the highlights

I’ve been doing a lot of reading. I just finished Crazy Love by Francis Chan. And I just started Forgotten God, also by Chan. I am also reading The Breaking of the Outer Man and the Release of the Spirit by Watchman Nee.

Not exactly whatcha call light summer reading.

But good. Oh so good.

So good that I keep my highlighter handy at all times. So far in Forgotten God (I just started it), I have been in agreement with the things said…meaning the thoughts expressed aren’t new thoughts to me, but I do agree with them. And then I highlight them.

But especially in the Nee book, I highlight something because I agree with it. And other times I highlight because I know what he’s saying is true, but that truth isn’t alive in me yet. In the highlighting, I am in mental agreement with the idea or concept. And often those words stick with me or I find myself returning to them and reading them over and over until they become a part of me.

But something was still missing.

I am just beginning to understand that in the reading, I also need to give a more deliberate consent to the truths expressed and take them into my spirit and submit to them spiritually. Not just my mind. I have struggled with this for a very long time and yet for some reason, couldn’t “figure out” the answer. To which I say DUH to myself. The missing link to taking these truths further…whether expressed by an author in a book or in the Bible itself…is prayer.

I must pray though what I am reading. Pray the very truths/things being presented. My spirit would agree with them and yet I wondered why they weren’t coming alive in me any more than they were. I know of doing this, but I had never really figured out how to practice it. I am still just learning.

The Nee book is especially teaching me this. It is a very hard read. And taking me beyond what I know and what I am comfortable with. And yet there have been many “ah-ha moments” contained. Answers to some of the very basic and yet vital questions of walking with God. And yet those answers bring me to see that I need God all the more…and for more than just mental consent to the truth. But for it to be alive in me.

And for that, I am praying my way slooowly through. 

*I will give a short ‘sales pitch’ for the Nee book. Excellently written and hits the nail on the head as to our struggle to walk with God, be fruitful and experience His presence in our every day life.