If so, you’re not the only one. Doctors tell us that a significant portion of illness is brought on by stress.

I run into people everyday who are overwhelmed by schedules, relationships, finances, job demands and any number of other pressures. It fascinates me, however, that I also run into people everyday who are facing those same kinds of circumstantial demands yet somehow able to avoid high levels of stress.

I love the analogy of a roller coaster. Everyone on the ride is experiencing a very similar circumstance, but not everyone has the same experience. Some are overwhelmed and terrified, while others are having the time of their lives. The difference is determined by perspective. If I’m overwhelmed it can very often be because I’m choosing the wrong perspective.

“The roller coaster analogy is useful in explaining why the same stressor can differ so much for each of us. What distinguished the passengers in the back from those up front was the sense of control they had over the event. While neither group had any more or less control their perceptions and expectations were quite different. Many times we create our own stress because of faulty perceptions you can learn to correct.” – The American Institute of Stress http://www.stress.org/topic-definition-stress.htm

We create our own stress. How? By the perceptions we embrace. A helpful study from Weber State University demonstrates that a trait they call “hardiness” is plays a huge role in determining our stress levels within various circumstances. (see: http://faculty.weber.edu/molpin/healthclasses/1110/bookchapters/stresseffectschapter.htm for more on that study.)

Hardiness is defined by three characteristics.

Commitment – I am deeply engaged in my present involvements. We live in a culture where people are largely disengaged from their present reality. We spend our lives wishing we were somewhere else and escaping to some other place. A man on the job wishes he was on the golf course. A man on the golf course is distracted by the unfinished to-do list at work. A stay-at-home mom fantasizes about returning to her career and escaping the demands of screaming babies. A corporate executive fantasizes about being able to stay at home and be with her kids. Our unwillingness to commit our full presence and engagement to our present circumstance sets us up to experience stress, no matter our circumstance. The underlying assumption of this perspective is that we are victims. We are powerless. We have to do this but long to be free to do otherwise. The answer to this is rarely to change your circumstances. The stress isn’t coming from the circumstance. It’s coming from your belief that you aren’t in control. That you HAVE TO be here and can’t be elsewhere. It comes from feeling out of control. Don’t change your circumstance. Commit. Engage. Be fully present. Take dominion where you are. Choose it. It’s what you were made for.

Control – I believe my choices will influence outcomes. Stress increases when my options are removed. I do this to myself simply by believing I have no options, that my capacity to choose is irrelevant. But this belief is itself a choice, one that is actually influencing my present experience of stress a great deal. The reality is that much of my present reality is simply the result of a long series of choices I have made–choices about beliefs, perspectives, and circumstances. I am responsible. My choices have produced the current state of affairs. I am powerful. Of course, things do happen that are beyond my control–bad things, terrible things, even evil things. But I still have a choice regarding my response, my outlook, my attitude, and my ultimate source. No one can take that choice from me. No one. When I choose to believe that I don’t have these options or that choosing them won’t matter I increase my experience of stress.

Challenge – I believe that life will require me to change allowing for growth. What I expect matters. If I’m moving forward into life expecting I won’t have to change or grow, I’m setting myself of for unmet expectations. I’m setting myself up for stress. If my present circumstances are pressing me to adapt and grow, and they always are, then my expectation will determine much regarding how I will experience this challenge. If I am anticipating the challenge, I can lean into the change and growth demanded. I can choose it. I can embrace it. On the other hand, if I am anticipating ease and comfort, I will be taken by surprise when life becomes difficult and I will resist internal change and growth, requiring my circumstances to change instead of me. More stress.

When I choose to inwardly disengage from my present reality, believe that I’m powerless within my present circumstance, and react with surprise when life demands change and growth, then I’m setting myself to be miserable on the roller coaster that is life.

I was made to take dominion not to be a victim.

“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion..’” (Genesis 1:26a, ESV)

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Romans 8:18–25 (ESV)
18For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
19For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.
20For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope
21that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
22For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.
23And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
24For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?
25But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

I think there may be two reasons why this passage is rarely emphasized.

1. There was a fringe (not mainstream but influential) pentecostal group in post World War II America and Canada called The Latter Rain Movement that emphasized this passage.

This movement stretched the theological boundaries of mainstream pentecostalism through their views on the end times, the five-fold ministry, the laying on of hands, and personal prophecy. One of their doctrinal distinctions was centered around a phrase from this passage. In verse 19, Paul writes:

19For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.

This doctrine was called “The Manifest Sons of God”. They taught that in the end times there would be a group of believers who would walk in the same miraculous power as Jesus and would usher in world wide evangelism and ultimately the return of Christ for a victorious church. That’s my summary of their position anyway. If it’s anywhere close to accurate, I’m not exactly sure why it was considered so extreme. Anyway, it was certainly rejected by the mainstream folks and it very much was a departure from the pessimistic dispensational “I’ll fly away” eschatology within the mainstream pentecostal circles. Because of this (and other reasons), the Latter Rain Movement was rejected. Fundamentalist circles still attempt to discredit modern day Charismatic and/or Pentecostal ministries by trying to tie them to Latter Day connections. I suspect that Rom 8:18-25 is at least partly ignored because it has, in recent history, been so tied to a rejected church movement which mainstream believers don’t want to be associated with. In my opinion, the Latter Rain’s major mistake was in missing the implications of verse 18. There is a present age. There is an age to come. It is healthy to contend for the reality of the age to come to break forth into the present age. Error enters in when we expect the present age to, in fact, be the age to come. Due to this failure to rightly distinguish the present and future aspects of what Paul is addressing, this movement failed to recognize this passage as a longing for the resurrection from the dead and instead saw it as a longing that was to be fulfilled prior to the return of Christ, in the present age.

2. This passage presents a hope for the end times anchored in a future bodily resurrection of the dead and the renewal of God’s good creation.

In an age where the Church has largely lost sight of Genesis 1-2, and knows NOT what to do with 1 Cor 15 or Rev 21, we have framed the gospel merely in terms of God making a way for us to go to heaven when we die. With this “going to heaven” emphasis, talk of liberating creation from its bondage to decay or the redemption of our bodies just simply doesn’t fit within our grid. It is thereby ignored, lest we have to adjust our grid. Because we have understood Jesus’ return as the catalyst for our departure, images of dead bodies rising from their graves and all of creation being renewed as heaven and earth are rejoined just don’t make sense.

On the other hand, when you give Gen 1-2 a careful reading, looking for an answer to the question “What is God’s goal in creation?”, it becomes apparent that God desires a good creation governed by Men/Women who carry God’s image and authority and whose source is God’s own life/breath. Given this, it only makes sense that his goal in redemption is to bring creation back into alignment with this original design. From this perspective, 1 Cor 15, which is all about a future bodily resurrection from the dead, and Rev 21, which is all about a future time when God will rejoin heaven and earth in one great act of New Creation, and this passage, Rom 8:18-25 make total sense.

It is this new creation reality of resurrection that all creation is groaning towards (see vs 22). And we too are groaning (see vs 23). And the Spirit.

Romans 8:26 (ESV)
26Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

We must not lift this verse from it’s context and make it a proof text for charismatic prayer. We must understand what, exactly, the Spirit is groaning for. What is this thing that we don’t even have language for that the Spirit is groaning to bring into reality?

New Creation.

New Creation is “the good” that all things work together toward for those who love God and are called according to his purpose (see vs 28). This is our anchor. This is where the story is headed. This is Paul’s vision of the future. This is our hope.

 One possible option is to think of God as a sovereign puppet-master. He pulls all the strings. If this is true, then evil exists because God wills it to exist. Evil, pain, and suffering are tools in the hand of a sovereign God who uses them to accomplish his purposes. In this view, creatures have no genuine freedom, for every choice is determined by God’s own sovereign will. My choices. Your choices. Everyone’s. If God truly pulls all the strings, then I think this is the only intellectually honest explanation available to us.

But what if he doesn’t pull all the strings? That’s the other option.

Some will immediately object to this view, arguing that this possibility undermines the sovereignty of God.

It doesn’t.

In fact, quite the opposite is true. To propose that for God to create a world in which he doesn’t pull all the strings would undermine his sovereignty is to make one of two statements about God’s sovereignty: either God can’t make such a world, or merely that he hasn’t made such a world. The second option simply begs the question. The first, that God can’t have created genuinely free creatures, directly challenges his sovereignty.

I recognize that many strongly believe that God hasn’t granted genuine freedom to humans. They are free to think that way, thus affirming my point.

If it is true that God has given free will to creatures (men, angels), then there are certain concepts that follow from this. Choices require options, alternatives. These options must be real and proportional. If God gives me the very real capacity to be a powerful source of blessing in my children’s lives, then, at the same time, there are few people with a  greater capactity to harm them. It is nonsensical to consider a world in which I have genuine freedom to bless with no option to do otherwise.

It is feasible to consider a world in which creatures have no capacity to harm, only to bless, but not while maintaining genuine freedom. In this hypothetical world where nothing bad ever happens, God must be pulling all the strings.

Either …

1. God pulls all the strings and only good happens and therefore God is responsible for good.
2. God pulls all the strings and some good happens and some evil happens; therefore God is responsible for both good and evil.
3. God doesn’t pull all the strings because he has created a world in which his creatures get to choose which strings to pull.

The first option (1) is clearly not the case. The following two options (2) and (3) are the only viable alternatives.

If we hold to (2), then we must determine that God, as the source of evil, is either (a) evil, or (b) good, but using evil to accomplish a greater good. Many believers who hold that God pulls all the strings actually balance these two options. Theologically, they affirm (b), while inwardly they retain a non-verbalized resentment toward the God they blame for their pain.

If we embrace (3), then we see that God is not to blame for evil, he is not the source of evil. Instead, we find that evil exists because free creatures have chosen it. This is the only option where moral responsibility of creatures makes any sense.

Once option (3) is chosen, another question follows. Why? Why has God made a world in which creatures have the capacity to cause so much suffering and pain?

The answer, I believe, is love.

Love is the kind of thing that must be chosen. You can have love-like behavior that is compelled, but you cannot have determined love. It is in the choosing that love is given. A world in which creatures cannot choose is also a world in which creatures cannot love. Pain and suffering in my life are a direct result of my choices, the choices of other men and women, or the choices of other creatures like fallen angels.

Could God have prevented all this? Yes. He is sovereign. But he hasn’t. Why?

It’s not because God likes to use pain to teach me lessons. That’s not it. It’s because God values love. A world without choices is a world without love. Yes, it also could be a world without pain, a world of well-behaved robots. I don’t want that kind of world. I’m convinced God doesn’t either.

Having said all that, I’m continually amazed at God’s resourcefulness. He has an amazing knack for redeeming, healing, and restoring. He doesn’t ever waste my pain. He brings good from it.

He doesn’t choose it, but he has chosen to make a world within which such things occur. And when they occur, he doesn’t merely explain my pain, he enters into it; he takes it upon himself. He chooses. He loves.

“And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” ” (Matthew 26:39, ESV)

A square is not fully distinct from a line but it is nevertheless more than a line. A square exists in a two dimensional reality made up of an infinite numbers of both lines and points oriented by height and width. A two dimensional figure like a square is more than a line but is not altogether different from what a line is for there could be no squares without lines.

A cube is not fully distinct from a square but is nevertheless more than a square. A cube exists in a three dimensional reality oriented by width, height, and also by breadth. A three dimensional figure like a cube is more than a square but is not altogether distinct from what a square is for there could be no cubes without squares. No squares without lines. No Lines without points.

As reality becomes more dimensionally complex the higher orders of reality are greater than the lower realities while still encompassing all that the lower realities include.

What if spiritual reality is simply the next step up in this order? What if heavenly reality encompasses width, height, and breadth while adding another dimension that we cannot possibly conceive of with senses designed to perceive solely within a world of three dimensions? What if the difficulty in conceiving of this spiritual reality can be compared to a circle being unable to conceive of a sphere for a sphere requires breadth and a circle knows of no such reality? (Read the book Flatland by Edwin Abbott for more on this concept)

This thought process, if remotely close to the truth, completely does away with the material/spiritual duality. That which is spiritual is more concrete reality than the material for it includes all that the material is and more in the same way that a cube is more concrete that a square. It has more substance.

This view of things acknowledges that the material can still be at its root spiritual. It is just that the spiritual aspects of the material must be perceived through another way of knowing. Sensory input analyzed by intellect will never perceive it.

I want to ask you to follow me through another way of looking at things that might be nearer to the truth and more helpful.

Colossians 1:15 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.(ESV)

In this passage, Paul is speaking about Jesus. Jesus is the image of the invisible God. We cannot see God, but in Christ God has fully revealed himself.

Colossians 1:19 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,(ESV)

Paul goes on to say that Christ is not only the image of the invisible God, but is in actuality the fullest revelation of who God is and what God is like. In Christ we discover the fullness of God.

John 14:8-9 8 Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?(ESV)

Jesus here essentially makes this same point about himself. Do you want to know who the Father is and what he’s like? Just look at Jesus.

Now here’s the thing about allowing Jesus to inform us about God’s nature and character, allowing Jesus to authoritatively determine for us the fullness of our understanding about who God is: In Christ we discover that God’s goodness is better than we might otherwise have thought. We can’t ever find one sick person that came to Jesus for healing that didn’t receive it. We can’t find one funeral Jesus attended and didn’t ruin.

John 10:10 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.(ESV)

In this passage Jesus makes an important contrast between himself and Satan. Contextually, Jesus is talking about the difference between the good shepherd (Jesus) and the robber (Satan). The question essentially is, how can we know the difference? This verse above is essentially Jesus’ answer. How can I tell when Satan is at work? When the result is theft, death, and destruction. How can I tell when Jesus is at work? When the result is abundant life.

Now in my life, when I have faced painful loss that touches the core of my being, dare I take what Jesus is saying seriously? Dare I interpret my experience through the filter of the truth Jesus is presenting? Many refuse to, and I can understand why. The implication is that if Satan, rather than God, is the author of my loss and pain, then some things happen in this world that are not God’s will. God doesn’t exercise control over everything. The thief comes. This way of viewing things can be very uncomfortable if our security lies in the idea of God’s sovereign control over all the details of life. But what if that’s not the best way to find security in God?

Let’s think for a minute about a world in which no creature was able to violate God’s will. It would certainly be a much cleaner, neater, and nicer world, wouldn’t it? We would definitely have much better behaved creatures. But if God had created a world in which it was impossible to violate his will, we would have a world of well behaved robots, and definitely a world without love. The thing about love is that choice is essential to its nature. Freedom is an essential component of what love is. Love that is not chosen is not love. You can have loving behavior without choice, but you can’t have love without choice. To be love, it must be chosen. To be chosen, there must both be the capacity to choose and alternatives to choose between. There must be two trees in the garden. There must be a choice. To be able to choose love I must have the capacity to genuinely choose “not love”. Angelic beings have the capacity to make this choice. Humans have the capacity to make this choice. Satan, a powerful angelic being, has chosen “not love”. He has chosen pride and selfishness. He has rebelled against God. He had a great capacity to love. This means he had a great capacity to “not love”. He has chosen to not love. His choice to not love finds expression in his selfish pride that works to undermine and oppose God’s purposes and the love and life God wants to give.

Humans also had a choice. Adam had a choice. Adam chose to rebel against God, to unplug from life and plug into Knowledge of Good and Evil instead. Much of the loss and suffering in this world is simply due to the choices of other people who have chosen to not love. Much of the loss and suffering in this world is simply due to the choices of angelic beings to not love.

Could God take control? Could God put a stop to all this? Of course he could. He’s God. But at what cost? If God did that he would remove love from Creation. So, God’s answer to the pain and suffering caused by sin is not to turn us into robots. God’s answer is the cross. He answers our suffering by himself making a choice. He chooses love. He chooses to enter into the hurt, pain, suffering, loss, and death rampant in our world. He chooses to take it upon himself and there extinguish it. I believe God’s choice to sacrificially love through the obedience of Christ on the cross is a much firmer basis for comfort and healing in the midst of loss and pain than is the view that God sovereignly controls all things. He could of course, but he doesn’t. Love would not be possible otherwise.

One of the ways in which it is often necessary for us from the West to think differently is in how we think about matter. Since the Enlightenment, western thinking has become more and more materialistic. This doesn’t refer to an emphasis or reliance on money (though that is also true!) but rather a view of reality that denies the spiritual. A materialistic view of reality sees reality solely in terms of natural cause and effect operating in a system that is free from spiritual (supernatural) influence. If something happens that isn’t understood, the fundamental assumption is that there must be a natural explanation.

Of course materialism is false, dangerous, and very un-biblical. As Jesus followers within western culture one of the ways we learn to think differently (thanks www.bobhamp.com) is in recognizing the reality of a spiritual realm and the influence of this realm upon and within our material world. God has truly created both the heavens and the earth.

In this process of learning to think differently, it is possible we do not quite go far enough. We begin as materialists and begin to recognize, believe in, and even interact with a spiritual dimension to reality. This is certainly an improvement. We often stop short, however, of seeing the full extent to which the spiritual dimension of reality saturates all reality. In stopping short in this way, we hold the spiritual and material aspects of creation as being completely distinct from each other. There is a distinction. This is undeniable. But what is the nature of that distinction and what are its limits?

For instance, it seems clear that there are spiritual realities that are not material. Heaven, as the place where God lives and as the domain of angels and believing loved ones who have died is presented in the Bible as a non-material reality. Not all spiritual things are material. But does it necessarily follow then that not all material things are spiritual? That is not a logical necessity and is also not supported scripturally.

All of material Creation was spoken into existence by God.

John 1:1-3
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.(ESV)

We know that God’s word is Spirit. So all of material Creation has its origin in God’s word, that which is non-material/spiritual. We also know that material Creation is sustained moment by moment by that which is spiritual.

Hebrews 1:3
3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,(ESV)

All material creation has its origin in the non-material and is sustained by the non-material. Material existence is fundamentally spiritual in nature. Not all things are material. All things are spiritual (nod to Rob Bell here, but I haven’t seen his presentation by that title). If this is true, then words like “supernatural” are thereby redefined. Instead of seeing the supernatural in terms of spiritual reality invading non-spiritual reality, it is perhaps better understood in terms of material reality, out of sync with the spiritual reality that is both its origin and sustenance, being brought back into alignment. “Miracle” becomes simply the descriptor we use to put words to our observation of this realignment. If my eyes are blind it is nevertheless miraculous, in a technical sense, for my blind eyes have their origin and sustenance in God’s word, which is spiritual. All of creation is miraculous in that sense, for because God opened his mouth and spoke, something material became where previously there was nothing material. If God then speaks and heals my blind eyes, then this “miracle” doesn’t actually belong in a different category than the overall miracle of material existence as a result of God’s life giving creative word. But I still use the word “miracle” to describe the effect of God’s word in bringing my eyes back into alignment with his original design.

In this integrated worldview, where the spiritual nature of nature is affirmed, I gain a better understanding of several things – communion and water baptism for instance. In a dualistic view where I see the material and spiritual as being non-integrated, I must view these very physical things (water, bread, wine, or grape-juice if you like me are a Bible-Belt Dweller) as being simply symbolic. They are physical things which represent, point toward a spiritual reality. But with an integrated view, I am able to affirm the non-symbolic language scripture uses to describe the spiritual significance of baptism and communion. An integrated view helps me understand the importance of sexual purity, for no longer do I view the physical aspect of intimacy as being merely material. Instead the spiritual oneness that results from this physical act fits well within my overall view of reality. With an integrated worldview, I understand how laying my hands on the sick can serve as a conduit a release of spiritual power resulting in healing. With an integrated worldview I have a grid through which to understand how my body can be the Temple of the Holy Spirit. With an integrated worldview I can understand how people can suffer from demonization. With an integrated worldview I understand the biblical emphasis on the resurrection of the body as the anchor of our future hope in contrast with the more popular non-material hope of eternity in heaven after we die. With an integrated worldview, I have a context for understanding Revelation 21, where the New Jerusalem descends to earth and heaven and earth become the same place.

Without thinking differently about matter and spirit much of scripture will seem foreign. Once I begin to embrace an integrated spiritual/material worldview, much that I read in scripture will elegantly snap into place in terms of both my understanding and even my experience. It’s an important adjustment.

That’s the first prayer I remember learning as a small child. It’s short (as prayers before meals should be). It rhymes. It’s really quite a good little prayer.

The thing I like best about it is that it communicates something about God which is foundational. Packed up in this little pre-meal prayer for children are the concepts both of God’s transcendence and His immanence.

Transcendence – “God is great. God is good.”
Immanence – “Let us thank Him for our food.”

The term transcendence refers to the reality that God is distinct from and above all Creation.

Distinct from: The universe is not God. The earth is not God. The trees are not God. I’m not God you’re not God. God is “other” than us.

Above all: God is the origin and sustenance of all Creation. He is the owner of all Creation. He has all authority over all Creation. He is superior to all Creation. His superiority includes every category of existence. He is eternal; Creation is finite. He is morally perfect; Creation is good, but broken, fallen. The list could go on.

The term immanence refers to God’s nearness and involvement with Creation day by day, moment by moment. God is not far away and uninvolved, but rather unimaginably close and deeply involved in the tiniest details of life.

If I minimize God’s transcendence but hold to His immanence, I wind up being a pantheist. For if God IS near and involved in our lives but is not distinct from us and not over us, then God is everything and everything is God.

If I minimize God’s immanence but hold to His transcendence, I wind up being a deist. For if God is distinct from us and over us but is not near to us and involved in our lives, then God is far away and inaccessible; the cosmos is simply a complex watch and the watch maker has moved on to other things.

When we respond to God in worship we humbly surrender before the transcendent One. We bow before His greatness. There is a biblical principle in place as we do this. He inhabits our praise. We enter His gates with thanksgiving.

Get this! As we exalt His transcendence, we experience His immanence. What an amazing privilege.

In this book, a two dimensional character (a square) has a dream and in the dream he visits a one dimensional world called Lineland. There he tries to describe a two dimensional reality to inhabitants of the one dimensional reality, which is no easy task.

This book illustrates the difficulty of communicating about heavenly realities. Keep in mind that’s not necessarily the point of the book – it’s just that the book pictures the difficulty I’m speaking of well. Just as a second dimension is difficult to envision for those living in Lineland; and just as “breadth” would be difficult to imagine for those who have only experienced length and width, a spiritual dimension is impossible to grasp with faculties that only comprehend length, width, breadth, and linear time.

Perhaps this is part of the difficulty Jesus runs into in his conversation with Nicodemus.

John 3:12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?NKJV

Look at what Paul says about this.

1 Cor 2:13-14
13 These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.NKJV

I am reminded today of my complete dependence upon the Holy Spirit. I say this not as a pastor (though it certainly applies there too) but simply as a believer. So much of the life of faith is based upon a reality that is beyond my ability to comprehend. There is no amount of new or cleverly presented information that will expand my limitations. Education is not the answer, only revelation will work. I must see differently, by a different means. Spiritual things must be spiritually discerned.

So today I am asking the Holy Spirit to open the eyes of my heart, to enable me to perceive and comprehend what I otherwise could not. I am echoing Paul’s prayer to the Ephesians.

Eph 1:17-2117 …that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, 18 the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power 20 which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. NKJV