I recently listened to a podcast by Kevin Kirkland who was speaking at a local church and he quoted Annie Hawks, who in 1872 penned the old, familiar hymn, “I Need Thee Every Hour”.

She explained, “I became so filled with the sense of the nearness of my master that I began to wonder how anyone could live without him…the words I need thee every hour flashed into my mind and very quickly the thought had full possession of me.”

That statement struck a chord with me.  This morning as I sat in the quiet of my room I spent some much needed time with the Father.  I was talking with Him about many things but one of the things I said to Him was, “I want to be greatly moved…by something, by anything.”   You know when life strikes us with several, quick, knock-out blows it is easy to become numb and disconnected.  To shut ourselves off from emotion and certainly to refrain from all reflection.  We would prefer to stay in the shallow and really won’t even turn our gaze to the deep, much less venture out there to see what the Father might have to show us.  We choose to be dull and lifeless, because at least then the pain of our circumstance is dulled as well.

But recently it made me a little fearful that I could not remember the last time that something moved me at all…much less, greatly.  I do not want to have a heart of stone…certainly when we are hardhearted we feel little pain.  But the sad truth is when we feel little pain; we feel little joy as well.  I am asking the Lord that we as a people would be fully alive.  That we would experience the joy and the pain that simply coincides with our feet padding the dust of this earth.   I don’t want to miss my opportunity to live because I have forfeited my joy avoiding occasional tears.

To be “filled with the sense of the nearness of my master”, to “wonder how anyone could live without Him”–to have that kind of relationship with Him we must be honest and vulnerable and we must linger.   I cannot remember the last time that a thought “had full possession of me.”  Can you?  Oh, that we would simply sit at His feet and receive.  Not spend ten minutes thumbing through our Bible to find something good to tweet.  But soaking in His Presence that is tangible, quieting not only our mouths but our hearts and listening for secrets that He whispers to us.  Secrets that aren’t meant to share with all of mankind…but secrets that will soften those hard hearts of ours.  Words from our Master that call those dead places in us to be fully alive.

Father, oh that You would take full possession of us.  Full possession of me.

My love,