by David Scott Robertson
I came in this morning to my prayer closet with an expectation to experience God.
I came to worship,
To intercede for others,
To present my personal petitions,
To read His word and reap,
And hopefully, ideally, to hear His voice.
My understanding of how the pattern works
In order to get into the presence of God and hear His voice
Goes something like this:
First, I enter into His presence with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise.
I begin to thank Him for everything I can think of that He’s done for me in the last 24 hours.
I thank Him for the simple pleasures.
I thank Him for the complex pleasures.
I thank Him for the hidden pleasures and the things He’s done for me of which I’m oblivious.
I thank Him for who He is
His unchanging character
And the fact that He alone is God.
I repent of my known sins
And invite the Holy Spirit to search my heart
And see if there be any wicked way in me that I might quickly
Repent,
Renounce,
And break any of sin’s power of me
While counter-attacking and “sealing the deal” by speaking the Word of God over myself.
I’ll read my daily quota of the Bible,
A selection from the Old Testament, the New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs –
All neatly arranged in my handy devotional Bible.
Perhaps I’ll take communion.
Then I’ll intercede for my “prayer list” of close relationships,
My wife, my parents, my daughter, my pastors, my president, my small group, and so on.
After that I may put in a worship CD and sing along
Or pull from my memory a half dozen hymns or contemporary worship choruses
And croak out a “joyful noise unto the Lord.”
And then I’ll try to be quiet…
To shut up and listen,
To be still and know that He is God.
(This is the tough part for me when 5 minutes of silence seems so sacrificial, almost unbearable!)
Now here’s the climax of the whole experience:
For God to have His chance to speak to me.
This “stillness” is God’s cue to begin to speak to me.
I’ve done my part
Now it’s His turn to do His part.
I punched my “devotional” time clock and did my spiritual duty
And now,
(So I think, reason, and ignorantly understand)
He is scheduled to arrive “on time” and speak to me
So that I can go write it down it a journal as a spiritual marker and date it.
What do you think?
Is that a corny way to approach God?
Is that an absurd approach to a quiet time to obtain “manna in the morning” from God?
Would you counsel a brand new Christian to begin a short devotional life
That at least somewhat resembled this format?
The ultimate goal is this scenario,
Obviously and ideally,
Is to hear God’s voice.
To experience God through intimate communion and fellowship with His Son, Jesus.
To have ears to hear what the Spirit is saying.
C’mon, doesn’t that all sound logical, reasonable, maybe even spiritual?
Perhaps, like me, you’ve observed that God
Has this way about Him that explodes our thinking.
Imagine! The infinite God doing anything at all my way!
Why just this morning…
Today when I came into my prayer closet with an expectation to experience God,
To worship,
To intercede for others,
To present my personal petitions,
To read His word and reap,
And hopefully, ideally, to hear His voice…
Ready for this?
I used “the approach”, “the prescription,” “the order,”
To “get the pattern right so the glory will fall”
To “set the mood” (what a religious thought) to become eligible to obtain a word from God.
Almost immediately this morning as I quietly knelt down before the Lord
Ready to “do my little do and say my little say”
The Lord God began to speak to me.
His word to me was something that I will try to paraphrase to you here:
“David, there’s nothing you have to do or can do to earn your way into My presence.
If that were the case it wouldn’t be grace.”
With that the Lord began to gently and kindly admonish me as only He can with words of
Edification, exhortation, and comfort.
At this point I now have a choice.
I can leave my prayer closet,
Eat a bowl of cereal,
And jump right on into my day because, after all, I’ve already gotten “a word” from God.
I’ve already heard His voice and that’s the point, isn’t it?
Well, yes and no.
I still think I need to enter my prayer closet with an expectation to experience God.
To worship,
To intercede for others,
To present my personal petitions,
To read His word and reap,
And hopefully, ideally, to hear His voice…again.
Consider grace.
Explore grace.
Experience God’s love through grace.
It is true that “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31).
But it is also true that it is a wonderful thing to fall into the hands of the loving, gracious God.
DSR
6/3/02