And of Surrender to Holiness?

A blessing, really. The bi-fold reality of coming to know reality in Christ.

Turning to Him, as turning away from selfish designs.
Cleaving to Him, having forsaken as impotent one's own strength.
Relying whole upon Him, for seeing one's own inconsistency revealed in light of Christ's faithfulness.

Always a turning away, while turning unto.
Always a forsaking, while more fully embracing.
Always a surrender, being more fully captivated.
Even as, in ways...a deeper lamentation...as coming more fully to know love.

Such a poignant ache, in being broken so to heal. Even as, moreover, it's only a revelation of brokenness, in so many was as much as being broken. Being molded.

Refined.

Just, there is that point always...coming to realize more fully one's own incapacity. In the face of infinite wisdom. In the presence of omnipotence.

All else is impotence and foolishness, except what might accord with Him...and, even then only reverberation and not such as like His immanence and majesty.

And words fail, so utterly, considering Him. They climb so high and reach so far, seeking to touch upon the breadth of His Holiness, even in some limned, while finite measure...

...and ever having sought to ascend and plunge and translate, still, they must fall before Him, prostrate in heartfelt longing just to have drawn even near, while never having made so neat a climb as to meet any of His measure.

But, still! Even to reach!

We cannot, and yet we must extend all which we are ever more toward grasping Him, toward even a glimpse of Him...

...because He is all.

So, these moments...where understanding is far, and when sometimes the very world itself seems nothing more than a shroud of darkness which strives to envelop and would glibly suffocate were it able...

...perhaps there's nothing higher than to rest in knowing Him.

Knowing of Him, truly, too. The revelations given through Scripture are incalculably vital, as given and accessible means by which to approach His holiness. Yet knowing of Him, alone...falls so short of having actually cried out to Him, in desperation and surrender.

He has said that He will be and is found by those who seek and require Him as utmost necessity. Even as it has been recorded that none seeks. That none, but those who are drawn, can come to know Him.

There's a mystery there that's far higher than merely claiming "election" and "irresistible grace." Something which far exceeds terminology and the doctrine of men. Philosophies which can just as easy bind as loose, and which seem often to snare pride unto a sense of self-exaltation, rather than abasement unto abject service of all. In the Spirit of Christ, the latter.

That former fruit seems very prevalent if not often so highly pronounced as to necessarily detract from the Lord's otherwise work in those who do ardently desire Him.

But the temptation to err in favor of self and group exaltation is real, nonetheless. Rather abashedly admitted as one which is yet being stricken, in myself.

If love is the sum of the law and the prophets, then from whence arises divisiveness?

Something to just continually pray over, seeking clarity, direction, and deliverance. Humbled.

It's not a "yes" or "no," though, but another case of the Lord doing as He wills, through what He wills, when and as He will. In each, unto each, for each. As He wills.

Can we not just strive to know Him, then? Rather than delineating each and all what we perceive as His ways?

There are vast oceans of darkness which even now perhaps have only begun to flow. Unto division. Unto distraction. Unto speculation, seeming means of discernment which rather relies upon self other than God.

Seeking experience for sake of what it would seem to comprise, as proof. ...as though experience were an authority, in its own right, rather than not so unless as given by God, consistent with His revelation in Scripture.

A major tripping point still and vastly seems expanding, in terms of spiritual reality. We are spiritual creatures, but flesh. We cannot be but what we are, and to deny any of what we are is to deny self and in part to express doubt relating to He who made us.

The "supernatural" is as much a part of reality as is the "natural," is all. Lacking understanding doesn't mean there's all the more need to trek blindly in and absently accept any and all which presents itself as experience, seeming supernatural, as though it were God-given. Just as relying wholly on sight and fearfully clinging to one's ability to understand does constitute a partial neglect of reality.

To walk fully in both, though? Without neglecting one nor the other, not given to preponderance on one, nor the other? But to see an undivided whole, in terms of simple acceptance and desire to know Truth, in Christ?

Just as for many it may not be necessary to know one or the other more than is necessary for a particular one's life in Christ entails...then, still, to what extent would we seek to know Him, pursue Him, and be subject to Him, now?

Only to what end He would have, moreover. To each of their own, by God's grace.

But there seems in so many a predominance of fear, evidenced as mockery most often.

If we fear, we are not trusting God. If we do not know Him, how will we trust Him? And yet, if we do know Him, won't we trust Him entire?

He is the Only who is worthy of unwavering and absolute trust. Seriously.
He's unchanging. Who He has been, who He is...is who He will always be. What He has said He would do, He has done. And what He has said He will do, it will be done.

He's faithful. He does not and will not forsake His own. Those who hear His voice are His. Those who recognize His voice, moreover.

The implications there are far deeper than a mere intellectual comprehension begins to touch upon. "Hearing" is not a mere matter of physically observing, but one which...as in a sheep herd heeding the shepherd...requires absolute familiarity, deep familiarity as one known explicitly, individually. A deep familiarity which is personal, individual, specific.

As they flee from those whose voice is not familiar.

Think about that, though.

What does it mean to truly recognize so as to know someone's voice?

Instant recognition. Absolute certainty. Unwavering devotion. ...are all implicit those verses recorded by John. They know His voice and follow Him.

It's good to fear God.

Really.

He's terrifying, if you ever take the time to ponder on His absolute "otherness"--totally unlike us...
...and all powerful.

Completely sovereign.

Nothing happens except that He allows or directly decrees. And His restraining grace is evident in all of creation, even as the earth is His handiwork. He created and sustains all of this, constantly and always. It all is held together by Him, according to His will.

We could, any one of us...at any moment...have been utterly demolished from existence, except that He restrains what would seek to destroy.

And He does. So very often, unbeknownst.
Even as it is appointed for man to die, in this life.

But what, then? Do we stop there?

No..

No, we don't.

Eternity stretches out before us. Eternal life with Christ, or eternal shame and contempt (Daniel 12:2).

So, we live here for 80 years--maybe much more, maybe much less...

...and then, eternity spans before us, unending.

Yet, somehow this life seems more real, as present and tangible. As conceivable in terms we can perceive as "understood." When, in so many ways, we wander yet blindly to and fro, somewhat haphazardly constructing trials according to sets of "established" principles, yet striving to poke at the edges of reality, further and to what is perceived as there-being a deeper "understanding" of the principles in operation.

Which, as Tozer considered it...all we're doing is basically coming to understand ways in which God generally maintains His creation. The principles by which He most generally operates in our world. Yet labeling and claiming them as discoveries, for having built nations and technologies prior inconceivable upon broadening understandings of those ways by which He operates.

It's not a separate realm, in other words. Even as quantum physics theorists have been toying perhaps increasingly with the idea of the universe as a "superimposed reality," a "digital simulation which exists solely within context of a much larger reality."

Which...yeah.

He has done these things. It's not a separate theory of reality, to know He has done them. Merely, there are so many things we don't know about Him nor understand about how He has created...let alone why (truly, let it alone)...

...that every bit of insight into any sense of principle according to which His creation operates...

...is as though it were a true revelation into the "ways of things," when only in fact a minute glimpse into the way in which He's ordered our physical reality. A minor, finite reflection of His majesty expressed per the very act of creation.

And we glory at each and every slightest bit of "major advance," without a second thought at He who designed these wonders. Most often.

When, really, there's so much of what's done "in the name of science" that's really not fully well understood, in terms of impact. Like medicines, for instance. So many administered for apparent effects in treating particular symptoms, which...while there's a bit of molecular biological comprehension of the manner in which chemicals bond, as the nature of the receptors to which they bond, so as to comprehend the reasons for impact...there are still so many unknowns. That just kind of surface over time.

Like, say...just consider for a moment that cocaine and heroin both used to be compounded as medicine.

And all day, you could argue that "we've progressed so much, though!...we have seriously strict regulations now, to prevent that sort of case, in terms of research and development requirements necessary even prior to testing for adequacy and effectiveness and controls against harm..."

...but we still don't understand why...perhaps all?...but at least many of the medicines administered for psychiatric care function the way they do. Or, not fully, at the very least. Or, otherwise, even, why would there be such a list of side effects possible for each and every? If we knew precisely the compound necessary, would it not be possible to likely restrict in such a way as to adapt better medicines which aren't also simultaneously potential to such harm?

The striving unto knowledge is as that, though. One step at a time. Blundering onward, in ways.
Perhaps generations from now, many of the medicines used today will be looked upon as the heroin cough syrups of yester-year are today. Or as Rome's lead pipes.

If there had been widespread realization of the ill-effects at the time, perhaps those things wouldn't have been. Perhaps. But they were. And likely a product of the best understanding of matters at the time. Same as any which is now.

There's no cause to be exultant in a sense of "knowing," in other words. Nor in a sense of "understanding," when given to realize that there is One who is utterly beyond comprehension. That even as some of His ways may be prodded with absolute fascination by those who utterly refute His existence, and just as some of His nature might be bound in volumes according to the finest minds of any given time...

...then, still, He so far transcends all of this, all of these, all of us...

That any bit of knowing is nearer to knowing absolutely nothing than to knowing Him, in full. Always.

And mind-bending to even contemplate, truly; infinite thoughts can only be gazed at longingly from afar, but without even being truly grasped. Reverberations, nonetheless, are given upon which to gaze in wonder, and from which to learn and prosper in His ways.

Just so as not to rule Him out, is the thing. A sense of fully having understood...has vast tendency to exalt itself against a true knowledge of and reverence for God. There is ever the looking unto while being incapable of seeing.

Which is where trust perhaps comes in, in faith. Knowing enough of Him, as given glimpses through His word...impressed truly upon one's heart by the Holy Spirit, Himself, so as even to be grasped in any measure of meaningful truth...otherwise only words...even unto a change of heart, wrought per His power, turning a heart from self unto Him. Away from reliance upon one's own understanding, unto trust in God. Moment by moment.

A duality, of sorts, still. Or perhaps more than simply that, but so given for simplicity's sake.

To just keep walking. He makes the path straight, He makes it plain. He goes before and is our rear guard. And the voice behind, saying turn to the right, or the lift...that this is the way, walk in it.

But step by step.

Step...by...step.