If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! Luke 11:13
Can we now understand God’s marveling that we ask and seek so little and knock so rarely? We hardly have the bees’ excuse. Jesus saved us while present in our native habitat, wearing our flesh and speaking our language to unpack the mystery of eternal life. Still, we scurry through life like worker ants in our frantic little patterns of effort and dedication. It would take guts for an ant to dream of growing wings. What if a soaring monarch butterfly had notions of gliding on air currents as a majestic eagle?
Called as Christ’s church to be God’s great people, we are promised wings for our imagination and weights for anchoring bold claims to His perceptions of reality. This HOW MUCH MORE gift is resident in the Giver, the Holy Spirit. Jesus challenges us plainly to plead the great promise so He can make good on doing “exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think…” (Ephesians 3:20). Please, He says, no more pint-size prayers to empty the oceans of our good Father’s great resources! (Part 2 of 2)
Comment: “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you” (John 14:26). Ages ago I craved His counsel in a dire situation involving the fate of two former class mates. In a Kindergarten play, Max was the wolf in the disguise of Little Red Ridinghood’s grandmother, and he “Grimmly” ate me also. As 4th graders, Heidi and I were pack leaders. During an event with our youth group, she accused Max of being apathetic. Then she married him and they had 4 children and a prosperous business. When word reached me that he was killed in a gruesome car accident, I knew I had to reach out to my childhood friend, but had no idea where she was spiritually. At that time I wrote a monthly column titled “Again I say, rejoice!” for Hollywood Pres. On the Sunday after receiving the news, I was introduced to a Swiss woman who pressed me for a lunch date. Mixed feelings aside, I invited her to my home and heard her pour out her heart about her difficult marriage. “If it weren’t for a verse from Isaiah I cling to,” she said, “I would be in despair.” Then, to her dismay, she couldn’t find it in her Luther Bible. So palpable was her distress, that after she left I searched through his book in my Swiss Bible to find a phrase alluding to the ”peace of children.” I found it in Isaiah 54:13, but the Holy Spirit had me zero in on verse 4 and 5. “…and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more, for your husband is your Maker.” I felt strongly led to share verse 10 with Heidi. Three weeks later she wrote that this very promise of God’s unshakable covenant of peace had been recited at their wedding, her parents’ wedding, and at her late husband’s confirmation. Moral of this story? Research with Google’s help speeds things up, but if The Helper moves the process along, the results are so awesome that we give God much glory and relish the joy our Lord Jesus. Luke 11
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