I don’t know if you guys have ever heard of having a “secret place” with Jesus, but I hadn’t until arriving here. What that means is that in your mind you visualize him taking you somewhere and then you hang out and talk and worship him there! It’s very cool and I love the idea so as our team leaders started a visualization for us to find our secret place, I was so upset when I couldn’t find one. All I saw was darkness, void of anything. I was discouraged and frustrated as the weeks went on and I was still unable to find that space with Jesus. I was questing why Jesus would withhold a secret place with him from me? Why he didn’t want to bring me anywhere? Why I couldn’t visualize one? As I continued to question and time went on, I accepted that I would never have one. I made up my mind that this was ok, Jesus is still good.
So a few days after I had accepted the fact that I couldn’t get to a secret place with Jesus he completely blew my mind. Me and my team went down to the traning center ( kind of like an abandoned building, a 2 minute walk from the base ) one night and did worship and It was perfect. It was everything. We sang “raise a hallelujah” and I was worshipping like I always do. I was singing but also thinking of a million other things. Half- way through the song I started thinking of memories from home and getting sad and homesick. As I was starting to get sad, I decided no, I raise my hallelujah to Jesus higher than my homesickness, higher than than my sadness and I began to list out everything I was lifting my hallelujah higher than. Doubt, evilness, pride, spiritual warfare, distraction, my flesh, I raise my hallelujah higher. Disappointment, confusion, darkness, I raise my hallelujah higher. And I was doing this, I felt myself focus my mind back to Jesus. Away from myself and my mind, instead back onto him. I was still doing this as the next song came on and i sat down. As soon as I sat down I felt Jesus sit down right in front of me, both of us criss-cross applesauce, and he held both of my hands. We talked and hung out and I felt his presence so incredibly, I never want to forget that feeling. As we were sitting and talking I’m asking him all these questions and one of them was “why can’t I go to a secret place with you?” And he said “what do you see?” And I said blackness. And then out of nowhere he stands up and extends his arm to invite me up with him so I stand up and suddenly we are walking in a valley along a river surrounded by beautiful mountains on both sides. The grass was soft and golden in the valley. The water was refreshing living water. As I looked out into the valley it looked vast and unending so I asked Jesus where we were going. He just smiled and said “come and see.” And at this point I was crying so hard because the presence of Jesus is just so beautiful and good and I was overflowing with joy. As I asked him, “how did I get here?” And he said “you chose me.” And it all just made so much sense, during worship I finally choose him fully over me. I layed down everything and worshiped the king. As we are together, enjoying each other’s company and hanging out the song “Highlands ( song of assent )” by Hillsong UNITED comes on. And for a little back story, I heard this song for the first time about a week before this happened and the entire week I could not get it out of my head. The lyrics “your just not that hard to find” and “my song of assent” we’re stuck in my head all week. And as soon as the song came on it was so clear that our secret place was the song. We were inside the song! ( if you haven’t listened to the song this probably won’t make sense! It’s a good one, you should go listen to it!) I looked at Jesus in awe and he looked at me and we both just smiled so big. One of the lines of the song goes, “In the highlands and the heartache I would search and stop at nothing, your just not that hard to find.” And Jesus looked at me and said, “you’ve been climbing the mountains, on the other side of the valley, searching so hard and this whole time I’ve been right here. Waiting for you.” And it was insane, I was absolutely stunned. And after that I just walked with him holding hands, promising to myself that right here with him was my song of assent. That I choose him and he is all I need. So I love the symbolism of everything in the song and how it is in my secret place and how it incorporates into my life and what I’m learning and walking through right now. So I’ll explain some of the lyrics and how they are in my secret place! So the song says, “from the gravest of all valleys, come the pastures we call grace. A mighty river flowing upwards from a deep but empty grave.” So the valley that me and Jesus walk through is like two huge pastures of this golden grass on both sides of the river, and those represent the pastures of grace that have come from the hard seasons. We are walking through all the grace he has poured out over me which is cool because his grace is something he’s been teaching me a lot about. And the river flowing through the valley is the living water, it represents Jesus power and victory. He has already won. The grave is empty! The entirety of the song is about mountains which symbolize the mountains in my secret place. It’s all just so intentional how he brought everything together. One of my favorite lines from the song is “oh how fast would you come running, if just to shadow me through the night. Grace my steps through all my failure, and walk me out the other side.” The entire song and him bringing me to a secret place and making it so easy for me to see the symbolism there is just such a testament to how good he is. He’s so good, wether he brought me to a secret place or not. He’s still good. He’s so cool guys!!
