Keep Asking

Whenever I have a realization about how I need to ASK GOD to work in my heart--ask Him to show His power in my weakness; ask Him to help me be the mom my kids need; ask Him to soften my heart and cause me to be moved by His glory--typically it goes something like this: 

1. Conviction that I need to be asking. "Oh yeah! This is HIS work! I have to ASK Him. Duh."
2. A couple of days of earnest prayers along this line. Maybe a week. Two weeks, tops.
3. Forgetfulness. Discouragement. Faithlessness. Return to old patterns.

I am a product of our 21st-century instant-gratification culture. I want results, and I want them yesterday. When God doesn't transform me on my timetable, I'm sorry to say that I am incredibly quick to lose heart.

But as Dr. David Powlison has said, "Change is incremental. The actual process is usually slow. God seems content to work on a scale of centuries with the church, and a scale of decades with individuals. ...The unfolding process is invariably messy."

DECADES! No wonder I get impatient!

I have seen Jesus this week, and He has been beautiful. This in itself is a sighting of Him: If He were not at work in my heart, if His Spirit was not active in me, I would not have eyes to see Him or a taste for His goodness at all. I would not have a hunger for His Word. So the fact that I have experienced these things in some measure over the last few days encourages me; it helps me see Him even more.

But I am not suddenly, magically a new person. I am still so often shortsighted, still easily discouraged when change doesn't come quickly enough. So I am reminding myself (and you) again: Keep asking. Just as the apostle Paul prayed for the Ephesian church--not once but continually

"I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe."  (Ephesians 1:17-19 NIV, emphasis added)

 The power at work in the hearts of those who know Him is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead, Paul goes on to say. And we can be certain that God will use that power to enlighten the eyes of our hearts, because He longs for us to see and love the glory of His name even more than we want to see!


 [This post is part of the series "31 Days of Seeing Jesus"--click here for a list of all posts.]