The Ultimate Sin

Not two minutes awakeAnd my sin And failure Is before me.Before You, Father.Day after day now, Everything is a departure.The flesh given into, It's strength over taking me.Tried to subdue it.Cried out for deliverance.But only a little.The sinister side Wanting it's enjoyment.For a moment.And the lie At the end of it.Even though I knew it's coming.Now my head hung in shame.Excuses and blame.So shallow.Clever words, And painful reality.Clashing and thrashing at one another."Who will deliver me from this body of death?"Have grieved away Your Holy Spirit.He has left meTo my own devices.To taste the life of old.Back to Egypt.How does a man driftWhile he is yet walking?Given up or dragged away?Forced out or taken over?My own two feet, They betrayed me.And I permitted them.But it was the thoughts That preceded.That set the course in motion.Though this is all known to me.And more so to You, Father.It is I Who have sinned And done this evil In Your sight.To him that knoweth To do good,And doeth it not,To him It is sin. All along There was but one thing Needed.And I chooseThe lesser part.Knew it, knew it all along.The one and the same necessity.The calling and beckoning.The drawing to And from You.To lay it all down, To stop.To ponder.To consider.To pray.Why are we so slow To grasp?Of such little faithAnd dull Of hearing?Why would I deny The greatest of privilege?And go tramping As a beggar?How many Careless words.Prayerless words.Have fallen, useless,To the ground.And even if trueAre but husksOf the kernel.The Lilly's of the field are beautiful.But flowery speech deceitful.Cleverness and knowledge Can be helpfulBut spirit-less, DeadlyThis sin.This lie.This pride.It is to turn from the banquetAnd go starving.To deny the life raftAnd soon drowningCast off the ropeAnd fast fallingA small voiceGently callingA Father Who loves His childrenAnd children Who love their follyWe will deny itEven when we see it.Since we find ourselves Of suchGreat importanceThe compulsionTo speak our mindsDisplay our knowledge.Trying to be helpfulWe kid ourselvesEveryone a spokesmanVery few who have pondered.Prophets everywhere.But praying menA famine.This is the sin.That we are less To acknowledgeAnd may it be The greatestThat we indulge With the most Frequency.And the resultsEver so obviousA tree without fruitA branch cut offFrom The VineIt withers and dies.Our own wordsThey betray usThey are lifelessAnd emptyIt is thisThis prayerlessnessThat is our enemyWe don't believe itNor its realityThat denying YouYour own privilegeTo give us foodAnd wisdom And strengthIn time of needWhich is alwaysHaving turned To our own wayTo our own devicesSuch foolishnessNot to call On Your NameTo wait silentlyThough in former daysWe have tastedThe goodnessThe stirringThe blessingThe exposureBut libertyThe searchingAnd yet cleansingThe brokennessThen the healingThe prayers Of a righteous manAvail muchThe diatribes Of a foolish manLittleI am that man

Such great And precious promisesYet we will not come Receive themRather to build Our ownLittle kingdomsPropped up In our mindsMade Of mixed mortarOh for a half hourOf silenceIn the head roomEvery thought StillLearning What Contrite IsThen may we hearWhat our hearts long forThat we might know YouAs You areNot as We have Perceived YouOh righteous FatherSmite this from us.These fleshly burningsThat stray and betrayRebelling against TheeLet us no longerBe glib and half heartedSlow our compulsionsAnd our desiresIt was Your good pleasureTo make this oneA reproach and a bywordTo expose the follyThe hypocrisyThat I am a liar.I confess itAnd turn from itRepent of itAnd place it before themThat it be recognizedAnd despisedThat it be rebukedAnd indictedLet it be foreverExposedAnd acknowledgedThat there is a walkingAfter the fleshAnd a leading By the SpiritOne is deathThe otherLifeAnd peaceMay the brethrenNot hesitateTo call itOn the carpetRebuke itWhere it is foundA straying fromThe callingThat I am accountableTo themTo YouLastlyUltimatelyTo myselfFor thisThis High calling.We are all indicted In this sinThis sin Of prayerlessness.It is at the rootOf All our troublesWe often useYour Word Like bayonetsIn a battleA civil war Amongst our brethren?The bitternessAnd slightingThe angerAnd dividingWe are compulsiveNot reflectivePuffed upWith knowledgeWe deny The very WordsWe hold toTo hear ourselves speakWhile we yet deny YouDo we not know this?In the quietThat is our failureTo be stillLong enoughTo fight the desireWe lie to thinkThat we don't wantTo please menTo hear their accoladesEven our own BrethrenIs it wrongTo be well thought of?To bring forthA healing balmFor edification?No, it is notIt is in wantingThe glory For ourselvesThat belongsTo AnotherDifferent giftsAnd One and the sameGiverTo each a partTo each a missionLet us hold trueTo that which is evidentThat You Oh LordHave shown usIf it is to preachWoe to you if you do notIf it is to intercedeWoe to meIf it is to be HiddenDo not despise itBrought lowBetter thanPassingExcitementTo teachRememberThe greaterAccountabilityIn all thingsHumbleOurselvesWe mustDo thisBut let usHold looselyWhat we think we knowFor we know notAs we oughtLet us take heedLest we fallLet us forever beEverlastingly at itEver hungryAnd everBeing filledSlow to speakAnd quick to hearLet us re-visitAll that we thinkWe have foundThere is alwaysMore lightGivenAlways more surprisesThat have never crossedOur minds Or our heartsFather, I thank youAnd Praise YouFor Your forgivenessAnd MercyThree days in the coldMore than I could bareI surrender once againTo Your perfect willTo Your perfect loveFill me once againWith the Holy SpiritThat I sent awayGrievingLord, all alongI saw the driftingAs if watching from afarBut now I have learnedThat it is thereWhere I must fightNot in my own strengthWhich is worthlessBut to You.InstantaneouslyWithout equivocationTwo opinions halting.No longer choosing.Only responding.For if You go not before usWe shall not go.Lord, I beseech YouCast this sinOf prayerlessnessInto the deepest seaForever far from us.It is of more importance Than we understandThat we must be prayingPeopleHow much awaitsIf we would But pray.It is our daily breadAnd we go starving.No longer, LordNo longer

Amen. Thank you brother.

Hoping that this may carry out to something different. Kind of a free flowing exercise without particular parameters ... Things that may seem dissimilar but still have a thread running through them.We Must Be Still to KnowBe still, and know that I am God.\t\t(Psalm 46:10)OUR FATHERS HAD MUCH TO SAY ABOUT STILLNESS, and by stillness they meant the absence of motion or the absence of noise or both.\tThey felt that they must be still for at least a part of the day, or that day would be wasted. God can be known in the tumult of the world if His providence has for the time placed us there, but He is known best in the silence. So they held, and so the sacred Scriptures declare. Inward assurance comes out of the stillness. We must be still to know.\tThere has hardly been another time in the history of the world when stillness was needed more than it is today, and there has surely not been another time when there was so little of it or when it was so hard to find.\tChrist is every man's contemporary. His presence and His power are offered to us in this time of mad activity and mechanical noises as certainly as to fishermen on the quiet lake of Galilee or to shepherds on the plains of Judea. The only condition is that we get still enough to hear His voice and that we believe and heed what we hear.\tSome things can be learned in the din of modern life. Amid the noises we may become engineers or scientists or architects. In the humdrum we may learn how to fly a jet plane or to manage a department store. We may win an athletic contest, conduct an orchestra, earn a degree or get ourselves elected to public office. We do these things by accepting civilization at its face value and getting adjusted to it. Thus we become children of the twentieth century and our psychology takes its complexion from the times. We move as gracefully as we are able through the complicated steps of the dance of circumstance, the noise actually aiding our motion; or, not knowing where we are headed, we march with the multitude to booming music that keeps us in step and adds a bit of pleasure to the effort.\tThese things men can do and are doing. But when we begin to doubt the validity of a philosophy built on physical science and to question the soundness of a civilization that produced the H-bomb, and especially when we begin to grope after God if perchance we may find Him, something strange and wonderful happens. As we draw nearer to the ancient Source of our being, we find that we are no longer learned or ignorant, modern or old- fashioned, crude or cultured, white or black; in that awesome Presence we are just men. Artificial distinctions fade away. Thousands of years of education disappear in a moment and we stand again where Adam and Eve stood after the Fall, where Cain stood, and Abel, outside the Garden, frightened and undone and fugitive from the terror of the broken law.\tThere before the judgment seat which suddenly becomes as real to the trembling sinner as if it were the very last judgment itself, no modern religious techniques avail; none of the carefully thought-out methods work. The civilized man surrounded by his lately invented and noisy gadgets passes back in his heart through the centuries of "progress" and becomes again a terrified, whimpering human thing desperately in need of a Savior.\tBecause this is true, any evangelism which by appeal to common interests and chatter about current events seeks to establish a common ground where the sinner can feel at home is as false as the altars of Baal ever were. Every effort to smooth out the road for men and to take away the guilt and the embarrassment is worse than wasted; it is evil and dangerous to the souls of men.\tA.W. Tozer (Continued)

One of the most popular current errors, and the one out of which springs most of the noisy, blustering religious activity being carried on in evangelical circles these days, is the notion that as times change the church must change with them. Christians must adapt their methods by the demands of the people. If they want ten-minute sermons, give them ten-minute sermons. If they want truth in capsule form, give it to them. If they want pictures, give them plenty of pictures. If they like stories, tell them stories. If they prefer to absorb their religious instruction through the drama, go along with them—give them what they want. "The message is the same, only the method changes," say the advocates of compromise.\t"Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad," the old Greeks said, and they were wiser than they knew. That mentality which mistakes Sodom for Jerusalem and Hollywood for the Holy City is too gravely astray to be explained otherwise than as a judicial madness visited upon professed Christians for affronts committed against the Spirit of God. "Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving. Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed" (Isaiah 6:9-10).\tBut, some earnest persons reason, since there is no stillness in this mechanized world we must learn to get along without it. We cannot hope to bring back the still waters and the quiet pastures where David once led his sheep. This rat race of civilization is too noisy for us to hear the still, small Voice, so we must learn to hear God speak in the earthquake and the storm. And if modern evangelism is geared to the tumult and the agitation of the times, why should anyone complain? Does it not represent an honest effort to be all things to all men that by any means some should be saved?\tThe answer is that the soul of man does not change fundamentally, no matter how external conditions may change. The aborigine in his hut, the college professor in his study, the truck driver in the bedlam of city traffic have all the same basic need: to be rid of their sins, to obtain eternal life and to be brought into communion with God. Civilized noises and activities are surface phenomena, a temporary rash on the epidermis of the human race. To attribute sound values to them and then to try to bring religion into harmony with them is to commit a moral blunder so huge as to stagger the imagination, and one for which we shall surely be paying long after this frenetic extravaganza we call civilization has ended in tragedy and everlasting grief.\tWhat certain religious teachers fail to understand is that true Christian experience takes place in the human spirit, far in and beneath the changing surface of things. It is only the surface that responds to noise and agitation. The deep-in part of the man lies in primeval silence waiting that quickening word that shall give it second birth. Because this far-in spirit of the man is separated from God the whole life is out of order; so the flesh and the imagination take over and direct the thinking, the willing and the doing of the individual man and the race of which he is a part. These create the dance macabre, the dance of death we know as society and in which as natural men we find ourselves.\tPopular Christianity parrots the language of New Testament theology, but it accepts the world's opinion of itself and sedulously apes its ways (except for a few evil practices which even the world itself admits are wrong). Then Christ is offered as something added, a Friend Up There, a Guarantor against the time when the tumult and the shouting dies and we are called in from the playground and forced to go to sleep.\tBe it remembered that the great essential facts have not changed. Men are still what they were and the Son of Man is forever who and what He was. He calls to the eternal in us. Deep calls unto deep and the call, if it is heard at all, is heard by that in us which is neither savage nor civilized, old nor young, Western nor Oriental, but simply human and once made in the image of God.\tIt is significant that the psalm in which the words "Be still" occur is filled with noise and commotion. The earth shakes, the waters roar and are troubled, the mountains threaten to tumble into the midst of the sea, the nations rage, the kingdoms are moved and the sound of war is heard throughout the land. Then a voice is heard out of the silence saying, "Be still, and know that I am God" (46:10a).\tSo today we must listen till our inner ears hear the words of God. When the Voice is heard, it will not be as the excited shouting of the nervous world; rather it will be the reassuring call of One of whom it was said, "He will not shout or cry out,/ or raise his voice in the streets" (Isaiah 42:2).\tIt cannot be heard in the street, but it may be heard plainly enough in the heart. And that is all that matters at last.A.W. TozerGod Tells The Man Who Cares

As I read your prose, I find it echoing my own thoughts about myself. I sense in it a connection with my spirit. It is the spirit of mourning. “Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.” A Time to WeepIf I were writing this, I’d probably entitle it: “Prone to Wander’ - taken from the hymn Come thou Fount: “Prone to wander, Lord, I know it.” Only God knows how much we really don't want him and would rather be our own boss: The Ultimate Sin, yes?I’d also try to eliminate words that I feel are so misused that they loose their punch ex sin, and prayer. Maybe I’d substitute sin with: stray, miss the mark, Prayer – listen to God, cry out to God, commune, breathe the life of God … Any way, it’s not my poem, and I feel that the true meanings are clearly portrayed through the choices of words. I find it a very genuine, vulnerable expression of an honest heart.we march with the multitude to booming music Scott Peck, in his book “The Different Drum” drives home this sad truth in a way that hits very close. He looks on the evangelical church from the outside and so can see what most within it cannot.

The Lord desires to have us much in communion with Himself. The reluctance of the carnal heart to dwell in God's presence is terrible. We will rather speak of Him than to Him. How often He finds occasion to reprove us, saying, "The companions hearken to thy voice; cause Me to hear it."David MacIntyreThe Hidden Life of PrayerThanks Diane,This is along the same thread weaved through, differing expressions... "Prone to Wander" very much could have been used, even the rest could stand alone; "Lord, I know it."I’d also try to eliminate words that I feel are so misused that they loose their punch ex sin, and prayer. How true that is. How much goes by the wayside in skimming over, overuse of a misuse and the words themselves become shadows of their former selves.To bring revival and restore the tense, sense and meaning back to them and eliminate the barnacles that have attached themselves. To miss the mark is a start, not sure that even the target is known nor that the bow is missing a draw string. A line from the link you brought marks it well;Don't draw me into the superficial.That covers a lot of territory.

To a people caught in the tempest of the last great conflict God says, “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10), and still He says it, as if He means to tell us that our strength and safety lie not in noise but in silence.\tIt is important that we get still to wait on God. And it is best that we get alone, preferably with our Bible outspread before us. Then if we will we may draw near to God and begin to hear Him speak to us in our hearts. I think for the average person the progression will be something like this: First a sound as of a Presence walking in the garden. Then a voice, more intelligible, but still far from clear. Then the happy moment when the Spirit begins to illuminate the Scriptures, and that which had been only a sound, or at best a voice, now becomes an intelligible word, warm and intimate and clear as the word of a dear friend. Then will come life and light, and best of all, ability to see and rest in and embrace Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord and All.\tThe Bible will never be a living Book to us until we are convinced that God is articulate in His universe. To jump from a dead, impersonal world to a dogmatic Bible is too much for most people. They may admit that they should accept the Bible as the Word of God, and they may try to think of it as such, but they find it impossible to believe that the words there on the page are actually for them. A man may say, “These words are addressed to me,” and yet in his heart not feel and know that they are. He is the victim of a divided psychology. He tries to think of God as mute everywhere else and vocal only in a book.\tI believe that much of our religious unbelief is due to a wrong conception of and a wrong feeling for the Scriptures of Truth. A silent God suddenly began to speak in a book and when the book was finished lapsed back into silence again forever. Now we read the book as the record of what God said when He was for a brief time in a speaking mood. With notions like that in our heads how can we believe? The facts are that God is not silent, has never been silent. It is the nature of God to speak. The second Person of the Holy Trinity is called the Word. The Bible is the inevitable outcome of God’s continuous speech. It is the infallible declaration of His mind for us put into our familiar human words.\tI think a new world will arise out of the religious mists when we approach our Bible with the idea that it is not only a book which was once spoken, but a book which is now speaking. The prophets habitually said, “Thus saith the LORD.” They meant their hearers to understand that God’s speaking is in the continuous present. We may use the past tense properly to indicate that at a certain time a certain word of God was spoken, but a word of God once spoken continues to be spoken, as a child once born continues to be alive, or a world once created continues to exist. And those are but imperfect illustrations, for children die and worlds burn out, but the Word of our God endureth forever.\tIf you would follow on to know the Lord, come at once to the open Bible expecting it to speak to you. Do not come with the notion that it is a thing which you may push around at your convenience. It is more than a thing; it is a voice, a word, the very Word of the living God. \tLord, teach me to listen. The times are noisy and my ears are weary with the thousand raucous sounds which continuously assault them. Give me the spirit of the boy Samuel when he said to Thee, “Speak, for thy servant heareth.” Let me hear Thee speaking in my heart. Let me get used to the sound of Thy voice, that its tones may be familiar when the sounds of earth die away and the only sound will be the music of Thy speaking voice.Amen.AWTThe Speaking Voice

In this haphazard, quasi broken state of things, we mere collections of dust particles molded together and held from disintegration but the power of the Most High through His Son....If we are held in such great esteem by God that He would come rescue us from ourselves and from leaping at the throats of each other, even in mental pictures... Even as we keep playing hide and seek in the broad daylight of an exposed soul... As changed, rearranged, having our very dispositions given a new heart and life through the one and same Spirit that lived in Jesus...The One who is called Holy, The Comforter, given, living, breathing, pulsating within our hearts and our heads...If we could but learn to truly hear Him, to stop and recognize what is really going on and why...That our study of the scriptures is in reality, if we take it rightly, the scriptures studying us... A grasping even half blind at the paradox of dying to our selfishness still leaves a greater blessing to our being as individuals in the difficult to apprehend statement of "He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal." And"For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it."For who is it at end that will be held accountable other than that one and same self? The question will be rather one of "Lord, Lord did I not...." Or the one that long ago lost him or herself into rescue bin of the lost and found, and having being found would find such an utterance as foreign as a swimming pool on the sun...That when the real realization dawns on us, that "... my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Is more than abstract sentiment and is the call to relief of a million and one useless anxieties that we carry around in a back-sack, weighing us down, the osteoporosis of a weary life...To get just the smallest glimpse that a Holy life is in definition to be rightly related and constituted to wholeness again, a back to the future of original intent, God reconciling man back to Himself... Not of the twisted concept of superior piety that cast the very devil himself back down to the earth in a fireball of stupidity...If, in the silence of God we can constrain the squirmy sugar induced child within long enough to sit still and rest for a moment, the afternoon nap of prayer devoid of constraint of time...That in and out of all this we find that a compulsion is demanded to rise up into sheer adoration, in mighty awe and wonder. That praise praise and worship is extracted not worked up...That in those moments of uncommon bliss of soul, to sense just 2% of the manifest Presence of the Lord, "Did our hearts not burn within us?" That so little is enough to send the soaring of the spirit into heights unknown...That such a small dose of realization, of Gods felt Presence, of His great all consuming love, of real joy, real peace, where the word on our lips for all eternity is always "Oh!" Or in our fallen language; "Wow!"...And thankful! Does it not come pouring out like a flood? That this profound change has been wrought inside us, that we have a different Spirit, a different heart altogether, a whole completely other way of seeing everything? Are we not ever so grateful that He even looks on us, let alone has given of His Life into us? Think of it!If a mere glance is cast our way from the Creator of the Universe ...If Jesus were to pick us out of the crowd of onlookers because our heart draws His attention...If we have tasted just a sip of the goodness of the Lord...And come to realize what Paul meant by how he was caught up into Paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter...And by reason of the exceeding greatness of the revelations...If we are still paddling "on the edge of the ocean of the possibilities of grace" as Ravenhill so eloquently put it and perhaps have only put our big toe in it...What of the full manifestation?Think of it!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Just for a bit of summarization, this all bore out of just the smallest, barely conceivable apprehension of Gods manifest Presence last night as I lay in the darkness and quiet. Am becoming more and more attuned to and frankly love the darkness, the darker the better...Before the eyebrows come peeling off the tops of the head, the reason being that it brings on the sense of no fear but a right fear. Not scared like a fear of impending doom but that reverential kind, that of our smallness and of His greatness. It's true joy and peace with that odd trepidation of grasping so little and yet breaking in on so much. It carried right on over into the morning, this slight rapture of the soul, these seedlings of possibilities, these incredible, incomprehensible byproducts of what might come from the privilege of prayer. From that dear saint's pen, Dr. Tozer:Prayer Changes People—and ThingsNO ONE WHO HAS READ THE BIBLE with any perception can fail to see that to God men are more important than things. A human being is of more value than a thousand galaxies of stars or a million worlds like ours. God made man in His own image and He made things to serve man. His concern is with intelligent moral beings, not with lifeless matter. However, since man has a material body and must live out his days in an environment of matter, time and space, things are important to him. His earthly life is to a large degree interwoven with matter and the laws that control matter. He is often deeply affected by the report his senses bring him from the world around him. Situations sometimes develop where the welfare of the inner man is for the time allowed to depend somewhat upon outward circumstances. At such times it is altogether proper that he should pray to God to alter those circumstances and “change things” to afford a more favorable climate for the growth of the spirit. A thousand promises are recorded in the Scriptures to encourage him to ask and seek and knock to the end that unfavorable things might be changed or removed altogether. And the history of Israel and the Church abundantly demonstrates that God does hear and answer prayer.\tIn all our praying, however, it is important that we keep in mind that God will not alter His eternal purposes at the word of a man. We do not pray in order to persuade God to change His mind. Prayer is not an assault upon the reluctance of God, nor an effort to secure a suspension of His will for us or for those for whom we pray. Prayer is not intended to overcome God and “move His arm.” God will never be other than Himself, no matter how many people pray, nor how long nor how earnestly.\tGod’s love desires the best for all of us, and He desires to give us the best at any cost. He will open rivers in desert places, still turbulent waves, quiet the wind, bring water from the rock, send an angel to release an apostle from prison, feed an orphanage, open a land long closed to the gospel. All these things and a thousand others He has done and will do in answer to prayer, but only because it had been His will to do it from the beginning. No one persuades Him.\tWhat the praying man does is to bring His will into line with the will of God so God can do what He has all along been willing to do. Thus prayer changes the man and enables God to change things in answer to man’s prayer.AWTTHE PRICEOF NEGLECTAND OTHER ESSAYSHave a nice day!

Compulsion. Knee-jerk. Reactionary. Impulse. "Top of the head." Descriptions of the pace that we often operate under. The great difficulty to come to a place of silence and rest from all the squirming and restlessness. Perhaps we are running from Him as we are about explaining all the insight we have gained from a cursory, surface level study of not only His word but of ourselves in relation to it.Rather from the depths of the heart or at best a meeting of the mind with the reasoning of the soul. It's foreign to us. Have we begun to allow things that ought not to crowd out the things that remain?Contemplation,"For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise." Heb 10:36 That which precedes this;Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. For ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance. Heb 10:34,35And prior:But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions; Partly, whilst ye were made a gazingstock both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, whilst ye became companions of them that were so used. Heb 10:32,33Lastly, if only to pause;For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Heb 10:30,31 Reproaches, companions, Heaven, recompense, remembrance ... former days, patience.The living God.On the surface, canvasing about, it is apparent enough. Men will grow worse and worse, it is expected and quite normal, peaks and valleys, spurts of human goodness, relics left over from God's imprint into His creation, by and large it's everyman unto himself with no thought towards the eternal tomorrow, to the the last earthly breath, to the day of reckoning. Without God and without hope.Yet to us, who have tasted the goodness of the Lord, how is it that we have retarded the growth into fullness, into the new man, allowing apathy and atrophy, contention and separation, that they be One as We are One, instead we will be many, as we are. Stalling and quibbling over the mint and cumin, straining at gnats and swallowing the camel. One is a growth towards destruction, ours into the Knowledge of the Holy.But many of us are stunted. Partially by neglect, partially by ignorance, how much due to just a simple discipline? Of course getting to that simplicity is exceedingly difficult as we have become caught up in this wake of modernity. Maybe it's only the pace that has gained speed, impatience having always been a particular problem. Exo 32:1 When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, "Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him." Luk 7:32 They are like unto children sitting in the marketplace, and calling one to another, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned to you, and ye have not wept. In other words and it is only a byproduct of a worse compulsion, that of replacement. And because the Lord will not meet our demands, instead of checking our impulse against the backdrop of Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. Jam 4:3 the revolt is, very well, we cannot wait, we will do it ourselves.So we flit from one thing to another without any contemplation or assimilation. To be instant in season and out, yet miss the exhortation 'with all longsuffering and doctrine. This seems to be a great problem that impatience has wrought. What is ready and acceptable to us we gladly latch on to, but that which is bothersome or takes time to muse on doesn't have equal share, especially if it rubs us the wrong way. So we will often crowd around pet doctrines and hold on to our particular apprehensions of them so tightly that a contrary thought is met with the impulse to defend and dismiss, not allowing any further light to shine.It would be equally just as much a misunderstanding that a plea is here to a particular open mindedness or that that truth comes in many shades and therefore we ought to just welcome in every contrary thought. Far from it. We do have a somewhat 'system' if we may, of checks and balances, a great ledger of what is and will be forever. Gods word.A poor analogy would be a comparison to an automotive manual. If an average untaught home mechanic set out to rebuild an engine but choose to rely on what prior knowledge or gleanings from forays into the maintenance of his car had given him alone, he would soon find himself with a bit of a problem on his hands. With a manual spelling out the details he could find help for particulars and with some diligence get the thing put back together again. But will it run? And will it run well? It may, but if you have ever attempted even a partial rebuild or something similar, often you will find that a lot of backtracking and fixing must be done before you can get the desired results. The point is that even with the accomplished ends met, would this make one a 'mechanic' in the truest sense of the word? What I have found personally is a rather frustrating grasping of understanding in these realms. You consult the manual to fix the problem and how often the exasperation of "What in the world do they mean by this?" "This is talking in a foreign language, how am I supposed to understand this, it's like it was written for...." Precisely, you do not know the mind of the engineer that wrote it, to him and to those schooled in the train of thought that built it, it makes perfect sense.The analogy, poor as it is, is to draw the attention of how we approach and apprehend scripture, much in the same way. We can jump in and grab snippets to rebuild our carburetor, do a decent tune-up perhaps. But that is far short from being able to diagnose and maintain an engine.Just as well a study alone of the manual, mere head knowledge without some knuckle busting and sweat and grime and might as well go all the way, some cursing (you can keep it under your breath) is not going to get you very far.It's a schooling that is needed and that takes time and effort and patience. And dare I say, discipline. That is from the practical side of things, our part. It is a spiritual exercise not apart from, but in conjunction with what is wrought out from within us. There is something that I wonder if we might miss in hurrying to the end of the story, in our impatience."And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high." Luk 24:49Behold.We might as well admit it, we don't really like that word "tarry" and beholding carries the same sense of "Pay particular attention". And saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death: tarry ye here, and watch. And he cometh, and findeth them sleeping, and saith unto Peter, Simon, sleepest thou? couldest not thou watch one hour? Mar 14:34,37It seems to be of a concern to the Lord often in His earthly life and beyond. Martha and Mary;Luk 10:42 But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her. Needful.The good part.And what of the promises? Going back to what transformed the apostles and disciples in that upper room. The truest, greatest revival to ever come upon this earth, all of it preceded by tarrying. A great deal of promise contained in that one word, "Until". The expectations, the suspense, the wonder and awe..."Power from on high"Imagine it!What must have been going through their heads and hearts... "What could this mean?" Having just come off the grandeur of seeing the risen Lord, in the flesh, the dumbfoundedness of reeling in that and now the waiting, the anticipation...It had to have been a great mystery to them, we often forget that we are reading after the fact. Even to reflect on what came before, the uncertainties just after the Lords crucification, the contemplations and fears, the hiding from the Jews, those thoughts, all this mingled together, all while they waited.Dear saints, it is in this lack of being still and waiting on the Lord that I fear so much is missed. It also seems to give impedance to many of our troubles that come out into all kinds of horrible treatment of one another. The misconceptions and bitting and snipping at one another, the often times divisiveness, all the ugliness of Galatians 5, not expressely particular to this place but across the whole Christian landscape and just in part;Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. We know the remedy and the cure in how to walk but how much of this could be due to just impatience with ourselves and each other? And that we will not tarry, alone with the Lord, quieting and humbling ourselves before Him. Perhaps there is quite a lot He might have to say to us if we might just lay down our own thoughts and wills, opening the scriptures to us in ways we have never know before. I do pray for a real revival of Gods people. Something that He brings forth, a true power from on high, unmistakable and without the tamperings of man. Gods thought upon us. Our right understanding sharpened, our eyes truly opened to see Him as He is. "Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?" If it came after this sort or as in times past in corporate fashion seems to matter little, just that it comes, our gathering together doesn't constitute a problem, we have plenty of that going on, just seemingly lacking power to accomplish much of anything. Why Revival Tarries...Could it be because we won't?Mar 14:38 Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak.