Quiet Time Part III

“Give Me the bare minimum of what I want and I will give you the bare minimum of what you want.”

This is what I heard from God as a promise to me. (You can catch up on this in Quiet Time Part I and Quiet Time Part II.)

Michael reminded me of Paul’s exaltation in Ephesians 3:20-21, “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

How could our amazing limitless God who works beyond our imaginations be anything that could be called bare minimum?

I immediately knew that I could find something in scripture to talk about a blessing being removed or the requirements for living the blessed life. But it served me well to study what leads up to Paul’s amazing proclamation about God’s gift of salvation which no man can work to earn in Ephesians 3:14-19 NKJV.

Paul prays for the Ephesians to be blessed by God Himself. He requests for them to be strengthened in their inner man and rooted in love. He prays for them to understand and know the fullness of Christ’s love. This part of his letter to Ephesus is about the amazing gift of salvation offered to us all through Christ Jesus. But Paul does not stop at recognizing God for salvation. He goes on to encourage the church that there is a blessing in comprehending the “fullness of God.”

The fact that he prays for these things to be granted them means that these benefits are not automatically perceived by believers upon salvation. Even though these blessings are available to us at the moment of salvation we may not immediately take hold of them. Paul was obviously not saying that we had to do anything to earn Christ’s love nor strength from the Holy Spirit nor the bounty of His riches in glory. He was simply praying for us to perceive, comprehend and understand the fullness of God that is available when we are in Him. This will allow us to see what God is doing as His power works in us.

God revealed these truths to Michael in a word picture. It blows me away as I imagine it.

“God's fullness is always being poured on us. Only when we fully open ourselves to His fullness are we able to see it more and become more aware of it. It's like when Elisha [our 9 month old] is sitting on the floor playing and we are standing over him watching him. We are there the whole time, but he is not aware that we are there. So to him, we are not present. But soon he sees our shadow on the ground next to him and then he becomes aware of the shadow and it excites him that something else is there. Then he turns and sees a foot; he is more aware of our presence. Then he looks up and sees us looking on him and smiles really big at the realization that "Oh, hey, where have you been this whole time?" To him, we just appeared. We were there all along, loving him and watching him the whole time, just reveling in his beauty. With each advance of his perception, he becomes more and more aware of us. Our love and affection were there in full the whole time, but it wasn't until he looked up and saw us that Elisha became aware of that love and affection."

In Part IV, I will apply my understanding of these revelations to my promise from God.