On recommendation from a friend, I watched the movie Lucy last year, then again recently. I remember the first time I watched it, as Lucy discovered that she could access parts of her brain she didn't even know existed and therefore access realms of possibilities that were previously inaccessible to her, my hope of seeing beyond what I currently see increased exponentially. The three dimensional existence we find ourselves in is not the greatest existence we could hope to have. The current capacity at which we use our brain is not the optimum capacity it could function at. There is so much more than this current reality. Off course we know there is more than just three dimensions and sure we know we are not using our full brain potential. But is this knowing sufficient to induce curiosity enough for us to investigate further? Or does it merely give us another reason to put off into the future what we could actually access now? We are created to know more, to know more, is to know God.
Our tendancy is to look at time, space and matter and marvel so much at what we see that we become satisfied with the mere existence of those things, with the created thing. We gasp at people who can access more than 2% of their brains and what ridiculously amazing things they can say, do, invent or formulate and we stand in awe of intellect, of the brain, the created thing. What about the One who created time, space and matter...and our brains. Are all of these visible things an invitation to know the Creator of all things, visible and invisible?
2 Corinthians 4:18 (KJV)
While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
As I travel to the nations and meet believers, some very hungry to know Father God more, I see more often than not, a lack of simply spending time in His presence. Most believers don't know how to do this. We know how to pray, intercede, sing and sing in tongues, worship, praise, fall to our knees. But just being in His company, just letting yourself go to Him and simply be with Him with no agenda, no sense of obligation, letting His love engulf you, feeling His delight, few of us seem to know.
There has been much taught about making time for God which usually entails praying, reading the bible, studying etc. none of these are wrong unless they come from a sense of ritual, of obligation: I must do this or else I will not be close to God, this is how I abide in Him and how He therefore abides in me. Is there anything stimulating or exciting about forcing yourself to read the bible, especially when you're tired? Doesn't the living Word eventually become just a text that you have to get through. God is not boring. I have found the best thing I can do with my time with God, is be with God.
Imagine having a friend that was really good at software programming. Every time you need a programming question answered, you call up your friend and suggest hanging out. You spend the entire time asking question after question gleaning as much information as you can from your friend. You end the time with more knowledge about the subject you talked about but no more knowledge about your friend. There was no intimacy in that time between you, you didn't ask about them, you weren't interested in the person because your intention wasn't to spend time with them for who they are but to spend time with their knowledge. Yes we have questions and God is interested in them but that shouldn't be the basis, the focal point of spending time with Him. Drawing close to Him for who He is instead of what He can share with you or what He can do for you, doesn't do much to engender intimacy and affection.
I heard Bill Johnson say once, 'here I am God, becoming the object of Your love'. The more we want is contained within our eternal God, who is beyond time, space, matter, logic, reason or gravity. Just meeting with Father God and allowing myself to be drawn into His embrace, His affection is as necessary as breathing. Allowing my imagination to journey with Him, surf the wave of His presence, is where my cup not only gets filled but overflows. In that overflow, my questions disappear as I am full, satiated, complete. Yet, He knows the questions I have. He is not opposed to answering my questions. In my time with Him, He reveals mysteries to me, of things that are, of things to come, He delights in revealing the secrets of His Kingdom to us. It is in this place He births a hunger to know even more, to explore the innumerable facets His heart. The fruit of getting to know Him establishes identity in us. Out of this place of peace and intimacy He will sometimes point us to His word, showing us the hidden depth that is impossible to perceive with 2% of our brains when we read our bible last thing at night after a long, tiring day.
In His presence, we go beyond the natural, beyond what is seen, beyond the temporal.
2 Corinthians 5:1 (ESV)
For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
There is a simultaneous process that should be happening as we walk with God. Just as our tent (body) is wearing away, there should be a greater reality, an awareness that what is being formed in the spirit within us is increasing. The former will perish. The latter is eternal. If we allow Father God to father us, allow ourselves to become like children, eager to be loved, eager to be taught, to learn, we will access the more we know is accessible, but normally beyond our reach, through our hunger to know Him. There is a quality to this earthly existence that can only be gained from the eternal realm of God. That is the life Jesus came to give us, He said, 'The thief comes not except to steal and to kill and to destroy, I come that they might have life and life more abundantly,'
Let's look at this verse briefly.
Who are 'they' - us, who believe.
'Might' - Jesus didn't say, we will have, He said, might. In the Greek, this word might is echÅ: to 'lay hold of, to possess, to hold one's self to a thing' - we can have life if we lay hold of it, there is a choice.
'Life more abundantly' - in the Greek this is perissos: exceeding some number or measure or rank or need and superior, extraordinary, surpassing, uncommon.
We do not merely exist. For those who believe, we have life and life that is exceedingly superior, extraordinary, surpassing and uncommon. How? Through the body and blood of Jesus Christ. He has satisfied all requirements that we never could and having become that sacrifice, He perfected death, once for all, and is now seated at the right hand of God the Father, who is absolutely pleased with His Son, and guess where we are on all this? Seated in the Son. Let us explore the place we share with Him.
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