The Good Lord is with us, always. And I've said many, many times that we should turn things off... the TV, the radio, cell phone, etc. To just sit in the room or move about the day is to have your being in the ways of the Lord. To do so with less noise - well, that's where you can begin to know His nearness in the moment ;-)
It may sound un-Biblical to indicate that God is not IN us. His holiness requires that He be outside of us. The Father is external to our life and soul. That's part of what makes Him holy - His separate being gives substance to the word 'sanctified'. It is from His sanctified Self that He created the universe and all things in it. We're blessed with the Creator's breath and life to enjoy our soul in the midst of all He's brought into being. (Romans 1:19-20, this, by the way, is an astounding statement. Its portent fascinates me.) To sum up this point, God must be external to us, otherwise we would all be pantheists or perhaps monists (one-ness without deity); not good.
What's truly miraculous is that God would send us His Spirit to live inside us - to counsel, guide and comfort. Perhaps a bit confusing is the matter that we should pay attention to our conscience and still be able to notice the distinct voice of the Spirit. I'm not as fluent as I should be - in fact I'm not a little embarrassed that there's some inward dullness and I'm not sure if I'm getting better at it or not. I think any Christian who's concerned about their walk pines over whether or not an inward 'something' is perhaps just an emotion, an operation of the mind, or the leadership of the Spirit.
What I've learned lately and imperfectly is that prayer is an operation of the soul. It doesn't happen in the intellect. Our soul has stewardship over the intellect. The Christian soul should be free to roam through and delight in his own intellect and tend to it with impunity. (This is being renewed in the Spirit of your mind) The result of a well-tended intellect then becomes a lush garden of God's truth. Viewed in this manner the value of abiding in the Word of God stands out in bold relief.
At this point, can you imagine (In other words, can you 'image' this) your soul walking arm in arm with the Spirit of God as you ponder life's blessings and challenges? To put it another way, picture yourself being influenced outwardly by a good sermon, a rich psalm, a godly friend, then having your soul reflect on the agreement between the external good and the internal Spirit of God?
I think the external godless and demonic becomes more noticeable when we've learned to make the distinctions between soul and intellect, and then to make a definite separation between the internal and external. Too much of the world is rampant inside us - we've lost the ability, let alone the awareness to tend to the soul's needs. It just can't thrive very well in such a crowded intellect suffering so many demands.
I felt some of that 'overwhelmed' stuffiness in my head for a bit today so I just turned away from it and went for a cup of cider. But I do believe and pray that you can have peace and enjoy His strength whether its in the crush of the day or late evening when it’s echo is just fading and you know its going to start back up the next morning. I hope so dearly that this is encouraging and you don't feel this missive is too cerebral. I love to plumb these things and go deep into God's territory - I also have to admit that I'm somewhat selfish and don't stay there as long as I should. Guess I’ll just - abide before the Lord for a while. Its so peaceful here.
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