As I was praying this morning, I found that one of the words that the Holy Spirit guided me to pray was the word: impressionable. My prayer was for my family, all eight of us, and I prayed something like, “Lord, help us stay impressionable.” What struck me is the fact that usually I pray for us NOT to be impressionable. Scripture encourages us to choose friends wisely (Proverbs 12:26) and to be not “of” this world (John 17:16, Romans 12:2) which for me means to resonate with God’s ways, not the ways of broken humanity.
So after I prayed that phrase I put down the clothes that I was folding and thought about what the word meant to God.
I got it.
To make an impression is like taking a cookie mold and pressing the imprint upon the dough. The Holy Spirit wants make an impression upon us. What is that impression?
Once upon a time, God decided to create humankind in his image and likeness. So all of us, male and female, were supposed to be image-bearers. Regardless of skin color, hair wave, or height, something about our beneficent Creator was to resonate in us and be released through us. In addition, we were created with what I call a triune composition – spirit, soul, and physical body.
Many of us know what happened. The couple, the fruit, and the wrong decision. Our image-bearing ability was affected. God’s fix-it was the incarnate Christ, blood, and a right decision, by us, to come back into alignment to the Creator’s design and intents. The decision involves coming to Him with our huge bag of past, present, and future sins. On the bag is a price tag so unfathomable, our minds cannot perceive it. We stand before the courtly seat of judgment and watch Him dip His finger in the blood of His Son, then write PAID IN FULL on the price tag. A merciful and just Judge, God forgives our debt because Jesus paid it.
But if you are like me -after being born again, saved, redeemed, or whatever your denomination prefers to call it – you still struggle with being Christ-like.
The journey of the redeemed reveals the metaphor of the Potter and the clay (Isaiah 64:8.) Holy Spirit encourages us to remain in a posture of surrender, of yieldedness to His constant imprinting, His constant molding. We are still image-bearers, but what He is doing is turning us from being people that bear images of a broken world, idols and false gods, to being people that do what He intended and designed us to do: bear His image.
“Lord, help me stay impressionable!”
A Prayer – Creator of all things, I worship you. You are the Most High God, the anchor of my soul, and the Giver of life. Thank you for sending your only begotten Son, Jesus the Christ, to redeem humanity from a bad decision in the garden. The Bible says that he who is forgiven much loves much (Luke 7:47.) I have indeed been forgiven much. I love you because You first loved me (1 John 4:19.) Help me want to stay in a place of surrender to your Spirit. Fashion me and mold me daily so that my renewed image-bearing ability would show forth every moment. I am your workmanship (Ephesians 2:10.) No matter how much things around me lure me, help me and my family stay impressionable to You.
Thank you for sharing this; it touched me deeply. My cousin gets words from God. Sometimes it’s words she’s never heard of it unknown meanings, but today it was impressionable and it was for me. I struggled with it immediately as the regular definition didn’t seem to fit, but I knew it was God.
We talked about it and other subjects then circled back around. During this time she also felt He was saying that I don’t carry that critical spirit and He’s surrounding me. Then the song came to her too.
I talked it over with my younger daughter who’s 18 and that too was beneficial, but I still felt the need to research and seek God. Well I believe He lead me here as I was just about ready to call it a night after again reading and send exactly what I didn’t want, the impressionable that doesn’t seem so positive. Warm Smile. So thank you for being obedient and sharing this two years ago.
Oh my, Maria! Thank you for commenting. God certainly led you to this old post. That should give you comfort that He sees you and watches over your every step. Psalm 137 is a great passage that I encourage you to read and be encouraged by, esp verse 16. May the Holy Spirit keep you impressionable–able to be molded into the vision that God had for you before you were in your mother’s womb.