With Loud Cries

I’m wanting to awaken tonight. Or better, reawaken. I want to wake up to all that is real and lasting and eternal, to take at heart what Thoreau once said, that "we must reawaken and learn to remain awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn."

Dan Haseltine, the lead singer of Jars of Clay, wrote that there are three things in the universe that are eternal. God, of course – His overreaching reign, His infinite (in both quality and quantity) love that He lavishes on His own, His pursuit… that pursuit that rocks the religious and knocks the prodigaled off their feet, His desire that names him a "jealous lover." The other two are the human soul – that part of us most living, and the human heart – that deepest and truest part of ourselves, which is constantly expanding (2 Corinthians 6:11).

But I’m not wanting to write about that. In fact all I want to do, all I feel I can do, is just utter a plea to the Eternal One born from longing and molded loosely by words like some bit of moist clay on a wheel. I want to pray.

My Lord Jesus Christ,

My greatest desire is to be with You. You are the Bread of Life, who came down from heaven in order that I might live, the Living Water for my parched and weary soul. You offer Yourself as the Living Hope, the Only Way, the God of my heart and soul. In You, and in You alone, my Christ, do I find all that I have ever longed for and desired but have never found in this world or in myself or even in others.

I attest that you are the Sovereign Lord of my heart, the creator of the Universe and my soul, the One who knit me together in my mother’s womb. In You, Jesus, is Life… and that Life is the light of men. And by You and by You alone do I see.

Lover of my Soul, Holy One, Almighty God, here and now I die to my flesh and to the world. I am crucified with You and yet I live. Not me, but You who lives within me. I die to my fears and denials and regrets, to my pride and unbelief and idolatry. I crucify upon Your cross my shame, guilt, blame, and deadness of spirit. And I live to You, my Lord.

Thank you that the Kingdom of God is really here, really here, within me. Because You have come and have bridged the gap that would have forever separated me from You. Now I am convinced that nothing can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus. And I rest in that. Though I cannot contain You, and though I cannot fathom such a foolish kind of love (such a ruthless, reckless, raging, furiously tender kind of love like You show and like You are, that You would care so much for me and delight so much in me, that You would call and equip and make and surround and delight in and rejoice in and dance over me and give everything to ransom me), I rest in it. I trust in You. I lay here at Your feet, face first, because I know that I am empty, and having nothing to offer You except my heart and my life and my affection.

And I am painfully aware of my need of further grace from You. I desire so much more to abide more deeply and move more freely in your Spirit. Open my eyes again, Jesus. Reawaken me deeply. I press on, ever more, toward the prize… which is You, my reflection in Your eyes. I set my heart on home, my face heavenward like flint, my soul alive in Your hands. I lay all down for and to You. You have loved me with that awesome, everlasting love (that I don’t understand but know I am made for nonetheless).

Lead me on with Your love. Shake me free and blow through me. You have called me. You have opened my heart to Your deep love. Come, fill it. Bring the full ministry and presence of Yourself here, right here.

You are Lord, Life, Love, the Way, the Truth, the Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth, and the Lover of my heart and soul. You are a wild God, and I am Yours (because, in all Your wildness… or maybe because of all Your wildness, You have rescued me). I love You and cry out for You. I come home – limping and hungry, desperately hungry. I come home.

I ask for Your abiding Spirit and Your grace to abide more restfully, more deeply, more presently in heart and mind and spirit in You. Here I am, O’ I Am.

Amen.

And now, I want to pray with the way I live this night out. With how I treat the most startling image of God I can know outside of Christ – my wife, and the depth of beauty she brings to me and to this world. With what I do with my time tonight. With how I treat my next-door neighbor. With what I do with my heart, that little treasure of the Kingdom for which Christ died. Will I open up to the freedom and life offered to me tonight by God in the face of Christ? And how will I live in the Kingdom tonight? Will I run free "because [the Lord] has always stood up for me" (Psalm 63:7, The Message). Will I bring down strongholds and trample on the snakes and scorpions of this present darkness? And what, ultimately, will I do with Jesus, that one who gave His everything to be my everything?

All of heaven awaits, with, I think, bated breath.

It’s time to pray.