Two days ago, was a day of love. It was a day that my heart had been longing for, a day when I felt the manifest presence of Love once again. I have heard the Lord so clearly on the Race, and I am incredibly grateful for that! I could not have made it these last 6 months without hearing His voice, but something I have missed so much lately is feeling Him. Feeling His arms of love surround me, moving me to tears. Feeling the Spirit rise up in side of me to the point that I can’t do anything but sit or lay down and allow tears to roll down my face in awareness of the Holy One. To be honest, I have missed my church! I have missed Holy Spirit led worship and soaking in His presence, just for me. As a squad leader, I have fallen back into a terrible tendency of my’n, to act in a Martha capacity. Too often I am “working” during worship, trying to stir up those around me, seeking who I should be praying for, interceding for more of the Spirit for my squad or keeping tabs on what should happen next. Very rarely have I been able to be completely lost in the embrace of my God or blown away by the movement of His Spirit.
Needless to say, I have spent much of my time this month crying out for the manifest presence of the Spirit, desiring SO much more for my squad. I am tired of looking around during worship and being genuinely saddened when I see weariness, lack of joy, apathy and disinterest. I have known for awhile that the one thing that is going to move our squad, is an encounter with the living God, exactly what I have been craving for myself.
So I have been seeking Him, crying out in desperation many times to the point of tears. Come, Lord Jesus, come! This day was no different. I was sitting in a coffee shop and was watching Heidi Baker and the Catch the Fire conference from September. I was almost crying, watching and hearing how the Spirit was moving via YouTube and missing it so much. I had to go back to our hotel, we had a meeting in a half an hour.
I walked home with a higher desperation than I have had yet on the Race. “Father, I NEED to FEEL you again. Please Father, PLEASE come.” I walked back into my hotel room, and the Spirit hit me. Lizi was on her guitar, Steven was in our tiny room with tears streaming down His face and his arms raised high. I laid down on my bed and sobbed. I cried because I felt love closer than I have in a long, long time. I cried because sometimes, that is all you can do in the presence of the Holy One, and I was certainly in His presence. Lizi started crying, Steven was praying out loud through His tears, declaring the goodness of our Father’s love and our gratefulness for it. It was only 15 minutes or so, but it was the best 15 min I have had in a long time. We had to stop worshiping for our meeting. We pulled it together, wiping away the tears in order to speak some wisdom and love. Afterwards, the three of us sat and watched “Father of Lights”, an incredible documentary that I suggest to everyone. After that, all we wanted to do was worship again. We stayed in our room a bit longer, tears flowing freely again and then we moved onto the roof for another hour or so of worship. Love had crashed into my heart again. I felt warm and alive. I saw the hurts of the people around me as we walked, praying as we went along. My heart had been cold and hardened, and I hadn’t even realized. Now it felt warm and sensitive, alive and beating for love.
Later that night, after dinner, more love came down. After having an afternoon filled with worship and his presence warming up my heart, so to speak, I couldn’t help but talk to a couple of squad mates about it. I sat outside the hotel with a few people from my squad as we talked about spiritual gifts as well as my afternoon. At one point my friend Courtney declared that the night was young (10:30pm) and we should go do something, we decided on a treasure hunt. After a couple moments of prayer, my friend Grayson got a word to head to a Jazz club in the city. Andrew, Courtney, Grayson and I took of towards the Jazz club and what God did along the way was nothing short of a display of His love for His kids.
To be continued…
