Like many New Englanders, I am fiercely independent. I’ve always had something inside me that makes me feel like anything is possible if I work hard enough at it. Of course, I’ve come up against the cement wall of my own limitations more than once. I usually pound my fist against that wall for a little while and then move on.
In the grand scheme of things, I’ve accepted that I’ll never be a professional soccer player, a world-class musician, or a famous painter. I also know that I’ll never be a renowned theologian or a leader of a megachurch. My passion for these things, and many other things, carries me for a while, but then, there it is again—the wall. Ugh. It’s so painful coming to grips with our inadequacies!
In the pursuit of God, I confess that I often allow my independent spirit to sneak in. I start getting into a mindset of thinking that I can barrel my way through into heavens resources by my grit and aggression. If I just spend enough hours in prayer, read enough books on prayer, pour over Scripture, align my life perfectly and fast from food, then, I will surely ascend the hill of the Lord and be filled with God’s power.
The Lord has to show me repeatedly that it doesn’t work that way.
Day in the life
I’m writing this on Sunday evening and am utterly depleted from preaching this morning. Yesterday was day 30 in this pursuit and I came up against that familiar wall. Not only have I been going hard after God in the last month but I spent time seeking God in 2020 more than ever. But last night, and this morning before preaching, I felt completely empty—almost as if the Spirit was asleep or went away. What is going on?
In my deadness, I spent time praying but nothing changed. No inspiration. No sweet sense of His presence. No rush of power to excite me about preaching. No tears. These times are painful when I realize who I am apart from Christ. I’m really nothing. I have nothing to give anyone. I’m weak, sinful and dry as toast.
As a pastor, I can’t really call in sick every time I feel like that. I’ve learned to just get dressed and go do it—like the Dunkin' guy, “time to make the donuts.” So many times, right up to the very point of preaching, I’ve felt sick, blank, weak and afflicted. The feelings are so intense at times that I almost can’t imagine even speaking out loud—never mind preaching!
My wife has noticed through the years that when I feel like this prior to preaching I tend to preach my best sermons. This morning as I was preaching, about five minutes in, the Spirit quickened me. Suddenly, the sermon I wrote that just was not opening up to me all week, opened wide. Inspiration streamed into me. Clarity of speech possessed me. That wonderful rush of divine energy powerfully worked within me (Col 1:29). I wasn’t really surprised. The Lord never lets me down. He just likes to show up at the last possible second ha!
The great lesson
Why does He do that? I’ve thought a lot about this question through the years. It seems that our propensity to rely on ourselves is deeply ingrained in us. While prayer and fasting are essential to being filled with the Spirit it’s easy to start thinking that we can just pray and fast our way into the storehouses of God’s power, again, by our grit and aggression. But the Lord often allows us to exert ourselves spiritually and instead of breaking into fresh streams, we lie in a muddy pit of our own affliction and insufficiency. Instead of abundant life, we feel death. Listen to what Paul said,
For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. — 2 Corinthians 1:8-9
Through this experience of wholehearted seeking and feeling empty, we realize what we are apart from God. We realize that it is God who opens our minds and it is God who empowers us to pray and minister with love. We realize that even the ability to feel compassion is from God, as even that disappears when God withdraws from us. We realize that the burning desire to know God comes from God. And we realize that apart from the Spirit working in us our gratitude even for the cross becomes small. No wonder Paul said, “What a wretched man I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?” Jesus said,
I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. — John 15:5
Apart from Him, we can do nothing! We cannot control God by prayer and fasting. God’s power is not switched on and off by us. We can’t conjure Him up like a genie in a bottle. We aren’t the master of Him. He will do what He wants to do when He wants to do it. He will move in His time. He is like the wind that blows where it wills.
The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. — John 3:8
Then why even try?
Please don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. The spiritual disciplines—prayer, fasting, giving, contemplation, reading, writing, and so on, along with our efforts to repent and consecrate our lives—matter. These things put us in the right posture to receive from God. But they are not coins we drop into the cosmic vending machine to obtain the power of God.
We come up to this reality especially in our pursuit of holiness. Through the Word, we hear the call to be holy. We start cutting away anything and everything in our lives that is sinful or even questionable. We make lifestyle changes. We start giving our money to the work of God and practicing devotion to the church. Again, all this is good and necessary but it does not produce a holy heart. In fact, it can even make us self-righteous if we take our eyes off of the holiness of God.
Those who have never put their all into becoming holy may not realize what I’m saying is true. They think if they could just push a little harder and be more disciplined, then, they would surely attain a holy life. But those who have relentlessly pursued holiness have come up against the wall of their own limitations. We realize that our best attempts, our feverish devotions, our zeal for righteousness, only make us more painfully aware of how different we are from God. We can punch the wall all we want but we can’t get through to a holy heart. Paul reminded the Galatians that they could not be perfected by effort alone.
O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? — Galatians 3:1-3
Union with Holy Spirit
Again, don’t misunderstand me. It’s essential to repent and to make outward adjustments. This is, in fact, obedience. But God alone can make us inwardly holy. How does He do it? By our deep union and association with the Holy Spirit. He touches us with a fiery coal and purges the inward heart. He imparts divine love into us. He drenches the heart with His affections. He puts the fire of longing in us. Only He can do these things.
Don’t be disappointed with your inability to operate in God’s power and to be holy. Don’t forget that you are an earthen sinful vessel dependent on the Lord. We aren’t strong, we aren’t wise, we aren’t holy—apart from Him. We are nothing apart from Christ! So when He’s showing us who we are apart from Him let’s just swallow it. Yes, it’s humbling, I know. But He gives grace to the humble!
By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. — 1 Corinthians 15:10