Teach me to feel that Thou art always nigh;
 Teach me the struggles of the soul to bear,
To check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh;
 Teach me the patience of unanswered prayer.

Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart
By: George Croly, 1780-1860

Listen as you read.  This is a lovely piano solo version.

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Everyone enjoy this podcast and the transcript below.

On Tuesday we considered the first two lines of this stanza, which contained two different things we desire for the Holy Spirit to teach us.  In these last two lines we will consider three more lessons we seek to learn from our Teacher, each expressions of different soul struggles with their own unique challenges.  Let’s think about this.

Rising Doubt

Like storm clouds gathering on the horizon, so are the doubts that occasionally cloud our minds.  The difference is that the first can only be checked by God, and the latter can only be checked by us, with check here meaning to stop or slow the advance of something.

Doubts seem as real and as daunting as an actual storm front, but in comparison they are practically illusory.  Oh do not misunderstand me to say they are not significant threats to our journey of faith, but I would merely contend they do not have to be.  Consider what is required to slow the rise of doubt in your mind.  Trust.

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. Hebrews 3:12 ESV

Doubt and unbelief are so similar they can be mistaken for one another.  One might say doubt could lead to unbelief if left unchecked.  Doubt is a lack of conviction, whereas unbelief is the absence of it altogether.  Belief requires trust. Trust checks doubt and rebellion at the door, for you can exercise faith to submit to one you trust.  It really is a decision.

Rebel Sigh

Left unchecked doubt can lead to rebellion, or a falling away from one in whom you formerly decided to place your trust.  It can rise slowly like doubt as well, creeping up on you while you are unaware until you find yourself not so much in a place of radical  rebellion, but despondent dissent.  Lost in an encroaching darkness.

In this way it is kind of like the darkness of night slowly settling on you.  You do not realize the departure of the light and the arrival of the dark until it is consuming you.  Then you find yourself all alone unmoored by any sense of direction, of right or left, or right from wrong.  This lack of ability to perceive direction leaves you complacent until all that is left is a sigh of resignation.  What started at as careless departure from all that is right and good ends up causing you to fall away from the living God.

It is especially in those moments when we need the last of our lessons to have taken root.

Unanswered Prayer

On first glance this last line seems like a prayer for the patience required to wait until God answers prayer.  That certainly may be a part of the request, but I think there is a very possible alternate or additional interpretation.  I think it may be a request for the same patience God exhibits between our prayer and His eventual answer.

I believe God hears and answers every prayer, just not how and certainly not when we would like.  Where might we might draw such belief?  From words like these.

And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. 1 John 5:14 ESV

This kind of confidence gives us the patience to wait for the answer when we may be inclined to doubt if our prayer was even heard.  It also gives us the ability to refrain from the audible expression of resistance, and even the feeling that prompts it.  Finally, it gives us the opportunity to carefully examine our motives in the event we are asking something outside of God’s will, which may be the very reason the prayer remains unanswered, God is giving us the time to understand and adjust to the reality that the answer will actually be “no.”  After all, “no” is an answer.

Take some time to pray the prayer below and if you are a Subscriber or Free Member walk through the podcast which will guide you through such a journey in just about 5 minutes, as each one does.

Adaptive Thinking!

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Image Attributions
Rising Doubt – https://pixabay.com/photos/doubt-mourning-sad-depression-3711259/
Rebel Sigh – https://jesus.net/miracle/god-hears-you/
Unanswered Prayer – https://pixabay.com/photos/prayer-hands-church-light-2544994/

Hast Thou not bid me love Thee, God and King?
 All, all Thine own, soul, heart and strength and mind.
I see Thy cross; there teach my heart to cling:
 Oh, let me seek Thee, and, oh, let me find!

Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart
By: George Croly, 1780-1860

Listen as you read.  This is a lovely piano solo version.

Below is content available only to Subscribers and Free Members.  Want to learn more about accessing all the additional material in the Subscriber Content Library, click here.  Or check out some samples at our Free Member Content Library.  We have lots of tools and lots of options designed to help you be Resonant!  Check them out today!!

Everyone enjoy this podcast! AND the transcript below.

On Tuesday we considered the first two lines of this stanza, and with them the rhetorical question of how God invites us to love Him.  We turn our attention today to the clearest reason God gives us to do so, the cross, and conclude with a prayer asking the Spirit to help us seek and find Him.  Let’s think about this.

I See the Cross

It is one thing to be able to identify the two lines which intersect and from the cross, it is another thing altogether to discern the instrument of your salvation.  Everyone with functional eyes can see the cross in the image above, but only those with eyes of faith can will cherish this emblem of suffering and shame because they understand the transaction that took place there.  The Holy God  allowed His Son to become sin for us to redeem our lives from His wrath.

But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  Romans 5:8 ESV

This is a story with which we become casually familiar.  We know it so well, that we can easily become guilty of regarding it with no greater reverence than the ones who hang a gilded, gold version of it around their necks with little care their lives bear no resemblance to the One who changed the course of human history when He gave His life on it.  We must to more than just see the cross.  How will your life evidence the fact  today that you have seen the cross, and understand its significance?

Teach My Heart

When the Spirit has done His work of allowing you to see the cross for what it truly is, then you are in a position to have Him do the next very necessary part of His work, teaching you to cling to it.  This is a needful activity to engage in for every believer, holding tightly to the cross.  Why?  Think of it this way.

When we hold tightly to the cross, we are not able to take hold of other things.  Things that actually preoccupy us from clinging to the cross.  Things like hurts from the past, habits that eat into our discretionary time and energy, and hang-ups that paralyze us from pursuing health and happiness.   The cross delivers us from these things by being a place of healing, discipline, and freedom.

This makes me think of Clingstone peaches.  You know, the kind whose flesh clings to the pit of the peach, making it nearly impossible to remove without bruising the peach.  We need to be like these peaches.  Ever clinging to the cross, forcing any attempts to remove us from its presence to leave us bruised.  If we are more like Freestone peaches, the ones where the pit is easily removed from the pit, the smallest things will serve to break us free from the presence and influence of the cross.

So which type of disciple will you be?  Clingstone or Freestone.  Cling-to-cross or free-from cross.  Decide today.   That will make it much easier when the hurts, habits and hang-ups come to peel you away from the cross.

But it is not enough to simply cling to the cross either.  In a sense that is our position or our standing.  We must also be mindful we are in process.  Acknowledging I have not arrived, my journey is not complete.  My standing is in the cross, but I must work its reality into my daily living by continually seeking the One who was crucified there.  How do we seek?

Let Me Seek Thee

Rather than focusing on do’s, let me mention a couple don’ts.

The cross teaches us one of the first lessons in seeking when we deny ourselves.  We can not seek God if we are consumed by other  things we are desiring for ourselves.  Lesson, don’t seek after other things.  Are there things that are keeping you from seeking?

Our learning to cling to the cross also promotes seeking in that it helps us to realize that God always has a better plan, even when we have to face pain.  This close proximity to Jesus also helps to foster a longing for even more because it eliminates His competitors.  Truth be told, He has no real competitors, but there are many things that vie for the affection He deserves.  When we  systematically remove those things, what remains is a single-hearted devotion that virtually insures success.  Based on what?  His promise.

You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:13 ESV

Let Me Find

If we believe this, then the real issue is removing hindrances to seeking,  Deuteronomy 4:29 says “You will find [God] when you seek Him with all your heart and all your soul.”  The hymn writer offers a simple prayer. Echo that prayer, “God, let me seek You.”

Determined Thinking!

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Image Attributions
Cross – https://pixabay.com/illustrations/art-artistic-painting-digital-2092530/
Heart Cling – https://pixabay.com/photos/heart-metal-heart-rusty-heart-674850/
Clingstone Peaches – http://www.howtohaveitall.net/how-to-pit-clingstone-peaches/
Freestone Peaches – https://bakingbites.com/2013/08/what-are-freestone-peaches/

I ask no dream, no prophet ecstasies,
 No sudden rending of the veil of clay,
No angel visitant, no opening skies,
 But take the dimness of my soul away.

Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart
By: George Croly, 1780-1860

Listen as you read.  This is a nice string quartet version.

On Tuesday we considered the first two lines of this stanza, and began our examination of what we need not ask of God.  We continue that today and then turn the corner to what we do need to ask of Him.   Interesting, the things we are purposed to NOT ask for are primarily external, while the one need is internal.  Let’s think about this.

No Angel Visitant

The next item or experience on our list of things we shall not ask of God: and angel visit.  How do you imagine that occurring?  Something like the image above?

When I think of angel visits a number of different ones come to mind:  Abraham, Mary, and Joseph, to name a few.  The greatest angel visit so far in history though was undoubtedly that over the manger in Bethlehem that heralded our Savior’s birth.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, ““Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”  Luke 2:13-14 ESV

No Opening Skies

This angelic appearance was also an opening of the skies, like the time Jacob saw angels going up and down a ladder out of heaven, but there are other times when the skies opened where no angels are mentioned.  The skies opened up for Moses when God came down on the mountain during the Exodus.  The skies opened at Jesus’ baptism, a voice from was heard and the Holy Spirit settled on Him, but no angels.  After His resurrection, Jesus appeared to Saul on the road to Damascus.  And there are more.

What they all have in common, open skies with or without angels, is that God is doing something extraordinary in each occurrence to reveal something about Himself, His purposes or His.  Maybe if an angel visited us, or God suddenly pulled the heavenly curtain back so we could see His glory, that would solve our problem.  What the hymn is saying again though is to NOT ask for these things, extraordinary as they may be.  Instead ask for something even better.

What do you think?  If angel appeared to you, or the skies opened, do you think you could continually draw off that experience to discern the Spirit’s work?  I think I would be inclined to let the wonder of that moment fade.  As clearly as I may have seen God in that moment, I think I would loose that clarity over time.  So I would agree with the prayer of this hymn that there is something better.

Clarity of Soul

And finally here it is.  The problem is not external, but internal.  So the solution will not manifest initially externally, but internally.

God reveals Himself in a myriad of ways every single day. Our soul simply often fails to be aware enough to grasp it.  What we really need is to have the dimness of our soul replaced with a keenness of soul.

With regard to the eyes, dimness often means not bright or clear.  With regard to the soul, in similar fashion to the mind, dimness means slow to understand, or simply lacking the capacity to discern.

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.  1 Corinthians 2:14 ESV

So the writer gets to what he does want, clarity of soul, something that is impossible apart from the work of the Holy Spirit.  Our souls are dim, slow to grasp the surpassing greatness of our God.  Ask the Spirit to help you understand His work and ways by sharpening the aptitude or brightness of your soul.

Bright Thinking!

Are these thoughts helping you to develop greater spiritual awareness?  Sign-up in the form to the right above to get updates of new tools to help you be Resonant.

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Subscribers AND Free Members enjoy this podcast! Everyone else, the transcript below.