From Melancholy to Fire

The days I feel melancholy are the moments when the Spirit is shouting. Biding me. Asking of me to draw near, to come close.

And so this melancholy turns and faces the flame, the consuming fire of love.

I'm gripped with the reality of the dire need I have for God to deliver me from myself.

Reluctantly, letting go. Revealing the pressure bottled in, held up by pride and conceit. With one breath of God, all is laid bare.

Torn between silence before a holy God and revival fire burning within me.

I recognize: intimacy with God is a docile, steady stream and a raging fire. This juxtaposition of truth stands. It remains. It just is.

What seems incomprehensible to my feeble, human mind is releasing the key to the eternal, to the knowledge of God.

I am now dialed down, in tune with the heartbeat of heaven; communing in a dialogue with zealous fire.

Revival- the inrush of the Spirit into the body that threatens to become a corpse. - D.M. Panton

The Gospel is not an old, old story, freshly told. It is a fire in the Spirit, fed by the flame of Immortal Love; and woe unto us, if, through our negligence to stir up the Gift of God which is within us, that fire burns lows. - Dr. R. Moffat Gautrey

Our praying, however, needs to be pressed and pursued with an energy that never tires, a persistency which will not be denied, and a courage which never fails. - E.M. Bounds

All decays begin in the closet; no heart thrives without much secret converse with God, and nothing will make amends for the want of it. - Berridge

Love is a kindled in a flame, and ardentcy is its life. Flame is the air which true Christian experience breathes. It feeds on fire; it can withstand anything, rather than a feeble flame; but when the surrounding atmosphere is frigid or lukewarm, it dies, chilled and starved to its vitals. True prayer MUST be aflame. - E.M. Bounds

The only saving faith is that which casts itself on God for life or death. - Martin Luther

Prayer is the acid test of devotion. - Samuel Chadwick

And so my melancholy is fanned into fire, emblazoned to seek the face of God. Not to bumble about, wasting time, squandering these days. But pressing in, sitting at the feet of Jesus, watching, waiting, tarrying.