Some downer thoughts on the higher life

Have to report that I got discouraged with this blog a while back. Meant to do a post saying why but put that off too.

I'd already been thinking along these lines and then I heard a sermon on Christian radio exploring the scriptures on prayer which made it only too clear that conditions must be met that are hard to meet for prayer that really lays hold of God.

This could of course get into some depth but really the main thought is pretty simple:

There IS a higher Christian life than the life most of us lead, and many of the books I've highlighted here do hold it forth to us. But there are conditions involved and most of us aren't qualified for it and aren't going to be able to get qualified either.*

Discouraging thought, no? Took the wind out of me when it hit me.

Kind of took the wind out of me right now as I wrote this. So I think I'll leave it here for now.

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*There are many who have no interest in any supposed higher Christian life, even if they know something about it, and there are also those who put it down as not a true expression of Christianity and love to make owlish pronouncements about how No, there ISN'T anything "more." So I'm disagreeing with them in claiming that there is such a life and it is worth aiming for. Andrew Murray knew that life, so did John Wesley, so did Watchman Nee (though he insisted it was really the NORMAL Christian life, not something above and beyond it). And so did many others, including many who have been saddled with the label "mystics" which implies something occultic or similar to charismania which is very far from the truth. It may fit some who come under that label (such as Hildegarde of Bingen just to be clear about what I mean -- and a great deal of the contemporary movements that teach something they call "contemplative prayer" which also isn't what that term used to designate either) but there are plenty it doesn't fit, they are simply people who fell so deeply in love with God that they occupy their every moment with loving Him and learning about Him and obeying Him and seeking His presence, and the result of such a dedicated life is knowledge of God, hearing from God, and often supernatural powers -- powers the early church had, nothing weird or new. Charismatics go off into the weird and new and that's where discernment is sorely needed these days, but the TRUE "mystics" are simply true lovers of God, true followers of Jesus. But these true followers of God remain very few among the many.

But most don't care and won't share my discouragement at finding how hard it is to meet the conditions of the "higher life" anyway. Sure makes ME sad to think I will never get straightened out enough to live that life though, and also makes me sad to think this also applies to my hopes of revival. WE AREN'T QUALIFIED FOR REVIVAL. (I hope I'll yet discover I'm wrong).