How close can you get?

 

Those words hung in the air like an invitation but it was an invitation stirred up frustration in my heart.

 

But the more time that went by, I could feel fear in me increasing as the invitation continued and the longing of heaven called me out. 

 

 

 

I think my gifts got solidified before my identity. I can think of times I used my gifts to validate my value as a person, times where I felt the only reason people wanted to be my friend was because I was prophetic and times where I would use my gifts to hide, and to survive.

 

And I began to suddenly become awake to something; that I have been living out of this core value that fruitfulness leads to intimacy. And instead of making myself out to be a daughter, I have made myself into an object that gets put up, that gets used, but has no real value in just coming. 

 

Getting so caught up in gathering all of my crowns, all of that which I have done,  as if the more crowns I have, the closer I can get to Him. When all He is doing is roaring for me to come and He is just like, I don’t care about the crowns, I just want your heart. 

 

 

I feel like sometimes I have gotten so caught up in this outer workings of Holy Spirit and having this inner standard of needing to see people healed, saved, transformed every day. And if that isn’t happening, it begins to hold back my insides from Him. 

 

And it comes from this inner core value that how close we get to God is dictated by how fruitful we are. And that if we are not being fruitful, then somehow we don’t have the right to come and to get close.

 

 

Those words had stirred something up in me, because I knew that if I began to admit that I was still finding my identity in my gifts, then some walls were going to have to come down. That some hiding was going to stop. And that it was time for me to be known.

 

And yet I became haunted by the longing, by the invitation, and by the promise He was handing to me. That it wasn’t about saying no to what He has given me, it was about saying yes to intimacy. 

 

 

And that it is impossible to perform for someone that you have intimacy with. The knowing is too large, the nearness too tender to put on anything else, to pretend, to hide, to just survive.

 

Funny how He knows me so well, He sees right through my performing. But when I don’t believe that is true, when I don’t believe that He knows me, when I think all He cares about is what I bring and not who I am, then my heart doesn’t know intimacy, all it knows is performing. 

 

 

Somehow we have attached celebrity status to something that was made for every man and woman of God, and we have preached that what we can bring to the table is greater than what we bring as His kids. 

 

 

And it is like this longing I have had for intimacy, that has echoed in me like a loud song, is possible.

 

 

So I am throwing all these crowns to the side and I am tearing down the lie, that I am only wanted as I prophesy. And I take a dive off the mountain’s ledge into the ocean of His heart to swim deep and far and wide, taking His challenge seriously.

 

 

 

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Have you held this standard, even just for a moment? That He only wants you when you’re being spiritual, prophetic, gifted, strong? That heart to heart intimacy isn’t possible, maybe because your view of His holiness has kept you out or maybe your view of what He wants has kept you locked up.

 

Have you ever wondered if it would be possible for Him to still love you if you never saw anyone healed?

 

Do you wonder why you can get so close to Him in your head, but struggle to in your heart? 

 

Does this idea that if all your gifts and strengths were taken away, you’d still be just as valuable in His family, frustrate you? 

 

Me too, friend, me too. And part of that I think is we do not know who we really are and part of that is we do not know who He really is. 

 

And part of that is a beckoning, a calling out, an invitation.

 

To let go.

To give up.

To surrender.

To get rooted.

To lean in.

To hear.

To know.

 

To get as close as we can.

As close as we want.

As close as we’re willing.