Oil pouring, pouring. And increasing as it pours out! Pouring, pouring, till there’s no room left to hold it.
The sermon declares our need for fresh fillings of God’s Spirit, and shows, via 2 Kings 4:1-7, how we can get this.
I listen. I take notes. I come home and ponder, repeatedly. Into Monday. Into Tuesday.
For two huge reasons:
a) My focus word for 2012: “closer” — as in “closer walk with Thee,” as in “Nearer, my God, to Thee,”
and
b) My ongoing desire to fulfill God’s purpose for my remaining earth-time. Fulfill as in full fill, fill as fully as possible.
So my heart listens hard to the remembered three part instructions:
(Like the destitute widow…)
1) First, I need to ask. And who should I ask but God?
Simple enough, and exactly what Jesus said (in Luke 11:9-13) to do.
It’s just plain spiritual common sense. Could I expect to draw nearer to the great God, Who is Spirit, on my own, in my flesh? Could I expect to do spiritual work by human efforts alone?
So it floors me that I have not yet asked Him to work in me to bring it about! Where have I been??
(Mark that one not yet done! Meaning, I haven’t even gotten started on this 2012 aim!)
2) Second, I need to prepare to receive it as the widow did the oil
I need to ask, as Elisha did, “What do you have” already?
What I have of God’s Spirit already is
a) the beginning work of grace, and
b) unique spiritual gifts, the main one of which I know to be that teaching gift by which God illumines Scriptural principles, truths, and insights, and helps bring them to life for others. There are other things (encouragement, mercies), but this teaching one has been lying in hibernation, opportunities closed, ministries ended. And all that seems left is a few drops of oil of potential with nowhere to go.
Which leads to the other part of preparation: gathering all the potential vessels possible.
Yike! I feel tension mounting! Speaking engagements? Classes, Bible study groups? Online Bible explorations via blog? It scares me, thinking of resurrecting openly those fascinating but potentially controversial old studies — like the one that keeps coming to mind, the one with Song of Solomon as springboard…
But yes, honesty concurs with the sermon, which stressed the importance of nabbing every possible appropriate empty vessel. Borrow! Beg! But don’t get just one! Or two!
Finally…
3) I need then to readily receive
Take in, fill up. All of it possible! “Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it,” quoted the pastor (Ps 81:10), reminding me how that verse jump-started George Mueller’s amazing orphan work.
I also consider how the widow received continually more: by pouring it out, into all receptacles available.
—
I must admit I’m feeling daunted. I was just about to relax, draw back, do less, slide into shadows, “retire.”
Now this.
I’m not bounding out thither and yon. Not yet! There’s this thing called presumption. Also precipitateness.
Yet, ending my notes page in my journal, in large letters, I wrote…
“Hm.”
Maybe I’ll just start today with step one. Can’t go wrong with that. Then I’ll think about #2…
Please pray for me…
*****
Linked to
And… State of the Heart
“…the other part of preparation: gathering all the potential vessels possible.”
This is message I must take to heart today. So often I pray to be “used,” yet all my vessels are full already! I need to submit my vessels for His use.
Thanks for this word today.
It’s just plain spiritual common sense. Could I expect to draw nearer to the great God, Who is Spirit, on my own, in my flesh? Could I expect to do spiritual work by human efforts alone?
So it floors me that I have not yet asked Him to work in me to bring it about! Where have I been??
I feel you here. I’ve read George Mueller and Experiencing God and they seem to say the same thing and I don’t know how I end up wandering? I get sidetracked in my works and get out of the habit of talking to God about what I’m doing-what he wants me to do. My step right now is to remember, every day, to pray OUT LOUD each morning before my day begins so that I am connected to Him and can do what He has ordered.
Peace to you. Visiting from Soli Deo Gloria today…
Hi Emily,
That’s how it is with me, too, Emily. I know better, but I just get going in the flesh sometimes, well-intentioned but misguided. This Sunday lesson was just what I needed to hear at this time. And yes, I’m praying more out loud myself. Better.
So glad you visited and commented. Peace to you as well!
What a moving and thoughtful entry. I could imagine you working through those steps of prayer and worked out His direction for you.
This question has me thinking tonight: “I need to ask, as Elisha did, ‘What do you have’ already?” — thank you for that!
And thank YOU for linking up with Graceful this week!
Oh, how I need this, too! How little I do any of these, and how thoroughly the second terrifies me! I don’t want to go find the vessels; it takes too much effort, draws me out of my comfort zone, . . . yet I want to be filled. I need to be filled Thank you for these incredible reminders today. I’ll be praying for you.
Hi Mary,
I’m still not out looking for vessels. Holy caution, laziness, or timidity? Not sure, but waiting and seeing what God says in His word…
Prayers for you, too!
Thanks to you, Michelle, for hosting the blog hop, and for visiting and commenting here.
When I felt all doors were closed a while back, Husband’s advice: “What do you know God already wants you to do?” (Meaning: with what I already have.) Thinking about that question made me realize I had a lot more “oil” than I realized!
Lori,
Thanks. Still doing it! (heh heh)
Glad you stopped by.
Denise, that’s the other, balancing, side of this: not just loading up with anything and everything, but developing discernment about what to fill with what! (Still learning here!)
Reading St John of the Cross’ Dark Night of the Soul.. it’s a whole different preparing than I have ever thought about before. It was recommended to me by A and Cora. Power-full stuff, tough to read…
I love how you think about continually “being with” Him,
Dawn
I have heard about, but never read Dark Night of the Soul. I’ll have to look for it. Although… maybe not in gloomy January?
Being with Him, it’s a growing thing. It ought to be –or become — everything! 🙂