I read an article or something perhaps that CS Lewis wrote asking something along the lines of "What are you praying for nowadays?" as a more pointed way to get deeper into that question.
Regardless of how you ask it, I think I can attempt to answer that question with a little word picture.
Right now, when it comes to me and God, I feel like I'm in a new land again, tasting clues or hints of God's grandness but at the same time I feel like God's like this dad that is smiling, asking me to come play and see what He's up to. He's a little ahead of me on the journey but He's somehow with me yet calling me to come to Him and not look back. I feel a little behind though. I feel like I can only catch little bits of what He's saying. To me, it's a victory just to understand one or two things He's saying or showing me.
Does this sound confusing? Probably it does. Because sometimes I feel like God's so grand, His word so vast in reasons for worship that I can only behold maybe one or two semblances of it of Him and all that He's trying to teach me. I constantly feel like my life is just trying to "catch up" to where He is and where He's leading me. At first glance it seems like a bit of dissonance and maybe it is, yet when I picture this, I see Him strangely with me, yet ahead of me as well. I see Him smiling; there doesn't seem to be guilt in this picture. Just an invitation for more. And every time I take a step forward or say "yes" to one of those little invitations, I feel encouraged that perhaps this is what sanctification is: Learning to walk in who I really am, the Jon Lau God created in His image, the Jon Lau still carrying but not defined by the hurts and habits of sin and its consequences, the Jon Lau made new, united in Christ, by the seal of the Holy Spirit, able to actually see all that I am in Christ. I think that's how I picture it. I've always known cognitively that "Jesus loves me" but I think that truth is beginning to carry much more weight and substance as I'm learning how much Jesus knows me. Because what I see inside is a guy 3 steps behind, a guy who should be more holy, a guy who should be more courageous, a guy who should be more proactive. Yet I also am beginning to see a Father who still smiles, still beckons, still invites, still shows patience, still loves.
I don't know where I picked it up from. Maybe a preacher said it a lot, but It's been put into my heart that when it comes to life with God, "there's always so much more." And I feel like I'm learning sanctification is learning to live in just that "so much more-ness." I guess it just takes practice and faith in the gospel to keep going even during the seasons where it feels like you have no strength to take one step forward.
Well, this is my 3:30am reflection. I don't much care to tidy this one up through revision. It is what it is.
Heh, I chuckle in how God speaks through those blank pockets of silence in the 3:30am night where I'm forced to hear my heart, its longings, its questions, and what God thinks about it all.
Jesus, it's been a journey. I know there's always much more life to be had. Let's goooo,
-Jon
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