A Welcome Invasion

To put it in my friend Colin's words, my life has been invaded. I found myself astounded yet again this morning when I woke up, because somehow, through the Holy Spirit, I am even praying while I am sleeping...and I'm somewhat conscious of that and then I wake up and see how these prayers are being answered...It's really difficult to explain because it's still so new to me, but it's incredible. Even in my time of slumber, God has invaded my life. It's like in Romans 8:22-27: “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For it is in this hope we were saved…In the same way the Spirit helps us with our weakness. We do not what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit intercedes for us with groans our words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.”
Reading that blows me away because I am seeing this being fulfilled in my life....the Holy Spirit intercedes for me in such ways I can't explain.

Every single moment of every day is accounted for by Him. I can’t help but dwell on His goodness and His promises and what He is doing in and through me and others. I find myself living in the fruit of His spirit, His word on my tongue, my mind focused on His blessings and challenges. And being in this position He is pouring out abundantly His wisdom, knowledge, and grace; I find myself completely overwhelmed and there is no way I can take it all in. I praise Him for these precious gifts He is giving me and fulfilling His purpose for me in spite of who I am, in spite of my weaknesses and sinful flesh. He has overcome the world and He has consumed me. I find myself humbled before Him that He would call me to so much. But as He consumes me second by second, I see that it is no longer me but Him taking over. 1 Cor 6:19-20 states, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own, you were bought at a price.” I feel as if I am not my own because it’s Him completely. It’s a surreal place to be in so many ways. Even now as I type this, it’s surreal…

Last night as God continued to speak to me both in Spirit and through the word, He really spoke through a chapter of Tozer. He explained what and why what happened in the last year before college did. I know this will be a long chapter, but I must share it with you.
“The Ministry of the Night,” That Incredible Christian, Tozer
“If God has singled you out to be a special object of His grace you may expect Him to honor you with stricter discipline and greater suffering than less favored ones are called upon to endure. And right here let me anticipate the objection someone is sure to raise, that God has no “specials” among His children. The Holy Scriptures and Christian history agree to show that He has. Star differs from star in glory among the saints on earth as well as among the glorified in heaven. Without question the differences exist, but whether they are by the decree of God or by His foreknowledge of the degree of receptivity He will find among His children, I am not prepared to say with certainty, though I would lean strongly to the latter view.
If God sets out to make you an unusual Christian He is not likely to be as gentle as He is usually pictured by the popular teachers. A sculptor does not use a manicure set to reduce the rude, unshapely marble to a thing of beauty. The saw, the hammer, and the chisel are cruel tools, but without them the rough stone must remain forever formless and unbeautiful. To do His supreme work of grace within you He will take from your heart everything you love most. Everything you trust in will go from you. Piles of ashes will lie where your most precious treasures used to be.
This is not to teach the sanctifying power of poverty. If to be poor made man holy every tramp on a park bench would be a saint. But God knows the secret of removing things from our hearts while they still remain to us. What He does is restrain us from enjoying them. He lets us have them but makes us psychologically unable to let our hearts go out to them. Thus they are useful without being harmful. All this God will accomplish at the expense of the common pleasures that have up to that time supported your life and made it zestful. Now under the careful treatment of the Holy Spirit your life may become dry, tasteless and to some degree a burden to you.
While in this state you will exist by a kind of blind will to live; you will find none of the inward sweetness you had enjoyed before. The smile of God will be for the time withdrawn, or at least hidden from your eyes. Then you will learn what faith is; you will find out the hard way, but in the only way open to you, that true faith lies in the will, that the joy unspeakable of which the apostle speaks is not itself faith but a slow ripening fruit of faith; and you will learn that present spiritual joys may come and go as they will without altering you spiritual status or in any way affecting your position as a true child of the heavenly Father. And you will also learn, probably to your astonishment, that is possible to live in all good conscience before God and men and still feel nothing of the peace and joy you hear talked about so much by immature Christians.
How long you continue in this night of the soul will depend upon a number of factors, some of which you may be able to later to identify, while others will remain with God, completely hidden from you. The words ‘the day is thine, the night is also thine’ will now be interpreted for you by the best of all teachers, the Holy Spirit; and you will know by personal experience what a blessed thing is the ministry of the night.
But there is a limit to man’s ability to live without joy. Even Christ could endure the cross only because of the joy set before Him. The strongest steel breaks if kept too long under unrelieved tension. God knows exactly how much pressure each one of us can take. He knows how long we can endure the night, so He gives the soul relief, first by welcome glimpses of the morning star and then by the fuller light that harbingers the morning. Slowly you will discover God’s love in your suffering. Your heart will begin to approve the whole thing. You will learn from yourself what all the schools in the world could not teach you—the healing action of faith without supporting pleasure. You will feel and understand the ministry of the night; its power to purify, to detach to humble, to destroy the fear of death, and what is more important to you at the moment, the fear of life. And you will learn that sometimes pain can do what even joy cannot, such as exposing the vanity of earth’s trifles and filling your heart with longing for the peace of heaven.
What I write here is in no way original. This has been discovered anew by each generation of Christian seekers and is almost a cliché of the deeper life. Yet it needs to be said to this generation of believers often and with emphasis, for the type of Christianity now in vogue does not include anything as serious and as difficult as this. The quest of the modern Christian is likely to be for peace of mind and spiritual joy, with a good degree of material prosperity thrown in as an external proof of the divine favor. Some will understand this, however, if the number is relatively small, and they will constitute the hard core of practicing saints so badly needed at this serious hour if New Testament Christianity is to survive to the next generation.”

I am an unusual Christian. Amazing grace. A welcome invasion.

Isaiah 46:8-13: “Remember this, fix it in mind, take it to heart, you rebels. Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God and there is no other, I am God and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all I please. From the east I summon a bird of prey; from a far off land, a man to fulfill my purpose. What I have said, that I will bring about; what I have planned, that I will do. Listen to me, you stubborn-hearted, you who are far from my righteousness. I am bringing my righteousness near, it is not far away; and my salvation will not be delayed. I will grant salvation to Zion, my splendor to Israel.”