I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me. —Proverbs 8:17
Do we ever truly recover exactly what we lost? I believe the honest answer is both yes and no. Let me explain.
When we find our way back, the anointing to which we must return is virtually a new anointing. It is new because when we find it again, we must adjust to where it is and how it is manifesting now. Adjusting to the Dove is a lifelong process of agony and surprise.
Some of us take longer in our return to the anointing because the whole time we are looking for the return of the anointing. We are all prone to say, “The old wine is better.”
Each of us tends to begin trying to recover the anointing in our most familiar spot—our comfort zone. But God is saying to us, “See, I am doing a new thing!” (Isa. 43:19).
One of the reasons God stays behind and allows us to move on without Him is that we will be forced to see the new and different ways He chooses to manifest His glory.
The Christian life is a continual series of events that lead us out of our comfort zone. These repeated transitions take us from the natural level to that of the Spirit. The irony is that even the new level of the Spirit will eventually become another comfort zone to us. It too will have to be left behind in some sense. Then we will be allowed to become settlers in heaven. Until then we must continue to adjust to the Dove and the surprising and unpredictable ways God challenges our faith.
Excerpted from The Sensitivity of the Spirit (Charisma House, 2002).
