“Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. To draw near to listen is better…”
Ecclesiastes 5:1
Oh Lord my God, for how shall I come to You? You are holy, righteous, just and good; apart from You I am not. And yet for your namesake, the love of the world,2 and for my life and eternal spirit, You have reckoned and accounted to me through Christ alone, His righteousness – giving unto me new life and joy unspeakable. Oh what deep and eternal peace I have been granted by the powerfully true work of Your grace.3 Oh that freeing grace of Your dear Son’s propitiation4 in justifying me, and suffering the wrath that was due to me5 – only by my precious Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Oh what light You have caused to shine upon my darkened soul. Praise be to you Lord God that while I was yet destitute and a sinner through and through, a man of ill repute, vile and uncaring, a man of shame and evil, You first loved me.6 Oh what amazing and unfathomable grace You have powerfully worked and effectually given me. This new heart is feeling and pliable, regenerated and justified, nothing short of miraculous, and this without any works of my own. Oh Your grace! How great is Your love that I should be called7 Your child?
Oh Lord my God, for how shall I come and speak to You? In the one respect I cannot but approach You in any other way than with deep and profound reverence, just as “the Preacher” has said, “Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. To draw near to listen is better than to offer the Sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil.”8 And yet this would not be reverent enough…
However, in another respect, I feel like the little child calling for his Abba Father, like the naïve and innocent, like the weak and inept, like the child needing to be picked up and embraced by You, the Almighty and omnipotent God. And yet this too does not explain it all…
And yet further still, I feel like the violently desperate, the passionate and yet weak, the relentless and yet wholly dependent, like one who seeks to lay hold of Your promises9 – like one who was formerly lame and now running, like the one formerly deaf and now joyously hearing, like the formerly blind and now lit up by new vision, like Lazarus who came out of the grave10 and like David who danced before You.11 Oh, to shout it from the mountaintops and spend all of my days at Your foot, looking to that empty cross, that place by which You ransomed and redeemed my starving soul; oh, to dwell with You forever!
“As a deer pants for flowing streams so pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God, when shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, ‘Where is your God?’ These things I remember, as I remember, as I pour out my soul; how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival.”12
And though these two decades have passed by so quickly, I feel as if I could talk to You like the babe who has recently learned to talk and please his parents – so much to say, so much amazement, and yet so very much in need of listening and learning.
Oh Lord my God, you know that quite possibly the greatest area still lacking self-control is in the words of my mouth. For I find it simple to be controlled when I take time to think, to write, and to do so when no one is around is easy; however, it is often more difficult to be aware amid spontaneous and busy times, when the mind is on other things, words come spewing forth from the ‘old man’ – and this in the front of dearly loved ones. Oh how my lips need yet more discipline. As Your Spirit has reminded me, it is not the tongue alone, but the very heart13 – that old nature – that is in need of being put to death.14 If You will judge every idle word that I have spoken, how then shall I come before You? You know how there are times when I speak forth evil against my fellow man,15 and how there are times I bless your holy name and this with the very same mouth.16 Oh Lord, how much I am in need like Your prophet Isaiah: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips…” Lord, may I see You the same – “…for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”17 Lord, touch these lips of mine, for if not, how shall I come and speak with you? May I never forget, and may I grow more deeply in the reality that You are my greatest of needs. For in you alone is all the power, wisdom and truth alone.
Oh Lord my God, how shall I come and approach You? – Lord, You alone know me. You know me better than I know myself, and yet, with all my weakness, failures, sins and enmity past, You show me mercy each and every day.18 And if it should be that You tarry, and should You sustain me another two decades, I hope and pray that these things will continue to grow and mature; that they will be fanned into a bright burning flame.
Lord, I hope and pray that these letters would be pleasing in Your sight and make Your glory known among those who may read this in the future. May You be glorified; please Lord, sanctify me unto becoming more and more like Your dear Son, my Lord and Savior. Only You know, oh Lord, if these things, these thoughts, these mere words, have taken root within me; please Lord God, if in these things I am false, then make them come alive unto me and grow them forevermore.
Lord, apprehend my affections and mold me into a vessel of honor suitable for Your glory, Your worship and Your honor.
Amen.