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You are here: Home / An Enduring Embrace / Receiving the Fullness of God as Prayer

Receiving the Fullness of God as Prayer

August 21, 2017 By Juanita Ryan Leave a Comment

I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power… to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3: 17-19

As we fall like a seed into the ground and die to our self-reliance and self-serving ways, the true life God created in us is exposed. This tender, vibrant life within us finds itself resting in the vast, rich soil of God’s love.

Slowly, we send out roots. Gradually we take in the nourishment of God. We feed on the kindness, the mercy, the patience, the life that is God. Over time our spirit—our true life within—becomes rooted in God. We become grounded in Love itself.

God feeds us, nourishes us. God fills us to all fullness with love, with God. Filled full of God. Filled with a love that is so vast that it surpasses knowledge. This is an astounding proposition. It puts our minds on overload. We want to read past these words because it doesn’t seem like it could be real. But the true life that God created in us stirs at these words. Our longing for this love, for this One, moves within us. “Yes,” something says inside of us, “this is true, this is real, this is what I hunger for.”
Prayer is saying “yes” to being “filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” God’s Spirit awakens and fills our spirits with God’s life and love. Prayer is receiving this gift. It is knowing—intimately experiencing—“this love that surpasses knowledge.”

The result of saying “yes” to the life of the Spirit being poured into us is that the love of God begins to pour out of our lives as well. The “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control” of the Spirit fill us and flow through us (Galatians 5:22-23). This miracle of grace is not our doing. This is God’s doing. Our part is to consent. Our work is to ask for the willingness to let go of our way and to surrender to God’s loving activity.

It is God’s desire for us to fully grasp the scale of God’s Love. It is God’s desire that we “know this love that surpasses knowledge.” It is God’s desire to “fill us to the measure of all the fullness of God”.

Prayer is responding with awed consent to God’s loving, breath-taking desire to fill us to all fullness with God, with Love.

I am a seed
fallen into the ground,
releasing my outer shell to you.
All that is protective and false in me,
I give to you.
All that is real and true in me,
I give to you as well.
May the rich soil of your love nourish me
as I put out new roots.
Let me grow in the soil of your love.
Fill me with your life,
your goodness,
your love.

Prayer suggestion:

In a time of quiet see yourself, having fallen like a seed into the ground.
The tender life within is exposed.

You find yourself held and resting in the vast, rich soil of God’s love.
See yourself putting out roots.

Feel yourself being fed and filled with love, with God.

As you are ready, say ‘yes’ to God’s offer to fill you to all fullness with God’s love.

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