I got you
One of the first worship nights in Madagascar our team gathered at the outdoor amphitheater by our compound. It’s a random, extremely large amphitheater behind some shrubs. All of us were in worship and I was sitting on the steps praying for the month and what incredible things God was going to do. In my mind all of a sudden I was sitting with Jesus, he was just sitting in front of me and I sitting with him, nothing else was around us. He was looking at me with delight in his eyes. He put out his hands, and he asked me to give him my heart. I immediately thought I’ve said before “I give you my heart, God.” I can remember plenty of times saying this in prayer, why is this time any different? Why do I have to do this again? I started thinking of what this actually means… what does it mean to give God my heart? Sitting with him, he wanted me to actually hand over my heart into his hands and leave it there. Not a piece of it, or half of it, but all of it.
I thought I could do it, then I started thinking of all the things I would have to trust God for. My heart is my life. Everything flows from it. What’s going on in my heart is extremely important to God. My actions, my desires, my dreams, my choices, my pain and my thoughts. God repeats all throughout scripture, but specifically with Jesus, he is screaming to stop living from your own ways and selfish intentions, to stop living shallow, stop following God with a shallow check mark list to make our flesh happy and appease the audience of life. If we aren’t following God because we love Him from the bottom of our hearts then we are doing it wrong. I think God knew that night I was having a hard time with this and like a gentlemen and graceful, patient, loving Savior he told me to take my time.
After a week with this situation in the back of my mind, our team, for one of our ministry days, went to the church we have been working at and had spent all day in prayer and worship for the village, the people, the nation, and our team. One of our team mates CJ sang songs on his guitar and one of the songs that put me right back down sitting with Jesus was the song “draw me close to you.” My eyes were closed and I felt like I was sitting back at my home church I grew up in listening to this song. The words hit me then and they still hit me now.
“Draw me close to you never let me go
I lay it all down again to hear you say that I’m your friend,
you are my desire no one else will do, nothing else could take your place
to feel the warmth of your embrace,
help me find a way to bring me back to you.
You’re all I want, you’re all I’ve ever needed, you’re all I want help me know you are here”.
As much as it takes a lot of trust in any relationship, to know that the one holding your heart is going to hold it and take care of it and come through with what he says he will do. I honestly love making my own plans, day dreaming my own future, but Gods plans are so much better than mine could ever be, and if I am ever tossed around by life I won’t be afraid to let go and drop my heart because it’s in the hands of God, not mine, He’s got me.
The next song sung was coincidentally another song we sung in church a lot growing up and these were the lyrics that God wanted me to know in that specific moment sitting with Him.
“I could search for all eternity long, and find there is none like You.”
I handed my heart over expecting to feel a heaviness because of all that it means. But instead, Jesus just smiled and said “I’ve had it this whole time,” and in exchange, God gave me his heart for mine. I couldn’t help but laugh at the whole thing, there I was back at church as a young girl to this moment now, God was just seeing how far I could trust Him in actually handing my heart over, not just in a prayer with words. I knew he had it, he just wanted to gracefully remind me: “I got you.”
I don’t know what’s going on in your heart right now, and honestly God is the only one that does. He cares for your well being, I know this story may or may not affect you all, but if only one, He loves you and wants to show you how much He loves you. Trust in the God of the universe and trust that if he can hold the universe he can hold your heart too.
