i found who I AM looking for

Runaway Bride, Sitting On Baggage Beginning to Question God

I Peter 5:8 states, “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”

I have spoken of my love for and ability to relate to Jesus as the Lion of Judah, the One who roars in my defense as well as in ferocious love to convict me of sin.  I am today comforted by both roars!!  There is also a counterfeit lion roaming the earth in search of victims.  His roar torments, terrifies, and continually accuses.  I suspect were we to be able to see him he might look something like the image below, hungry and viscious.   In actuality he is emaciated and dull of tooth.  His eyes are vacant, his “mane” nonexistent – a few wisps here and there.   His pathetic life shriveled inside and out for failure to see God for who He is, turning instead on Him and on himself in one swift motion.   Now he roams raging insatiably rabid.  Think Gollum.  Gollum trusted no one and destroyed himself because of it.  Gollum had not faith (trust)!

As one desiring to walk by faith and not sight, I begin to understand the dire importance of seeking the mind and heart of God – the viewpoint of God in every situation.  Heart tending boils down to actively seeking the mind and heart (thoughts/feelings) of God on past, present, and future events/matters.  I am going to cite a rather graphic example from this past week that you might grasp the seriousness of trusting God with your heart – with the healing and maintenance your heart needs.

I noted a pattern this week in terms of what tends to provoke me to irritation disproportionately.  Assigning a label may help:  when I or someone else is apparently taken advantage of a cascade of responses (reactions) immediately ensues inside me.  Many not pretty!!  Call it what you will:  coping mechanisms, justifiable ire…  In truth, the triggered emotions are but clues to life deep underground.  Both lions roar in hopes of gaining access to these deep places by invitation – into wounds, origins, strongholds, One to heal, the other to wreck havoc.  Thanks be to God, greater is He that is in me/us (to heal, integrate, make whole, SOZO – save) than he that is in the world.

Over the past year, God has taken a plow to the compacted ground of my heart breaking up multiple layers below apparently rich soil. I have invited Him to go for the “tap roots” and to visit every corner, nook, and cranny of my heart this “spring”.  He gardens and spring cleans and I stand amazed at all He unearths, equipping me at the same time to enter more fully into my destiny as a “Harvester.”   My name means harvester – my God-given identity!!  He has called me to the ministry of intercession (harvesting), and shown me that to intercede in the Spirit, clutter in my heart and mind must be dealt with so as to facilitate hearing the Spirit.  For the mind of the Spirit knows what to pray for self and others.

So, this week when I sensed familiar irritation, I asked Father to tell me what this was really all about, what I believed (erroneously).  He took me back to an experience years ago.  Without elaborating I will tell you it involved date rape by an employer.  At that time, I was neither naïve nor innocent.  Drawn to superficial “trappings,” (a man older than myself, with a sports car, from a foreign country) I foolishly played with fire and got burned.  Complicating matters, I told no one for years, feeling I got exactly what I deserved and best learn from the experience and not be so STUPID in the future.  I continued as an employee in this workplace for a while, steeling my heart, swallowing back the hurt of devaluation – of being taken advantage of by an older man in a position of authority.  For I couldn’t really call it that since I got into his car and sin on both sides took me farther than I ever wanted to go!!

Father then encouraged me to ask questions “out loud” that He unearthed, questions still there in the wound bed.  "Father, did you look on with disgust, with heartbreaking disappointment at Your daughter?  Though I didn’t know You then, Father, I’ve wondered did you have to turn away?  Was your back to me?  Were you there, or far removed?"  On asking these questions, God gave me a “picture” of Him in that very room, hanging bloodied on the cross, gazing down upon victim and victimizer, loving both equally, crying out to the Father.  “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do!”   I saw blood and water running down in torrents, completely covering the two of us, filling the room in fact, cleansing, and obliterating the shame.  Then I heard Father say, “Oh yes, I was there.  You felt unprotected, ‘deserving of what you got.’  I wept.  You believed I (with hardened heart) let play out what you deserved for inviting disaster, flirting with danger, that surely I looked away sickened and appalled, but, in truth, I looked on, and entered into the agony, and with agape took it upon Myself and died.  Never a regret, in fact joy set before Me in redeeming.  In years since, when this has caused you to stumble, Terry – to doubt I look upon you at all times with undying love, I’ve known there would come a day when You would see I AM (not just doctrinally comprehend Me).  I knew you would see I AM omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent to save, and a CONSTANT in life, I AM whom you’ve always dreamed of!!  EMMANUEL.

Unknowingly, I’ve long partnered with the counterfeit lion, inviting him to twist my view of God and self.  This has led subtly, almost imperceptibly, to attempts at pleasing God and efforts at building a sense of worth (and a lot of other things) because of lies rooted deep in the wound bed mentioned.  Doctrine is great, correct theology a must, but one cannot afford to neglect the wound bed(s)!!  Emotions often point to those areas where God has not yet received an invitation to plant forever the truth of who He really is.  This leaves us wanting.

I've posted a song by U-2 on www.worshipintheshadow.blogspot.com that speaks of not finding what (WHO) we’re looking for.  Both the lyric and video capture the search of the hungry heart – the heart that does not yet really know God for who He is.  The sin of satan repeats in every sin in one form or another.  Because, to know Him (to see I AM) is to trust and love Him.  Doctrine, religion, Christian disciplines, fellowship with other believers… will not fill us.  Only He can satisfy – and He longs to do so.  He knocks and waits for us to open the door of our hearts so He can come in and dine with us, and in the process reveal who He is progressively to our utter delight, putting to silence forever the devil in the dining room!!  I encourage you to get in touch with your own heart in the presence of God, to dine with Him and during your conversations not fear to ask any question that comes to mind.  Then, just listen.  He has wondrous things to say, timely, impacting to the core – transforming forever His children by His love.

Jesus Puts To Silence the devil in the Dining Room

Flying Free Bride

Filled to Overflow in the Shadow,

Terry (Harvester!!)

What is Sozo?

Sozo is a ministry of seeing people freed from the influence and control of the enemy.  This is accomplished through a prayer session with a facilitator under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit uncovers past and present lies that the enemy has caused the individual to believe (at least subconsciously) as well as points of entry or access. Points of entry tend to be past sin committed, sins against the individual, or wounding the individual has experienced causing present consequences. When the Sozo facilitator under the guidance of the Holy Spirit removes the ground for this access, the lies lose their ability to influence and control lives. Freedom then from ongoing unhealthy strongholds and issues can be released in the individual's life.


Please also see post on Heart Tending to apply these principles to tending your own heart!!

This post is linked to Spiritual Sundays:  www.bloggerspirit.blogspot.com
See www.worshipintheshadow.blogspot.com for music video ("I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For") that accompanies this post.