He must increase, but I must decrease. (John 3:30)
As Christians we want more of God in our lives—more of Jesus. We are selfish for Him to give us greater, bigger, and more extravagant blessings. It reminds me of one of the old hymns we sang at the small church my family attended when I was younger:
Showers of blessing,
Showers of blessing we need;
Mercy-drops round us are falling,
But for the showers we plead. (Daniel Webster, 1883)
Showers of blessing we need;
Mercy-drops round us are falling,
But for the showers we plead. (Daniel Webster, 1883)
Yes, we are thankful for the drops of mercy we receive from the Lord, but we all want showers of blessing. And we know that our God is capable of doing this.
God is able to do far more than we could ever ask for or imagine… (Ephesians 3:20)
But exactly how do we get more from Him? By making room. We make room by decreasing—decreasing our wants, our desires, ourselves, and giving that space to the Lord. There is no such thing as “awkward silence” with the Lord. Silence is golden. It’s by waiting to hear from Him that we receive His word and His blessings. But do we want those things enough to give up things that might seem good to us now, but hold us back from receiving even better from our God? Do we let making ourselves comfortable take preference? Do we fill our time, our minds, our bellies so full of things that we provide that we don’t allow the Lord to provide even better?
I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt.
Open your mouth wide and I will fill it. (Psalm 81:10)
Instead of trying to fill ourselves up and doing our own thing, and making our own way, let us take a moment to allow ourselves to be empty and then allow God to fill us up. We may just find out that His showers of blessing were just one step, one choice away. While we’ve been busy trying to find a way to fill the void in us with other things, God has been waiting for us to just turn to Him.
Today my prayer is that we open ourselves up to God. That we make room for Him in a new way. If we listen to the Holy Spirit, He will tell us where we’ve been failing to make room. Then all we have to do is let go of that thing and allow God to fill us up!
