I want to share a journal entry from 10/10/20 that I found edifying to re-read. It's so good to go over our journals because we really do tend to forget. I am coming to see that 90% of our faith walk is comprised of simply remembering. The enemy works hard to make us forget. Like many of my blogs I am writing stream of consciousness so it's not clean and edited.
Prayer Walk
October 10, 2020
Blessed are the pure
in heart, for they shall see God!
Oh wow this morning was powerful. I feel a fresh wind of God
blowing. I see fire, and flecks of gold and white blowing winds of fire.
So, I will do the
play by play. I was walking and thinking, thinking, thinking. Then I thought
about how my beautiful Bridegroom Jesus has a still, small voice so I took some
time to get quiet. Your thoughts are not my thoughts O God, your ways are not
my ways. Here, let me lay them down and quiet my mind so that I may hear your
words of life, words that always bear good fruit when they fall on good soil.
Then I began to fix my gaze upon God the Father. Oh, what a
lovely, wonderful, sweet thing to do!!! Then the verse came to mind: Fear not,
for I am with you. I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you
with my righteous right hand. I thought of the Hebrew definitions of these
words which are so powerful. Strengthen means to give a strong mind, so it
suggests having a transformed mind of wisdom, to help is to surround totally,
and to uphold is to follow closely behind. So I became really quiet. I stilled
myself before the Lord. I began to think of what I need from Him. I need strength.
He is my strength. I began to feel strengthened by this truth, that I will
overcome until the end and, I will walk through the valley of tears praising Him
until I see Him face to face. Then I began to see Him, just a little bit. I
felt the unable to put into words feeling and nearness of the Holy Spirit.
Then I began to hear Him say that I had very subtly looked
at other things through the years, which is why I could not see Him anymore. Anything,
anything, anything that gains access to my heart as “very important”, be it a
man, looks, ministry, or even some experience with God, anything but the
invisible, “naked”, NOW God who I come to as the Unseen Presence can occupy a
place in my heart and cloud my view of Him.
When I became afraid due to my ears ringing, I pursued the Lord in worship like never before. All of my newly acquired concerns about how I look to others completely fell by the wayside, and it was as if my beautiful bridegroom Jesus just walked right up to me. I wept as His powerful, yet tender, arms enveloped me without any concern at all for how foolish I looked to these complete strangers. Oh, home sweet home. I had longed to experience the Lord like that for some time now, and here he was so lovely and tender in the midst of my fire. People, total strangers, were all around me but I only had eyes for Jesus.
Why did it take such pain and fire to cause me to be so careless about my ego? I used to be like that all of the time, blind to how others viewed me, blind to what anyone thought about me in any way, shape or form. Others view and opinion of me was of absolutely no consequence whatsoever, to the point that when I began to hear my clients talk about such concerns, I was literally shocked! I could not phantom why it would matter what someone else thinks of you! What good does it do for you to have someone else think great things about you? I was genuinely shocked and recall thinking it all sounded very, very crazy. Crazy! Until I began to care too! But God… (A friend remarked that I had judged others so that was why I began to do it as well. I think that is true. We are judged as we judge.)
Suffering purifies our heart desires so that we desire one
thing. A person trapped in a fiery building is intently looking for that
fireman to come and rescue him; he isn’t trying to surf the internet for
another juicy story, or concerned about his sideburns. Then I felt the Lord
say, look, it’s very simple. "It’s common sense really. How can you hear me, see me, and know me if
you aren’t looking at me?" It is the same with anyone else. In order
to truly know and understand what another person is thinking or feeling in any
given moment, you must put aside what you are doing and focus deeply and
exclusively on that person.
“This is a picture of the one who has
a pure heart; he or she is focusing exclusively on Me, continuously. This is
why my servant, who you know as “Brother Lawrence” (I know him by another name)
practiced my presence and staying in my presence so continuously. He looked at
Me, all of the time. When he lost a focus on Me, I would draw him back by my
Spirit, and then he would return to his work, or the task at hand. His heart
was totally pure, for he loved nothing else as He loved Me, and this delights
My heart, and he often felt My delight.”
Nothing satisfies the heart like God,
for we were made to be one with Him! This is perfect joy. We are one with
whatever we value and deem significant to our happiness.
Guard your
heart, for from it flow the issues of life. The Spirit of burning comes to
purify the heart of His bride so that His word will bear much fruit in her
heart, then His Holy Spirit can rest on her and it can be the cloud by day, and
the fire by night. Isaiah 4: 6-9
God is restoring my vision. He is giving me eye salve. I can’t worry or deem anything important but following the Lamb. Also, the reason why I don’t witness to many prophets and teachers right now is that I don’t hear the voice of the bridegroom in them, or the voice of the bride longing for the groom. Run from these teachers/prophets. I read in my Bible commentary that Satan uses two things to tempt those who are faithful: he uses violence (bow or burn), and flattery! I noticed that the AC used flattery to get the Jews to follow him. That’s another teaching...
So, a key to staying fresh when we are not in those purifying fires is to become a bubbling
brook. The key to this was found in
Jennifer Nock’s word about being like the disciple John whose identify came,
not from how much he loved God, but how much God loved him! He was the
only one that did not fall away during the time of the crucifixion, which is
the time that we are now in! God keeps confirming and developing this word, that
“this is like that” which He spoke to me in 2018 or 2019, and now I am even seeing this in the book of Daniel. The
events surrounding Jesus first coming are the same as the events surrounding
his second coming. We are going to go through a time of crucifixion as the body of Christ, and then, a GLORIOUS resurrection. This is the hope and joy set before us. May we watch and pray to overcome in this crucial hour-for everything has been for this moment. Jesus modeled how to do it in the garden.
Oh my soul, learn from David! Fix your gaze on your Bridegroom. Remember Him. Remember all that He has done for you, not just by briefly recalling it and saying thanks, but by DEEPLY dwelling upon Him, His goodness, His works, because He did them to prove His love for you! Let praise come from your lips, but let it be sincere as you ponder His goodness, let the brook of His Holy Spirit bubble up. When I don’t have a song in my heart, I am not gazing on Him. Gaze upon Him until the brook begins to bubble.
Lord, you
have been so good to me, so kind, so sacrificial in your love for me while I
truly have turned aside to lies and turned to other loves without
realizing it. So when you came and rescued
me out of my dark, cold, lonely prison cell, I was exactly like the woman who
wept at Jesus feet. I mean, I wept to the point that I felt my heart would tear
in two, my body even. I saw your sacrificial love with unveiled eyes, and it rent me in two and totally healed my heart. Oh Lord, you loved me when I spurned you. You suffered
for me. My actions harmed your heart, and even your body and I still persisted
to nail you to that cross Jesus. So, at some point, does the woman forgiven
much dry her eyes and stop weeping in deep worship for all that her savior had done for her? No, she lives in that posture,
coming back to it again and again. This is
meditating, and meditation leads to the bubbling brook of worship. Teach me
Lord.
Comments