I might not be deceived and tell myself “Peace, peace!” or quickly daub the wall of my sinful heart with untempered mortar. May I not waste God’s loving discipline!

His sweetness in the great fish | update 3/16/2011
on pilgrimage in the local church | update/prayer requests 3/21/2011
My love affair . . . whose trumpet, whose glory & incomplete joy
Lenten Reflections: Climbing (the minister’s descent)
sin’s cold deception, my Father’s warm reception
Are you keeping calm & carrying on? Do you react or respond? ~ Isaiah 7:1-9

As part of my mission statement for deerlife, I had written the following (a synthesis of my very first post here plus what I wrote about deerlife on my other site here)…

In my communications with all believers, I am always continuing to encourage them to go into their own churches to actively serve…

So, here I am now, being sent into my own church to actively serve… to practice what I have been preaching.

I’ve written previously about the opportunity God was opening up in women’s ministry in our church (see the end of this post) and now that door is opening wider and the way seems to be coming clearer.

I recently had a wonderful meeting with our church’s elders. (Thank you to those who had prayed!) I am especially thankful for their love for the Lord and His Word and that all of them take seriously the charge to guard the deposit of the Gospel and to be overseers of the flock of God purchased with the precious blood of Christ.

I took an outline along with me that night, which I’ve fleshed out more here for you…

Christianity – religion of the SOUL.

Henry Scougal defined Christianity “the LIFE of God in the SOUL of man.”

There is a great distinction between our knowing about God in general terms, with our understanding of the Christian doctrines as notion – as opposed to our intimately and experientially knowing God’s person, character and work directly for and in our own souls, Christianity then becoming more than notion (using Joseph Hart’s phrase – see the later part of this post), with the Biblical doctrines coming to be written on the heart by the Holy Spirit, producing burning hearts…

As I’ve written previously, using Whitefield’s words, my deep desire is that God would raise up “sweet knots of religious friends” throughout the Church, including in my own congregation.

In his book “The Experience Meeting,” William Williams, an 18th century Welsh Calvinistic Methodist, describes the types of meetings that were being held during The Great Awakening in both Wales and England. In the Introduction to the book, Martyn Lloyd-Jones (who was instrumental in having the book translated into English, with the translation done by his wife Bethan) explains that in both Wales and England

Many of us know the book of Malachi for its exhortation to bring the tithe into the storehouse, but there’s a wonderful passage later in that third chapter which Williams used in his book (p. 17), a verse you may not have ever really noticed (I know I hadn’t).

I love this! Consider that as those who fear the LORD come together to speak to one another and meditate on His name, the LORD listens and hears us and a book of remembrance is written! Let us not minimize the pleasure God takes in our meeting together to speak of His life in our souls! He treasures such times as He treasures us!

As it has today, much of Christianity in the 18th century had become lifeless, very similar to Jesus’ description here:

And Jeremiah’s words:

Our great need is to come to Christ and drink!

The devil works to distract us from this drinking! We get busy, busy, busy, doing, doing, doing – doing any and every thing else BUT drinking!

Belief = Coming = Drinking

If you’ve been reading over at naphtali_deer (especially my posts tagged hunger and thirst and experiential Christianity), you’ll know this is a passion of mine. It is a passion of mine because I wandered around as a pilgrim for years and I wasn’t drinking! I had no understanding of the life of God in the soul of man, no understanding of the need to drink the Living Water. Yes, I was saved. Yes, I knew about the Holy Spirit, but I didn’t understand my desperate plight. I didn’t understand the vital need of the Holy Spirit. I didn’t understand that apart from drinking that Living Water, I could do nothing. I didn’t see myself as poor and needy. I didn’t see myself as a wretch. Oh, yes, I was doing things, I wasn’t that bad a person, but most all of that was in my own strength and my own flesh and not in the Spirit.

And then a few years ago, God brought me to the end of myself, caused me to face my total depravity, to fail and fall flat on my face and fail (and He’s continued to do it again and again!). Thank God for His merciful kindness that leads us into those dark and dry and desert places, into that Valley of Humiliation, because those are the places we finally come to our senses and cry out to Him, “I thirst! I thirst! There is no other I desire but You! Pour down upon me I am thirsty! There is no Living Water to be found anywhere in the world, but only in You, O Lord! You are my portion!” Those are the times we begin to know the life of God in our souls!

Much of what is called Christianity today has very little to do with the souls of men.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SOUL  (I did a quick look through Scripture – not an all-inclusive list by any means)

THE SOUL’S JOURNEY

Psalm 84 – As Christians we are on pilgrimage in the fallen world – the Valley of Baca – the weeping, thirsty valley – there’s weeping and thirst because of the fall, because of sin coming into the world. Where do we find water/life/joy/sustenance/strength for the journey?

Psalm 4 – The world is looking for water… Who will show us anything good? All the world’s supplies are eventually going to come up empty. The gladness in our hearts will be more than their corn and wine, and will serve as a testimony. As we drink of the Living Water, we will show Christ’s sufficiency to quench thirst and satisfy, and we will have supplies to give out the thirsty and weeping world.

THE SOUL’S SUSTENANCE

1. Each one coming INDIVIDUALLY Christ to eat and drink of Him – to gain strength and to go from strength to strength (e.g.- John 4-6, Psalm 27, 63, Psalms 42-43, Psalm 1), otherwise we WILL wither.

2. Coming together in FELLOWSHIP in the Body of Christ to encourage and exhort one another w/ the Word of God – so we might go from strength to strength

3. Reviewing CHRISTIAN HISTORY

THE SOUL’S BATTLES (again, not an all-inclusive list)

As we meet together, my hope and prayer is that as we each individually drink deeper of Christ, we can come together and strengthen and refresh one another, so we might keep drinking and persevere with joy on our pilgrimage, even as we go through the Valley of Baca and the night of doubt and sorrow…

Through the Night of Doubt and Sorrow
Bernhardt S. Ingemann tr. Sabine Baring-Gould

Through the night of doubt and sorrow,
onward goes the pilgrim band,
singing songs of expectation,
marching to the promised land.
Clear before us through the darkness
gleams and burns the guiding light:
trusting God we march together
stepping fearless through the night.

One the light of God’s own presence,
o’er his ransomed people shed,
chasing far the gloom and terror,
brightening all the path we tread:
one the object of our journey,
one the faith which never tires,
one the earnest looking forward,
one the hope our God inspires.

One the strain the lips of thousands
lift as from the heart of one;
one the conflict, one the peril,
one the march in God begun:
one the gladness of rejoicing
on the far eternal shore,
where the one almighty Father
reigns in love for evermore.

Onward, therefore, pilgrim brothers,
onward with the cross our aid;
bear its shame, and fight its battle,
till we rest beneath its shade.
Soon shall come the great awaking,
soon the rending of the tomb;
then the scattering of all shadows,
and the end of toil and gloom.

I unfolded much of that before the elders, who were very enthusiastic and encouraging. And then they helped to hone it down (a much needed thing, given the multitude of thoughts swirling in my brain at any moment in time and my difficulty with being succinct/focused), so each week we meet should will look something like this:

My deepest hope and prayer is that as we fellowship and meet together, God will knit our hearts closer to Him and to one another, so we might be able to tell what God has done for each of our souls from week to week (Psalms 66:16: Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for my soul), so we might encourage and exhort each other, so we might go from strength to strength on our pilgrimage to Mount Zion, to the Celestial City (Psalm 84/Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress”)

For those who are led to pray, I would appreciate your prayers for:

I do believe we’ll eventually get to the book of John (which is what I initially felt led to do), but for now, it has come to seem good to start with an overview of the soul’s pilgrimage and God’s means of sustenance as we travel through the Valley of Baca (the Word of God, prayer and fellowship with believers – including the great cloud of witnesses).

Needless to say, I am very excited about this, because this is what I absolutely love. Throughout this whole process I have been profoundly humbled. First, because of the journey of chastening God has had me on over the past few years. And second, because it is a high privilege and responsibility to give out the words of life. And that sense of humility is a very good and very necessary thing because I know I too easily become full of myself – and whenever I am full of myself I cannot be full of Christ’s Holy Spirit!

I am praying each of you will be obedient to God’s call to you to serve Him in your local churches for the building up of the Body of Christ for His glory and for your joy.

Thank you for your fellowship and prayers.

Psalm 115:1  Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to your name give glory,
for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!

Yours in Christ,
Karen