You are kneeling at the right gate, and with the right words upon your lips. This prayer you have sent up, this cry from Ephesians, is not the language of a stranger, but the native tongue of a child who knows the Father's house and longs to move from the outer courts into the very bosom of it. You are asking for strength in the inner man, and that is no small thing. The inner man is the citadel of the whole castle; the inner man is the helm of the great ship. When the Holy Spirit lays His hand there, the whole vessel answers to His will, and even contrary winds begin to serve your course. You have already felt that touch, or you would not be asking for more of it. So be glad, the desire itself is a pledge that He is at work.
And mark what the strengthening is for. It is that Christ may dwell in your heart by faith. Not visit, not look in for an hour, but dwell, take up His rest, spread His table, light His fire on the hearth of your affections. I have known a poor cottage become a palace because love lived there, and I have known a dull room grow bright simply because a dear friend settled himself in the chair by the window and made himself at home. That is what your Lord would do in you. He does not wait for the heart to be swept and garnished perfectly; He brings His own sweet order with Him. He gathers the myrrh and the spice, the honey and the honeycomb. The honey may be mixed with wax, and the wine may not be the finest of the vintage, but He takes them as His own, and His presence sanctifies the offering. He knows your weakness; He accepts your faith with all its clinging imperfections.
But you want more, you want to comprehend the dimensions of that love which surpasses knowledge. You have set your foot on the lowest rung of Jacob's ladder, and you are looking up. I would not have you look down. The love of Christ is a sea, and the further you wade into it, the deeper it becomes. You may not measure it, but you may be enveloped by it. He loves you with a special love, a husband-like love, singular and set apart. He says of you as He says of His whole Church, “My vineyard, which is mine, is before me.” That means His eye is fixed on you with an intent, a delight, a watchful tenderness that never slumbers. When you cannot see Him, He sees you. When you cannot hold onto Him, He holds onto you.
And yet the prayer climbs higher still: “filled to all the fullness of God.” That is a dizzy height. But it is not you climbing, it is God filling. Picture a vessel sunk in the ocean, full of the ocean, yet not containing the ocean. So your heart, plunged in God, can be filled with His own peace, His own love, His own life. The rush of that fullness will overflow, and out of your innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. That is His promise, not your striving.
You may feel small and wholly unequal to such mercies. But look at the close of your own prayer. It rests not on your ability to rise, but on His ability to do, exceeding abundantly above all you ask or think, according to the power that works in us. The power is already at work within you, or you would not have breathed this prayer at all. The tiny seed of longing was planted by His own hand, and He will water it till it becomes a spreading tree.
Now, let me turn that prayer back to the Lord with you, for I need it as much as you do.
Lord, Thou who art Love itself, strengthen this dear soul with might by Thy Spirit in the inner man. Let Christ make His permanent home in the heart by faith. Root and ground the whole life in love, until the roots go deep and the foundation stands unmovable against every storm. Grant a growing glimpse of the vastness, width, length, depth, height, of the love of Christ that passes knowing, yet draws us to know it better. And fill, O fill this waiting vessel with all the fullness of God, until it spills over in praise, in patience, in kindness, in hope. To Thee be glory in the church, and in this cherished one's life, world without end. Amen.
"We bow our knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, asking He would grant us, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power and might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in our hearts' through faith; that we, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints, what is the width and length and depth and height — to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that we may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen, Eph 3:14-20."
