August 24, 2021
2 Corinthians 6:1-2 (ESV)
Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says,
“In a favorable time I listened to you,
and in a day of salvation I have helped you.”
Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.
CONSIDER THIS
Finally, I got the email I’ve been waiting for. Like you, I get lots of emails. I’ve gotten pretty bad with emails over the years. I do read most of them and respond to as many as I can. But finally, I got this one-liner of an email that said it all. I’m not sure which Daily Text entry it was referring to, but it could have been any number of them. I will keep it anonymous, though it could have likely been written by almost any one of you. Frankly, it could have come right off of my pen as well.
So, here it is—the one line email I have been waiting for:
“It’s so maddening to me that I find this so clear, so beautiful, and so completely unattainable.”
I responded with a two word reply: “Say more.”
This is the unbreakable barrier before the breakthrough. This is the storm before the calm.
“It’s so maddening to me that I find this so clear, so beautiful, and so completely unattainable.”
This is the place of holy discontent. It’s not the dissonance that leads to doubling down on striving for satisfaction. Unfortunately, this is in all of us, and we must pass through it. It is the place where unmet desire becomes clarified longing. This is the territory of soul making. It is the place of realizing what is so clear and so beautiful and so completely unattainable—because it was never meant to be attained—only received as gift. And only received by faith. Will you simply and humbly receive it now? Not some of it but all of it. There is nothing else you have to do. No more striving and never arriving. No more setting one more thing out there to attain before attaining it all; to fulfill before being fulfilled.
“Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Corinthians 6:2)
I wish my response to the one sentence email had not been, “Say more.” I wish it had instead been, “Say no more.”
Now, let us pray, but not in a way we have prayed before. Let us pray in a new way—a way that will be not so much asking as receiving, not so much seeking as finding, not so much knocking at the door as opening it. It is a way of praying that does not so much depend on one’s sincere earnestness but on one’s decided will. It will not be a “prayed the prayer” kind of prayer but an ever-praying the prayer kind of prayer. This is not a fixed state we are going for here but a dynamic abiding reality. This is not a one and done kind of prayer but a done and won and done and won and done and won kind of prayer; for this prayer in many ways holds its own answer. This prayer is a kind of house in and of itself, a dwelling place we must come to live in all the time. This will, in time, become the way of unceasing prayer, enlarging your soul until it is able to contain the gift of God himself.
I want to invite you to find an altar place right now. It can be right where you are, but move into an altar posture. I want to invite you into this way of second half of the gospel praying. This is not a prayer for which we are looking for a particular kind of response or experience. This is a re-grooving of the soul kind of prayer. It will take time and reps and intimate attention over time. Release all your expectations and embrace the one to whom you pray. And buckle your seat belt. ;0)
THE PRAYER
Jesus, I belong to you. You are my Lord and my God. I receive your life in exchange for my life, all of it, right now. I no longer live. You live in me. I can never attain it and I will never have to, for you have attained it all and you are in me. I have been crucified with you. I have been raised with you. Everything in you is mine, and everything is mine in you. And everything in me is yours. The old has gone. The new is come. I have put off the old self with its deceitful desires and I have put on the new self which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of my Creator, created to be like you in righteousness and holiness, in beauty and splendor, in love divine all love’s excelling.
I receive this life which is all at once perfected and yet being transformed with ever increasing glory, from one degree of glory to the next, and all of this from you Lord Jesus through the Holy Spirit. I am filled to the measure of all the fullness of God and yet it is a fullness that ever admits more. I now live in your Kingdom and this new way of asking and receiving, of seeking and finding, of knocking and opening for I have you. You are the treasure buried in a field and I have found you, and for joy I exchange everything I have for that field and the joy of finding you and being found by you over and over and over again and being found in you with a righteousness and goodness and love not my own but from that comes from you, first to last. You are my longing fulfilled. You are my answered prayer. You are my all in all. Amen, Amen—it is so.
THE QUESTION
Will you stay with this prayer? Do you grasp the distinction between “one and done” and “won and done and won and done and won and done?”
For the Awakening,
J.D. Walt
Sower-in-Chief
seedbed.com