Tag Archives: the voice of God

i remember – my soul longs for You

See, there is this yearning on its way. It comes in answer to prayer. A yearning for the more, the deeper, the overwhelmed by God. To long for Him. The wake me up in the middle of the night to speak with me kind of thing. The get out of my way I’m going to meet with Jesus thing that I can’t explain any better than that. That’s my yearning and it’s here, like waves hitting the shores — strong one minute and then it recedes, only to return bigger and stronger.

I asked for this yearning and I feel the urgency to grab it and live in it. Put it on like a robe and allow myself to simply long for more of Jesus everywhere I am.

In the morning, I want to have to extricate myself from His presence so I can go to work. I want to feel the pull and I want it to be strong. I want it to be hard to leave the Word of God, to leave our conversation, you know? 

At work, I want this longing to be the background in every conversation, every task. I’m sick to death of longing for lunchtime, or 5:00, or Friday or some thing. Silly longings that have no meaning except to a flesh soothed by silly things. 

I want to choose Him over my television, over social media, over myself, every single time. I want to wake in the night and seek His voice and have whispered talks with Him until I fall back to sleep.

I want to prefer time with Jesus more than anything else, and right now – I do not. Right now I enjoy being with Him, but my soul has not been yearning for Him. Longing to be with Him. But it’s coming. The waves are hitting the shore of my soul like I knew they would. Because I asked. I asked Him to call me back again to the longing place. 

I have been in His Word in preparation for leading others – in bible studies, in Lifegroup (small group), or in public speaking. But it’s been too long since I’ve come to His Word just to be with Him. Too much to do, for underlining and scribbling notes in the margins. No time for lingering, for the slow turn of pages waiting for Him to speak. Because He takes His time you know. He’s in no hurry. He’s not like me.

But this morning I came, in no rush. Nowhere else to be. I came and I opened a battered, torn, book where I have always found Him waiting for me. In familiar pages I breathed in and caught His breath and I remembered.

I remembered that I love Him and I miss Him and that He feels the same way about me.

I remembered that there is nothing on earth that comes close to soothing my soul like time spent with Him here, in slow turning pages worn from seasons of longing. 

I remembered that I learned the sound of His voice here in this book. I learned who He is here and who I am and that I haven’t learned it all.

I remembered that this is where I sit at the feet of Jesus. It’s where I learned to pray and where I learned to worship. I remembered that this is where I found truth and learned my worth.

I remembered that the nearness of His presence found in these worn pages has no rival. 

And I remembered that being with Him makes me long to be with Him.

I pray you remember that your soul longs for Him.

i will not die in this place

desert-campingI had a vague sense of what God was calling me to this year, but it was just that. Vague. Wispy. Fragile.

But I knew He was calling. I could hear His voice. Ever have that? You know He’s speaking, but you can’t make out the words? Like the wind picks them up and carries them off before they can reach your heart.

Until you draw closer. Until you get up from your wilderness spot where you’ve set up camp and head toward the sound of the voice that makes the hunger in you start to gnaw.

Until you get close enough to realize He’s saying the last thing you expected to hear.

“So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.” 

Third chapter of Hebrews hit me like a brick in the back of the head. Those people who seem so far removed from me wandered in their wilderness until they died because they did not believe God.

I had stopped believing (cue Journey song. In your head. All day. You’re welcome).

And from the book of Hebrews His voice rose to meet my weary hunger. “Wilderness wandering is not your destiny. It is not what I had for them, and it is not what I have for you. 

Do you believe Me?”

20140105_072642So I went to the place where my belief was safely tucked away. Fifteen or so journals filled with the cries of a heart that believed God.

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I read and remembered and cried because I don’t know what happened.

I read and remembered that my life is proof that God hears and God moves.

I read and remembered that all things are possible with God.

I read and remembered what I believe.

And I don’t know if I came out of the wilderness, or if He tired of calling me and came in after me. 

All I know is His voice is clear, His call for me this year is certain, no longer vague and wispy, lost in the hot wind of my wilderness.

This year, I will pray again with boldness and passion. I will ask Him for impossibles because I believe all things become possible in His hand.

I will pray for those I love who do not walk with Him to have knock down encounters with the living God. Encounters that leave no room for doubt that Jesus Christ is both Lord and Savior and that the danger to their soul does not pass with magic words but with knees that bow and necks that bend.

I will pray for marriages to be restored and not just restored but made brand new.

I will pray that depression and despair pack their bags and depart from the Beloved and that the door hits them firm on their way out.

I will pray for the broken to be healed, the chained to be set free and the lukewarm to be set on fire.

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I will pray for prodigals to come to their senses and come running home to a Father that is waiting to kiss their neck.

woman warrior

I will pray for power from on high to come upon the Bride of Christ and make her into the formidable foe to darkness that she is meant to be.

I will pray because I believe God moves and the spiritual realm shifts to attention when the people of God cry out from the faith He has given them.

I will not pray from a place of desperation or resignation. I will not utter words from my lips while my heart remains silent in unbelief.

I will not pray for what is possible for man, but for what is only possible for an all powerful God who sits on the throne of heaven with His feet on the footstool of earth.

This year, I will pray because I believe God.

This year, I will not die in the wilderness.