theres a cry in my heart
for your glory to fall
for your presence to fill up
my senses.
theres a yearning again,
a thirst for discipline,
a hunger for thigs that are deeper
could you take me beyond?
could you carry me through
if i open my heart could i go there with you?
cause ive been there before
and i know theres still more
oh lord i need to know you.
for what do i have? if i dont have you jesus
what in this life could mean anymore
you are my rock
you are my glory
you are the lifter of my head
wow. as this song was running through my head, i shockingly realized how much the words paralled exactly what i was going through in my life, word for word.
i had listened to this song 4 years ago and it was one of my favorite songs back then, but i didnt really understand it. the chorus was the most catchy to me, as it resonated with how i felt about having jesus mean the world to me.
but now listening to this song, i realize that its a song that most depicts the prodigal son. how the son left the father in search for his own desires and riches but after dabbling in these worldy pleasures, he relizes that he has nothing and is nothing without the father. the son returns to the father in search for a life more than what haswhen he was living as he pleased. he realizes everything he once had and everything hes lost through the cry of his heart to be once again in the presence of the father.
and after trying to live life my own way,
i am exhausted.
there is no joy in following the things that i please, in placing more gravity on the ephemeral rather than the eternal. i want to return back to the father--and there is a cry once again in my heart for his intimate presence, a thirst and a hunger for things that are deeper, for things that cannot be found by merely searching in the physical. i realize that this need cannot be satisfied through the people i surround myself with, the things that i buy, the identity that i try to create, the love that i find, or even the amount of "holy" things that i do. this ringing yearning for more-- only god himself can satisfy.
could you take me beyond? can you carry me through? if i open my heart, could i go there with you? lord, i want to go to a place beyond that is more heart-penetrating, more wholesomely-satisfying, more thirst-quenching than the shallow waters that i have been setting foot in. but at the same time im scared. i dont really know why... i dont want to hold any of myself from him but i feel hesistant to pour everything i have. i feel as if a part of me is scared to let go of the things that i have because i am too focused on the death of self, the sacrifice, than the resurrection and exceeding life that follows. lord could you carry me through, because i dont know if i can ever make this on my own. lord, if i open my heart, could i go to that sweet, secret place with you? can you take me there once again, even if the attempts of my heart are still so feeble?
for surely i have been there before, and i know that there is so much more. i know in the deepest deep that there is so much more than the life that i am living now. lord, i remember. i remember those times when i would go so deep with you, when i was filled with exhilirating joy at every word of the living scriptures, when i would gaze at the sky with love-struck wonderment and daze at the beauty of your majesty, when i would wake up every morning afreshed and awakened by the overflowing love that you poured into my heart.
when all i wanted was to be intimately and deeply in communion with you.
oh lord... i need to know you.
for what do i have, if i dont have you? what in the whole universe could possibly replace you? what in the whole world could compare to you? what in this life could mean more than you, could hold more weight or significance than you? if i dont have all of you lord, i have nothing. no amount of intelligence or beauty or glory or talent or relationships or possesions or passion would be sufficient enough to even come close in worth.
oh lord, i need to know you.
please take this wandering heart of mine and fulfill the cry of my heart.
i have experienced the joy of knowing what god feels when one sinner repents, when one soul turns to jesus and all of heaven is rejoicing and celebrating over this seemingly small, but truly great victory.
in japan i had the amazing oppurtunity to share the gospel to three people, and out of the three, one of them accepted. although the numbers are so few, i felt god's heart and his love when i was sharing the gospel to that one individual who accepted the gospel and wanted to receive jesus christ as his personal savior and lord! hallelujiah! and as we prayed together for the first time (his name was shogo), i was moved to tears to see how his heart was so open to Jesus, and how he was asking God into his life. truly, all of heaven was dancing and celebrating because the stronghold of hades has been broken from his heart, because of this small but truly life changing and significant decision to follow after Jesus. even though he was just one person i know god was pleased.
a lot of people call japan the missionary graveyard. coming out of japan, i can understand and see why. i was told that it takes an average of about 10-20 years for a person to truly accept christ into their life. No doubt, japan is definately hard soil to toil in, and i dont know if i can explain all of their social, cultural and religious barriers by just blogging about it here. it was personally very hard for me as well, but one thing i am thankful for is the oppurtunity to share the gospel with a few people in japan, because even getting the oppurtunity to share is more difficult.
even though it seems like god's spirit is moving slowly through the country of japan, i know it doesnt have to be. i know that the lord has the power to turn hearts and transform lives in an instant. i know that once a person encounters the living love of christ, their life will never be the same-- because god's love is that strong. oh holy spirit, would you truly enliven and enlighten the japanese's hearts to the knowledge that there is an amazing father in heaven who loves them beyond what they could even fathom, that there is a love greater than what they could ever hope for or imagine. abba father would you encounter your japanese sons and daughters with your love in a way that is life changing--and in a way where they cannot deny surrendering all of their past for the sake of following after you!
god chooses the weak to shame the strong,
the foolish things of this world to shame the wise,
the despised things of the world to shame the glorious and glamourous.
why was Israel, out of all the many various tribes and nations, chosen to be the channel of blessing in which all the world might be saved? Why was Israel picked to be the most abundant, overflowing, and victorious nation, the one whom god gaurded, protected, and blessed? Why was Israel privliedged to be the people who would see God's glory and majesty displayed like no other, set apart since the very beginning of time to be a holy priesthood and nations for the manifesting glory of god?
because israel was the smallest and most despised tribe at the time.
no one would ever suspect that such a small nation would be strong enough to defeat the hittites, the amaelekites, the egyptians. but that is the beauty of god. he loves to exalt the lowly and bring down the haughty. He loves to use the most unexpected people, the most foolish things to bring him the most glory so that the world will know that it cannot be a result of humanly strength, wisdom, or power--but only through God and God alone.
and even though the churches may be small here in Japan,
even though there may be few believers,
even though it may seem almost impossible for the nation of Japan to come to to the genuine saving knowledge of christ,
even though it may seem like japan is the most unlikely country to truly love you because of so many hardened hearts,
lord i believe that you have great plans for the nation.
Something that I've noticed here in Japan is that the believers and the missionaries here have great endurance, for the pastor stated that the average believer takes about 10-20 years to fully make the decision of accepting christ. But the chritans here are true believers, for they do not take christianity lightly. The missionaries and Christains here know what it means to be patient and long-suffering. I see a certain humility in the japanese church's hearts. Because they are small they know they need to lean on Him for strength.
Lord i believe that you will use the small churches here in japan to bring you the utmost glory, to usher in a reviving of the peoples hearts. I believe that you desire to pour out your spirit and Your love upon this nation like new wine, revitalizing the nation's heartbeat after you once again. I believe you will change and break this nation to be one who shines in the darkness-- and you will do it through the few believers and the small churches here in this land, through the meek and the lowly. For when we are weak, Lord You and strongest.
and that is all we need.
It is currently 2am in japan, and this is my 5th day here. All my teamates have already gone to bed, but I feel compelled to write for a bit. god has been definitely been challenging me and stretching me so much, but he still knows how much I can handle and what I cant handle. I feel like I am a rubber band being stretched out to what I think is the farthest it can go, but since rubber is elastic, there is never an end to how much more it can be stretched. i keep on thinking and asking god, how much more must i endure? Even though I felt that I was being stretched beyond my limit, I have a feeling that God is telling me that he wants to stretch my wineskin more so that there will be more room for him to pour more in. the intense stretching and the breaking of my outer man has definately been an excruciatingly painful process, but i want to hold on to the the hope that at the end of the fire, i will have a heart, a passion, and a faith that is as pure as gold.
One thing that im struggling with is hearing god clearly here in japan. I don’t know if its because theres something wrong with me, whether it’s the environment that im in, or whether its god choosing to be more silent so that I could learn how to trust him more…but not clearly being able to hear him when I need him most has been definitely a challenge to me. I was struggling with the spirit of fear as I was coming into japan… fears and doubts about this missions trip. I must confess that I was questioning god’s plan for my life—questioning him calling me to japan, questioning why i was put in this team, and questioning whether or not it was truly worthwhile to come here for only three weeks. will me being here for such a short period of time be enough to bear fruit? i am definately so far from being perfect, as i realize that my trust in god is still small.
Something that god showed me when this year started was that this would be the year that he would grow me in stature and character, and i was so excited when i first heard this. Little did I know though, that growing in stature meant the stripping and pruning of the things that are ungodly—desires that are not of him, my habits that are not of him, different mindsets, my sins....its definately not been easy though, but i know that this discipline god takes me through will in turn reap a harvest of righteousness. a verse that comes to mind that has been so comforting in this time of testing is hebrews 12--
7 It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? ... Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our certain good, so that we may share His holiness. 11 All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
- hebrews 12: 7-11
god disciplines us becasue he want us to be more holy like him, to bear the fruit of righteousness when we have been constantly trained and refined. this fruit of righteosness that we bear will result in a conformity to gods will in purpose, thought, and action, resulting in right living and right standing with god ( taken from the amplified bible). i definately feel like god has been disciplining me and training me to endure during this season of growing in stature and character. . i can see the ways in which he is shaping me to be more perservering, to be more patient, to be more loving, and to be long-suffering. all of these qualities and characterisitics goes hand in hand with the building of stature and charater... and will probably take you through the most painful journey to learn and obtain these characteristics. perhaps this japan trip will be the ultimate test of my character, a place where god wants to refine me even more quickly because he wants my life to bear a greater harvest of righteousness and holiness. During this time in japan, i have been clinging onto this praticular verse for comfort--
5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart
And do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He will make your paths straight
-(Proverbs 3:5-6)
lord help me to see with your eyes and love with your heart. not by my power or my own strength, but it is only by and through your spirit oh lord that these people in japan will be changed. oh lord i want to trust that your ways are truly higher than mine and your thoughts so much deeper than what i can even begin to fathom so i will not lean on my own understanding, on what i see and hear through these human eyes.
to go where you go
to say what you say
to serve how you serve
to love how you love
to do what you do
i will follow you.
I feel as though I have lost my ability to dream.
I used to dream big dreams , believe in big things, but now things have changed
why is that? what has changed? is it because I have stopped believing that God has wonderful plans for my life? Is it because I am scared to dream? Is it because I don’t believe god can use me in that wide of a scale to bring many people to know him name? or maybe its because i don’t care as much anymore?
I know that God has taken me/is taking me through a season of humilty. Before this year, I would constantly dream of conquering the world for christ. my one mission in life was to go to the hardest, darkest, and most unreached parts of the world and reap a harvest of souls there, see millions saved and come to Christ, and usher in a new revolutionary movement. “god use me to create the next big revival movement!” would be my cry. looking back now, i see how filled with self-pride this dream was, and how i wanted to do big things for Christ because I wanted to be great, to be the most revolutionary missionary there was in all of history. however, this entire year has been a season of continual humbling, of being taken from the high places down to the low so that I could be broken and learn how to truly look upon myself with sober judgment. over this year god has been so gracious in highlighting and emphasizing and giving me insight into one particular aspect of his character—his humility. through his gentleness, through speaking to me in his still small voice, through revealing his love to me in the humble, little, and lowly ways, he has truly been completely redefining how I see him and how I interact with him. truly he came to be in gentleness because he wanted to teach me how to be gentle, and he is showing me his humility, his love for the weak because he wants me to learn how to be meek and humble.
it was not until this year that I was able to fully let go of these big dreams. before, I could not accept the possiblity of not doing “big” with things with my life, of not being at the forefront and center of revival. now as I sit and reflect some more, i am wondering whether i had let go of these dreams as an outcome of this humility training (of learning how to be meek and lowly, instead of dreaming to be great), or if I let go of these dreams as a result of lack of faith, an inability to hope and dare and dream.
as I was again reflecting a few days ago, I came to another conclusion—
I have lost my childlike faith in god.
its been very interesting because as i read the word, god continually shows me/brings me to passages that talk about children. and through this I have gained more insight into what it means to be “childlike”—
a child has a simple mind with few worries and little agenda,
a child is vulnerable and humble
a child is pure and innocent of heart and mind, untainted
a child is constantly fascinated and curious with the world around him
a child has a very tender and malleable heart
a child finds his primary identity in what his parents tell him
a child is completely dependent upon his parents and absolutely trusts and believes his parents
and as i was thinking about all these characteristics of being childlike, I realized how I lacked most, if not all of them. some thing that particularly grieves my heart is that ive lost my utter fascination and awed-struck wonder of god. i am not as captivated by him as I used to be, not as fascinated when he would tell me secrets or show me different things. I realized how my heart has lost its tenderness, how I have grown more calloused, more tainted.
before, following god was so easy because that’s the only thing I cared about, but recently, it has been a struggle to want to desire to seek god. I want him... but I also want to desire to want him because I feel that my heart isn’t always 100 percent there.
granted, I am doing a lot better than I was last month, and I know god is slowly restoring me but still i realize that i do not know how to love god rightly... how i am so far from correctly loving god. God has been so gracious to me though. I'm not sure how long i will be in this dry season, but each day i am more convinced that god is with me and hes holding my hand. tonight (just a little before this) i was crying out to god and asking him to help me love him more, and help me to break my hardened heart. and as i was crying out to him i kept on asking him to show me why my heart was so hardened, what unconfessed sins were in my life, and what i needed to change about my life. a little while later my friend called me to catch up, and i began to share with her this issue and she gave me more understanding into my situation when she said--"do you think god is bringing you into this season of dryness so that you could better relate to the people around you and in your church?"
wow! so true... many people who have always grown up in the church, sadly, have the most hardened hearts of all. perhaps god wants me to understand not just my church, but america more. I never have really experienced a lack of desire for god before this point and therefore could not even begin to understand how people could be passive with god. i think that actually going through this season has really opened my eyes and my heart to be more sensitive to the needs of the people at my church, and the people around me who are also struggling with a hardened heart.
battling through with a calloused heart is not easy. but i believe god will redeem it for his glory, like he redeems, restores and renews everything, even transforming what was bad and meant for harm into something good and beautiful.
please god, take me back to the beginning with you, to that day you won my heart and completely captivated me with your love. oh would you tenderize again this calloused heart of mine again, and make it malleable and shapable in your hands.
and if god is big and limitless, then truly anything is possible--and i do wish to dream again.
i want to dream so badly,to hope and believe and soar in the boundless skies with him again.
I want to dare to dream big dreams, and have big visions... because our god is a big god.
When I first felt that God was calling me to go to Japan a month and a half ago, I was shocked because it was so contrary to what i had thought god wanted me to do, and what i had already planned to do. I was already set on taking summer school and staying at home because God had been showing me the importance of loving the people around me and being faithful with the little. He’s been putting an immense desire in my heart to love the people closest to me with all that I have and to faithfully steward that one ‘talent’ god has given me (as in the parable). In my mind, loving the people around me meant staying in Irvine in the summer. although I have always been a "go-go-go person, the lord has been teaching me the reward of stillness and so I had surrendered my desire to go to the nations, believing that in the right season, God would allow me to go.
It was during one of my prayer times where I was moved to pray for japan because I heard from a friend that they weren’t getting as much help as they should be, and even some people are scared to go to Japan right now because it was too dangerous.
“How can this be?” I thought. Japan is at its pinnacle of chaos right now and they are the ones that need the most help. why is that god’s people are not being his hands and feet, his salt and light to a people who are desperately seeking help and answers? I prayed, asking God to bring more laborers in the field, for His glory to shine bigger and brighter....and it was then during this time where I felt that God was prompting me to go to Japan--that I wouldn’t just pray for laborers, but that He wanted me to be the answer to my prayer.
A part of me wrestled with God even when he prompted me . I had already adjusted my mind and was set on staying in Irvine this summer, to be comfortable and to take classed in order to catch up on my double-major. To be honest, prior to this incident Japan was one of the farthest countries from my heart. Never in my life would I ever want to go to Japan. I wanted to be far away from countries that were immersed in materialism and technology, and I kept asking God if he would let me go to Africa or India for missions, or a small remote village where life was simple.
So during a missions team meeting I told God,
“lord you know my heart...but if You want me to go to Japan, please give me a supernatural heart for them so that I can know how much You love them.” Right after I finished praying this prayer, I started to weep in the Spirit and my whole body was shaking under His power and His love that was pouring into my heart. I began to feel God’s heart for them and how he longed to bring restoration and redemption into their lives. From then on God continued to move my heart more and more for the country.
****I want to make a quick distinction between being overcome with emotion and being in the power of the spirit. When I say that I am “weeping in the spirit” it means that this is a conviction that is prompted by the spirit. It is not merely a feeling engendered by my own human means or effort—it is a heart revelation directly given by god. it is supernatural and cannot be created by our own natural means. My heart was moved supernaturally by the Holy spirit, and this weeping in the spirit is the same experience that I had when God called me to stay in my home church; against my own will and heart, I literally weeped in the spirit for an entire week over my church and its people, and this was the first time I actually knew and felt how much god loved my church.****
However, despite the fact that God had showed me his heart for Japan, I was going through a season of incredible dryness and darkness (as written in my previous blog). The past month has been the driest period I have experienced in my entire life, and I was faced with so many different temptations. I had lost all the joy I used to have in Christ, lost my desire to pursue Christ and began to question if I truly did wanted to go to Japan and if God really did call me. a thousand doubts and fears seeped into my mind, and I felt exactly like Moses when God commissioned him to go to Egypt to set his people free.
--But lord, I’m not right with you right now, and my heart isn’t in the right place. I am so hard.
---but lord, how can I share your gospel when I’m not fully living it out?
---but lord, I am so not ready...i think I might be more of a hindrance to the team and I don’t know if I can even be effective
--but Lord, what about my parents? what would they say about me wanting to go to japan?
---but lord, I don’t know if I heard you correctly. What if this is my own desire to go?
---but lord, I have back and health problems..
---but lord, is this the right season and the right time to go?
---but lord, I really cant do much... theres already other people going to japan that
you could use
needless to say, I felt like the most unqualified person alive, and didn’t believe that God actually wanted me to go to japan, nor did I fully believe he could use me. I was swarmed with fear and doubt, and in the midst of this darkness I forgot what it meant t o trust in Him. But even as I told God that I couldn’t go to Japan, my spirit did not feel at peace.
As the deadlines were approaching and the missions trip was coming in a month in a half, I had almost wanted to give up any prospect of going to Japan, deeming it safer and easier for me to just stay in Irvine this summer. I knew I had to make a decision soon and quickly.
----------------------------
this past Thursday I went to KCCC, and we were having our missions send-off night. It was here that I told him, Lord if you do not show me today what you would like me to do clearly, I will decide not to go.
But oh how God is so faithful, and when He opens a door, truly no one, not anything, can ever shut any door that He intends to open.
It was at this night where he spoke to me loudly and clearly, breaking my heart again for what broke His. After weeks of being completely unfeeling, unmoving, and completely passive towards God, he put in me a fresh fire and burden, reminding me again of his heart to see every peoples of every nation come to know him, that they might also be saved!
and as he was speaking to me, he gave me a grave urgency to share his word, and it was then that I realized the necessity and the importance of the gospel is so much more important, so much greater than any of my inhibitions and fears. It was here that God opened up my eyes to see that the root of all my problems was my immense lack of faith— I felt chastised by God because I remembered that one cannot please God without faith.
I told him,
“Lord you know my heart... and you also know that I have never been in this lukewarm state in my entire life, and this is the driest season that I have ever been in... lord im sorry that all I have to offer you right now is my broken worship. But if you truly want me to go, I am willing to lay aside all my fears, my inhibitions, my feelings of doubt and insecurity... for the sake of your gospel lord. because you are greater, you are worthier and i want to trust you. Right then when I made that final decision, I knew in my spirit that this was the way God wanted me to go. finally, after a month of wrestling with Him, I felt at peace.
Things turned out well with my mom as well, as I called her after this and asked her again for the third time if she would let me go to japan. she told me that although she did not personally want me to go because it was dangerous, if god wanted me to go she could do nothing to stop it, and that I was old enough to make my own decisions.
***********
the righteous shall live by faith.
although I am still slowly learning exactly what it means to live by faith, I want to go to Japan with wholehearted trust in God’s perfect love, timing, and nature.
I want to be able to walk by faith, and not by sight. In my natural sight it seemed so improbable for me to go, but faith is not seeing; it comes through hearing. And God quieted my soul, allowing me to hear his whispers and his promptings and his heart, thus, I want to respond in faith.
lord to go where you go and say what you say,
to be your hands and feet, a jar that is emptied for you to use and fill however you may see fit.
here I am Lord, though incapable, though broken, though weak
Here I am lord, ready to do your will
here I am lord,
send me.
when god first showed me that I was in a season of wilderness, I had merely thought that I would be spiritually dry.
but oh, how I was so wrong.
the wilderness encompasses so much more—
for when Jesus was taken to the wilderness, he was alone; there he was tempted and tried-his season of all the possible temptations. it was there were he battled, took his sword of the spirit and shield of faith to ward off satan’s lies and temptations. it was in the wilderness where he became refined, where he learned obedience. it was also after he underwent his trial in which he emerged full time into hid calling and into his ministry of openly preaching, teaching, performing miracles, and proclaiming that he was the Son of God to all men.
This season for me is more of a wilderness than I realized. for I am overwhelmed with temptations that I had never knew existed inside of me. suddenly the desires for worldly pleasures has crept into my heart, seeped in ever so slightly and poisonously that I wasn’t aware of it until I started to fall into it. a lie had entered my mind... I wanted to sin, to even fall into extreme sins so that I could understand more fully the depth of my depravity and the magnitude of God’s sacrifice and grace. I wanted to be that ex-druggie or that ex-prostitute who was radically saved by Christ and who experienced God’s grace in a way that was unimaginable. There was one time this desire took hold of me so strongly that I wanted to hurt myself... please bear with me.
I don’t really know what to say or how to even explain what is going on. I am speechless. I don’t even know if i should be writing this on my blog, but I want to be open and vulnerable. but I will try to articulate these scattered and indescrible thoughts with as much clarity as I can...so heres my story. For the past 3 weeks I felt like I was walking in a cloud of darkness. I felt as if I had lost my satisfaction from god. His presence felt void in my life. Depression was looming over me—and because my relationship with god wasn’t right, nothing else was right. I had no joy... I didn’t even feel like I was living. I felt dead.
Bizarre thoughts would enter into my mind, and I would give way for these thoughts to take root. For a time I would constantly try to fight. At night I would battle certain temptations and wrong mindsets that I knew the enemy was seeping into my mind. other nights I would be too tired to fight—all I wanted to do was to ignore the reality of my problems and these newfound desires that started to take hold. I found myself worn out and weary of being in constant battle, not knowing fully how to use my sword. I began to question god—Lord, are you truly the best thing this world has to offer? Lord, are you truly the greatest satisfaction? Is knowing you truly the greatest joy? Truthfully, at times i didnt care about God, what He felt when I would choose not to pray or couldnt read the word. other times i would even ask God if i could go my own way, to see what life was like on the other side for a while and then come back to him. I was so cold.
being in the wilderness—is also a season of loneliness. in the wilderness, everything is the same dry, flat plain stretched out miles and miles on end. with a ground-view, from a human perspective, it seems impossible to see past the vast dessert of sandless nothing. I think for a while now ive been feeling like my life is the same...normal, routine. not that its bad for life to be a flat ground. but for me... I realized that it is quite unbearable, to be in this state of flatness, of dryness. it would be better if I went through extreme suffering so that god could show me his extreme glory. honestly, I do prefer the valleys and the mountains in my life, for those are the times I cling onto Christ harder, with more determination. I think maybe even this desire to experiment with extreme sin came from a loathing of normalcy, of passive consistency.
-----------------
Today during bible study as I was reading Revelations, the passage where god tells the angel to write to the church of Laodecia, I realized the condition of my heart. I was lukewarm. it had never really occurred to me... but I realized—Luke-warmness is ultimately not being completely content in god. God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in him. I began to realize the true condition of my passivity, and my desire to find satisfaction outside of god, to experiment with different and new things.
And I was sharing with my discipler, telling her that,
for me, to suffer is to be lukewarm, to not care of God’s love.
Because... in my eyes, it would not matter so much if I were to undergo physical affliction, torture or persecution if I was madly and deeply in love with god. Nothing that I could go through would matter because God would be my only passion, and that love would burn away everything else. What does suffering matter when one is deeply in love?
But when one is lukewarm... all of a sudden even the slightest problem in one’s life seems like a bigger giant.
and I came to the horrible conclusion...
that for the first time in my walk with jesus, I actually felt how it was like to be lukewarm. as I began to reminisce and tell my discipler how in love with god I used to be, I began to tear because I realized how cold and calloused my heart had become. How my once beating, pulsing, living heart of flesh has changed to a cold, unfeeling, unpenatrable stone. Last year whenever I would hear the gospel it would move me so deeply to tears. But now, I merely acknowledge what Christ did on the cross, no longer fully convicted by his love. Back then, my only only truly only desire was to know Him more. I wanted to share with everyone that crossed my path the love of God that transformed me inside and out. All I wanted to do was be intimate with God, and I desperately wanted everyone I knew to have the opportunity to experience the greatest love in the entire realm of history. jesus was EVERYTHING to me. he was my greatest desire, and nothing, truly nothing mattered more. I was ready to take this precious gospel with me unto death.
but now...
sadly, I cannot fully say... that god is my greatest desire. I want him to be. what has become of me? Sometimes when I pray, “lord I want to know you more, I want to be with you” –it is because I want a desire to hunger for god, I want a desire to want to be with Him. But is this a prayer that is truly from my heart? Do I truly desire more of him, or do I just know that i should have more of him, which compels me to pray this prayer? I am realizing more and more the true conditions of my heart. I feel so disobedient, so unworthy, far from him. I have lost my child-like youthful innocence and simplicity. I have become tainted with the experiences of life, tainted with my disbelief, with lies--so hardened, oh so hardened.
How should I end this?
Well, all I can say is that I am glad that when God rebukes the church in Laodecia(Rev 3), he doesn’t merely leave them nakedly exposed in the wretched condition that they are. He doesn’t just rebuke them for their hardened hearts, for their deceived minds and their self-indulgence and self-dependence. No.... he extends an offering of intimacy to them—
“I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will eat with him, and he will eat with me.“
(Rev 3:20)
Here God shows us that HE is the one knocking on the doors of the hardened believer/ lukewarm heart. HE is the one who is pursuing them for a deeper relationship. And if we open the door, if we give Jesus permission to come into our hearts, he will then come and eat with us, and we with him (a place of intimacy where what we have is Jesus’ and what He has is ours, a place where things are shared). The lukewarm believer need not remain in this condition if he were to just open his heart!
After giving this invitation, God furthermore extends a promise—
“ He who overcomes, I will grant him to sit beside Me on My throne, as I Myself overcame and sat down beside My Father on His throne.”
I think I am slowly coming out of this dryness. But how long I shall be in the wilderness, I am not sure. In this time of darkness, I want to cling on more firmly to God’s promises and truths. I do not want the spirit of disbelief to reside in me any longer, but I want the holy spirit to shine upon the word and illuminate these truths to me, so that I can cleave onto God’s promises and believe with all my heart that God will see me through, and that He is faithful to help me overcome.
please... brothers and sisters if any of you are reading this, please intercede. thank you so much for sharing my burdens with me.
