Holy, Holy, Holy

Thursday 6/6/2013 7:06 AM

Tuesday I wrote about how few times in my life I have truly adored God.  I can think of only a few times when I was moved beyond words, when the only thing I could think was The Sanctus from the Catholic Mass, “Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory.  Hosanna in the highest.  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.  Hosanna in the highest.”  I would like to have more experiences like that but it seems as if there has to be a perfect storm of circumstances, attitude and openness to the Holy Spirit.  Most of the time I am lacking one or more of the requisites.

A. W. Tozer writes about this in his book The Root of the Righteous.  “There is a place in the religious experience where we love God for himself alone, with never a thought of his benefits.  And there is a place where the heart does not reason from admiration to affection.  True, it all may begin lower down, but it quickly rises to the height of blind adoration where reason is suspended and the heart worships in unreasoning blessedness.  It can only exclaim, ‘Holy, holy, holy,’ while scarcely knowing what it means.”

Why I don’t have more experiences like that?  It seems that if I try to conjure up that feeling it becomes even more unlikely to occur.  It seems to be inversely proportional to my efforts.  In my experience it has surprised me, come at times when I least expected it.  I would expect that as I become more aware of the work of God in my life the more I would be overwhelmed by his greatness but that doesn’t seem to be the case.  I just wish it would happen more often.  My former pastor would ask me this question, “Are you in love with God or with the feelings?”  Perhaps the lack of being overwhelmed is to remind me to love God instead of the feelings.