Overwhelmed

​I want to know You.  Let Your Spirit overwhelm me.  Let Your presence take over my heart.  Repeatedly the worship leader led us in singing those seventeen words that if analyzed meant far more than we could imagine.

I want to know You.  I’m nearly finished reading Ayn Rand’s book Atlas Shrugged.  She writes, “To live, man must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life: Reason—Purpose—Self Esteem.”  Ayn’s god is the mind and she has no place for God.  I’ve seen enough of what man does with reason, purpose and self esteem—without God the recipe creates disaster.  I want to know God, the Maker of the Universe and mind Designer. Knowing anything else is inadequate and unfulfilling. 

Let Your Spirit overwhelm me.  Typically, when we use the word overwhelm the context is negative.  The origin of this word goes back to England in the 1520s or earlier.   Whelm means to submerge; engulf or to overcome utterly.  To overwhelm is to turn upside down.  Picture a boat washed over by a large wave.[1]  To ask the Holy Spirit to overwhelm me, is to request that He turn me upside down—empty me of what I hold to or whatever distracts me.  
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Let Your presence take over my heart.  No hurting business looks forward to a hostile takeover.  But what human, hurting or healthy, would not stand up and cheer if he or she truly knew what it meant to have the heart be taken over and Lord-led.  Lord, capture my heart.  Wash me clean through Your purifying presence.  
 
Meditation
Luke 1:57,58—Now the time had come for Elizabeth to give birth, and she had a son. Then her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her His great mercy, and they rejoiced with her.
 
The phrase “had shown her His great mercy,” literally means theLord magnified His mercy with her,[2]He overwhelmed her!  Discontented in her barrenness, God turned Elizabeth’s old life upside down and blessed her with a child.  “The Lord has done this for me.  He has looked with favor in these days to take away my disgrace among the people” (1:25). The improbable blessing, God’s wave of mercy to Elizabeth giving her a son-messenger, prepared the way for God’s tidal wave of grace to the world giving us His Son, our Savior! Overwhelmed?  God, let it be so—with You, with You, with You!  Something to think about . . . in reveration!  
 
©2011 Daniel York  ARR. Reveration is the weekly devotional ministry of First Cause.  If you would like to receive these devotionals go to www.firstcause.org and click on the “Click here to receive weekly devotionals” box.  Unlimited permission to copy this devotional without altering text or profiteering is allowed subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.      
 
Ecclesiastes 12:10-The Teacher sought to find delightful sayings and to accurately write words of truth.  (Holman CSB)
 
       
 


[1]www.dictionary.com

[2]http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke%201:57,58&version=HCSB