I hope you won't mind my sharing something very personal with you. Perhaps it may strike a responsive chord with a similar highway in your heart.
One of my favourite verses (and my chief desire has been lingering in my meditations and causing me to more persistently explore its treasure.
Philippians 3:10 - THAT I MAY KNOW HIM:
(1) in the power of His resurrection;
(2) in the fellowship of His suffering;
(3) and be made conformable to His death.
At a superficial glance this seems to be in the wrong order. The death of Jesus came before His resurrection. But as I ponder, in communion with the Holy Spirit, I see that only resurrection power can enable me to even begin to comprehend His suffering, its cost and its meaning.
How can I enter into the heartbreak of His suffering until I am enabled to probe the fathomless truth that the horrendous atrocities, perpetuated by man's inhumanity to man, were part of it when Jesus was made sin for us?
How can I share in the fellowship of His suffering unless I am joined heart-to-heart with Him to feel and know the tremendous value He places on those for whom He suffered (including me!)? The likeness of His death is the total yielding of myself to God without reservation or qualification.
For this I truly need His resurrection power.
The far-reaching purpose of His suffering is to make me conformable to His death. How? By the Holy Spirit through the power of the Blood. That precious Blood received its power from the Saviour's God-filled life of self-denial. And that precious Blood which was poured out, can be ceaselessly active within me to bring me that same self-denying quality and power.
But ... just as the Blood of Jesus could not have been shed apart from His sacrifice of self, that Blood cannot impart its holy nature to me apart from my similar sacrifice of self.
How I long to know Him in this way, to progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him and be passionately devoted to Him.
To love Him without condition,
To trust Him without wavering,
To obey Him without question,
To reflect Him without distortion.
To advance on this pilgrimage,
to run and not be weary and
to walk and not faint on this highway,
is my prayer for myself and I discuss it often with the Lord Jesus.
With love and prayers,