I am reading, Becoming a True Spiritual Community: A Profound Vision of What the Church Can Be, by Larry Crabb. I am excited, nervous and anxious in a good way about where he is going. He is helping me understand what this deep longing for more is inside my soul.
He uses language of an upper and lower room in our soul. This upper room is where we ‘abide’ with Christ. It is the room the Lord “built in our souls where he waits ready to meet us” (page 62). Read this description I am pulling directly from his book. It’s said so well.
People long for relationship. In the Upper Room, it already exists. No one demands relationship in this room. They already have it, and they know that one day they will fully and forever enjoy its pleasures. And people in the Upper room aren’t obsessed with figuring life out. They prefer to live life rather than to analyze it. They have no sense that something fragile within them needs protection and no compelling urge to find themselves. They have already been found. With the pantry full, their strongest desire is to set another place at the table and invite someone else in to enjoy the feast.
Crabb, Becoming A True Spiritual Community, p 65.
This is fullness of life, to live with “no sense that something fragile within [us] needs protection.” This is our true selves shinning with the glory of our maker so much so that others are drawn to Him. This is true contentment. We are known in this room. We are aware that all things in this life come to us to bring us to God that we may know Him.
The world outside the Upper Room still has white beaches and dirty ghettos. But from the UpperRoom they seem like shadows. New cars and cancer surgery and beautiful grandchildren and terrible rejection are still present, but now they are second things. First things are all in the Upper Room.
Crabb, Becoming A True Spiritual Community, p 65.
Communion with God. That is our deepest joy in this life and it happens in the Upper Room. Experiencing God can bring us more pleasure than any other experience in this world. This Advent Season I am reminded that Jesus came to dwell among us so that we could dwell with him in the Upper Room of our soul.
Lord I do not fully understand all you are offering me in this ‘Upper Room,’ but I have seen a glimpse, and I plead for you to take me there. Help me to live for the blessing of your presence rather than the blessings of a better life. I want to worship you with all that I am until I get the great honor of kneeling before your throne. Come Lord Jesus! May we meet in the Upper Room.
The Road We Are On 