Yet God looks favorably on such desperate begging, addressed to him. He even encourages it. David—man after God’s heart, under the gun and on the run from his enemies—asks for just this kind of reassurance: “Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love.” David is following in the path of Moses in Psalm 90:14, asking God to tell him, in words and ways that leave no doubt, of His true and irrevocable love.

Clearly God invites us to ask this way too:  “Tell me again today you love me, Jesus!” But is this healthy and admirable? It is, because it’s the expression of our redeemed heart’s deepest need (in a sense, our heart’s only need) in an environment—life in this world—where our confidence in His love at the cross is under constant attack.

To paraphrase Puritan theologian John Owen, our greatest difficulty in the Christian life is believing the Father loves us. Fight for this faith!  Be like a parrot greeting his master in the morning with the predictable refrain:  “Tell me you love me!”  It will not try our Master’s patience, nor simply amuse Him. It will move His heart to a strengthening, soul-satisfying reply.

If you know the cottonwood, it’s a glorious tree. How it catches the morning sun on throngs of shaking green shields! The softest breeze sets its leaves quivering and gives it voice, a mannerly shhh. On a walk in cottonwood country, you’re likely to hear this tree before you see it.

Glory be to God for the cottonwood!  Glory be to God for all beautiful, quirky, defective beings who, with messy habits or bad posture or squeaky voice, give praise to their Maker who gave them life!

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”  (Matthew 7:7-11)

In Luke’s gospel, Jesus adds a twist:

“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:9-13)

So Jesus invites us to ask for the Holy Spirit?  Ask if you dare!

I used to think this was awkward, or possibly mistaken. I preferred the generic “good things” in Matthew. To ask for the Holy Spirit seemed out of keeping with my doctrinal understanding and foreign to my experience. As a child of God, I have the Spirit. How can I get more of him than I have?

Scripture tells me I do have the Holy Spirit (all of Him) and can’t lose him. He doesn’t come and go or wax and wane in me. But Ephesians 5:18 tells me to be filled with the Spirit, in preference to getting drunk with wine. The Spirit is like alcohol in this way:  His effect in me can be more or less, depending on how much I “drink.” God wants me to drink deeply of the Spirit, because the Spirit is all about life in God and life with God.

I’m not sure I know how to drink of the Spirit, but I sure want to. If it’s O.K. to be drunk on the Spirit, I want that.

Here’s my prayer:  I want to be filled and led and controlled by the Spirit. I want to be convicted, corrected and sanctified by him. I want to be taught and trained by him. I want to be empowered by him for love and ministry. I want my heart to be set on fire by the Spirit. I want to drink deeply of the Spirit. Father, give me the Holy Spirit!

I’m asking something like this every day now – earnestly, repeatedly, desperately. It’s  truly a good gift I’m asking for – the greatest of gifts! It’s a gift I truly need. I know my Father would love to give this to me. Something’s going to happen, though I don’t know what it will look like. I’m just waiting for the living waters inside me to flow like a flood.

Do look at yourself. Look at your heart to know what is there. More than that, invite God to look inside you, shine into dark places, unearth sin. But then, ten times more, look at Jesus. That is health, happiness, life, peace, change.

“In fact, I don’t want you to rely on your own strength and abilities and plans, but to distrust them and to distrust yourself and to trust me and no one and nothing else. As long as you rely on yourself you are bound to come to grief.  You still have a most important lesson to learn; your own strength will no more help you to stand upright than propping yourself on a broken reed. You must not despair of me. You may hope and trust in me absolutely. My mercy is infinite….”

It’s tempting to envy Jeanne Calment, a French woman who took up fencing at 85 and still rode a bicycle at 100. She lived 122 years and 164 days—a total of 44,724 days.

If I live to be 80, I have 7,057 days to go (as I write this). That’s out of a life span of 29,200 days. Subtract days if I don’t make it to 80. If I live to be 70, I have 3,407 days to go. If I die at the end of this year, I have 268 days remaining.

That sort of “arithmetic of days” may have some value, but it’s probably not what Moses had in mind when he asked God to teach him to “number his days.” We don’t know how many days we have. God knows—it’s one of his secrets.

What we do know is that every one of us has a terminal illness, called mortality. Death looms ahead, and we’re racing toward it. Imagine you’re told you have one year left to live, at most two. Imagine you don’t despair. Imagine you still have some strength. And imagine you have significant work to pour yourself into:  building a house, making a garden, writing a book, training a child, winning a neighbor to Christ. It’s a race with time.

Something like that is where you’re really at—whether you’re eighteen or eighty. Your days are precious, limited, and redeemable. This day—the day you’re in right now—is one of them.

Moses knew all this—so do you—but was aware he needed to know it better. He asked God’s help to see and feel the rush of days toward an appointed end, the ripeness of opportunity today.  “So teach us to number our days…”

First published in Faithwalkers, a publication of Great Commission Churches

A vibrant 17-year-old Christian girl from Bucharest had a question. “I want to love God, but I can’t. I can’t love him with everything in me. What can I do?” The last session of camp in the Carpathian Mountains had ended. Our theme had been death—the death to self that Christ demands of every disciple. Now it was Q & A time.

“You’re at a good place,” I said. “You want to love God. Many couldn’t care less. And the truth is, I’m at the same place as you. I want to love him with everything I’ve got, and I can’t. What shall we do?”

If we’re honest, like this Romanian girl, we’ll see God’s love commandment as far beyond us. He demands our whole heart. We can’t and we don’t deliver. At best, after he awakens us, we love him with part of our heart, soul, mind and strength. We love him intermittently, and we keep running away to rival gods. What shall we do?

Turn to him. Run to him. Then, when your heart cools and you find yourself walking away, turn again. Watch how he reaches for you. Hear how he welcomes you. Marvel at his delight in seeing you turn again, for the hundredth or thousandth time, and go running into his arms.

Marvel of God’s mercy! Gospel of grace in Jesus! O ye of little love, keep turning, keep running to him. Keep marveling, and something wonderful will happen. Your love for this welcoming God will grow like a mustard seed.

First published in Faithwalkers, a publication of Great Commission Churches.