How to Experience the Fullness of God in Our Lives

I must confess, I have been known to be guilty of something often referred to as having a ‘boy look’. Having a ‘boy look’ is when a man looks for something and says they couldn’t find it, only for a woman to go to the same location and find it.

I’m constantly joking with one of my work colleagues about how she constantly catches me out for having a ‘boy look’. I even joke that she catches me out more than my wife.

One day at the medical practice where I work, we were trying to find some medication. I looked everywhere and I couldn’t find it. My work colleague started looking and I was anticipating being caught out for having yet another ‘boy look’. She couldn’t find it either, only for someone else to come along and find it where she had just recently looked. She then joked about how she had just been caught out for having a ‘boy look’.

It is interesting how in one moment we can be so sure of what we have seen and know to be true, only to later realise that we were incorrect.

This universal problem of having an imperfect perception reveals some deeper truths to us worth remembering:

• Being unable to see something, doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.

• Being unable to see a solution, doesn’t mean one doesn’t exist.

• Being unable to see a positive, doesn’t mean there are only negatives.

• Being unable to see change, doesn’t mean things are unable to change.

• Being unable to see God at work in our lives, doesn’t meant that He isn’t.

Unfortunately, our minds can only perceive reality through a finite and temporal lens, whereas our hearts can receive the infinite and the eternal. Our minds prevent us from experiencing the fullness of God in our lives.

So, how do we experience the fullness of God in our lives? By changing how we approach God in prayer. Instead of praying with our minds, we need to pray from our hearts with Humility, Intimacy, Marvelling and a desire for more of HIM in our lives.

Praying with Humility

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:3 NASB

To help us to understand how praying from our hearts with humility leads us to experience the fullness of God in our lives, we need to understand something important about the kingdom of heaven.

In the bible, the kingdom of heaven represents both a future and present reality. God brings the kingdom of heaven to completion in the future, but it also exists in the present.

As Christians, our eternal future is secure. We will get to experience the fullness of God in heaven for all eternity. Because our eternal future is secure, eternity begins now, and even though we are not in heaven, we can experience the fullness of God in our lives anytime we want.

Now, you are likely wondering if that is true, then “Why am I not experiencing the fullness of God in my life.” It is because poverty of spirit is the key that unlocks the kingdom of heaven and allows us to experience the fullness of God in our lives.

As we explored before, our imperfect perception can lead us to believe that what we see and know to be true and correct, can easily be incorrect. This means that any request we make of God based on our own perceived need, may not be what we need at all, or simply a mere fraction of what we truly need from God.

Poverty of spirt is the humility to admit that because of sin our imperfection prevents us from truly appreciating how far we fall short of the glory of God and need to experience the fullness of God in our lives.

Thankfully, as our hearts grow in humility, so does our poverty of spirit and desire to experience the fullness of God in our lives. When we pray with humility, God unlocks the gates of the kingdom of heaven, and we are blessed with more of Him in our lives.

Praying with Intimacy

To help us to understand how praying from our hearts with intimacy leads us to experience the fullness of God in our lives, we need to first unpack two stories. The first is from Luke 8:43-48:

And a woman who had suffered a chronic flow of blood for twelve years, and could not be healed by anyone, came up behind Him and touched the fringe of His cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped. And Jesus said, “Who is the one who touched Me?” And while they were all denying it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing in on You.” But Jesus said, “Someone did touch Me, for I was aware that power had left Me.” Now when the woman saw that she had not escaped notice, she came trembling and fell down before Him, and admitted in the presence of all the people the reason why she had touched Him, and how she had been immediately healed. And He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.”

Unlike the Mark and Matthew accounts of this story, Luke doesn’t explicitly mention that the woman sought to be made well. This helps to emphasise the power of her faith.

Her faith is powerful because it embodies poverty of spirit and is grounded in humility and the belief that Jesus has and is everything she needed. Her desire wasn’t just to be present with Jesus, she actively sought to touch him, to be intermittently present with Jesus. She did everything she could to get through the crowd and to touch Jesus. That is because intimacy is the desire for a person not an outcome.

Praying with intimacy involves desiring God for who He is not for what He can do. Because any outcome that He provides us can be taken away, but as we will see in the next story in Luke 10:38-42, our ability to experience the fullness of God in our lives can never be taken away from us.

Now as they were traveling along, He entered a village; and a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. And she had a sister called Mary, who was also seated at the Lord’s feet, and was listening to His word. But Martha was distracted with all her preparations; and she came up to Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do the serving by myself? Then tell her to help me.” But the Lord answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; but only one thing is necessary; for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”

Martha’s mind is focused on outcomes. She is distracted and worried as she tries to prepare food for Jesus and the disciples. Instead of desiring to spend time intimately in Jesus’ presence, she approaches Jesus with a desired outcome instead: “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do the serving by myself? Then tell her to help me.”

By contrast, Mary demonstrates by sitting at Jesus’ feet her desire to be intimately present with Jesus. Her heart desires to experience the fullness of God in her life and to understand and to know God as fully and completely as possible.

Jesus tells Martha that experiencing the fullness of God in our life is good and necessary and will never be taken away from Mary. When we pray from a heart like Mary’s, we too experience the fullness of God in our lives, and it will never be taken away from us.

Praying with Marvelling

To marvel at something is to view it with awe, wonder or astonishment. When Jesus teaches us the Lord’s prayer, he highlights at the beginning of the prayer the importance of marvelling God.

“Pray, then, in this way:

‘Our Father, who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.

Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Matthew 6:9-10 NASB

It’s impossible to hallow anyone’s name unless we are marvelling at how great they are. This is because hallowing someone’s name, it is like putting it up in a big neon sign that says glorify their holiness and greatness.

How can we not marvel at God’s greatness and glory and hallow His name. His plans and purposes are far superior to our own. He is perfect, all powerful, and all knowing. He sacrificed His only son Jesus Christ to pave the way for us to experience the fullness of God in our lives. Everything about Him is great, worthy of glory and praise. His name deserves to be hallowed.

Praying with Marvelling is so important because it is what unlocks our hearts desire for His will above our own. Because when we marvel at God’s greatness, we acknowledge how great His plans are, and surrender our own out of a desire for His instead. If our heart doesn’t marvel God and desire His name to be hallowed, it will continue to desire our name to be hallowed and our will to be done instead.

When we desire God’s will instead, we don’t just desire it, we actively seek it

• What do you want me to do?

• Where do you want me to go?

• Who do you want me to go to?

When our hearts pray with humility, intimacy, and marvelling, they begin to pray exclusively with a desire for HIM and His will.

Praying with a desire for HIM

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. Matthew 5:6 NASB.

Hunger and thirst are the two greatest desires we can ever experience in our lives. The stronger they get, the more we seek to satisfy them. Jesus says we receive blessing in our lives when we hunger and thirst for righteousness with the same intensity as food and water.

God is the embodiment of righteousness. Jesus tells us to hunger and thirst for God as if our lives depended on it. To wholeheartedly seek to experience the fullness of God in our lives.

Because when we do, not only are we blessed, but we will also be satisfied. The more of God we desire, the more we will receive, and He leaves us satisfied in a way that nothing else ever could.

Our hunger, our thirst, our desire for HIM, must come from our hearts not our minds. It must come from a place of humility, intimacy and marvelling. Because when it does, our prayers will unlock the kingdom of heaven, and we will experience the fullness of God in our lives in a way we never previously thought possible.