“‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts” (Zech 4:6).
Do you pray, asking for the Spirit? The Lord Jesus instructs us to do this, in Luke 11:13. Not for His presence (guaranteed to God’s people, 2 Cor 5:5), but for His fullness; not for the baptism (an accomplished fact for the believer, 1 Cor 12:13), but for His working in and through you?
Mark Guy Pearse (in Parables and Pictures) illustrates this by describing the English shore at low tide. “There were the barges high and dry, lying on their sides. No good their heaving the anchor or hoisting the sail—all this availed them nothing.” He wondered if it would help if a law were passed requiring each citizen to bring a pot of water to pour out into the bay. Of course not! “But,” he writes, “as I watched I saw the remedy—God turned the tide. In swept the waters of the sea…and instantly all was activity.”
Is there a remedy when our lives are “high and dry”? Yes! The daily gracious outpouring of the Spirit.