His Presence Like Water

What do you feel when you are waiting for someone, someone dear, and you catch sight of them coming toward you? You get a burst of emotion, a flood that washes away any other emotion that was, until that moment, holding your attention. That burst of emotion heralds a change, a new season, a transformation of your countenance and outlook. This is what it's like when God manifests His presence to me.

There are the in between times, the normal day to day of my relationship with Him, where His presence resides in my heart – the holy of holies; that place God portrayed through the ancient Israelites, when they built the tabernacle (dwelling place) for the Most High, according to the Heavenly blueprint He gave them. That was a shadow of His dwelling in heaven and a prophetic picture of God dwelling not just with, but within His children. How can Holy dwell with unholy, the dust of the earth? On the other side of mercy, grace and sacrifice. Love. Pure innocence came down and got dirty, to make us new, to make us innocent, to make us holy. His desire is to tabernacle within us, to never break the bond of intimate knowledge of His heart for us.

I love His presence. I have learned in the past few months, that although I may have much, it all turns to ashes without His presence in my life. I have learned that they who may have little in the world's eyes, have everything when they have His presence. God never fosakes His children, His Word tells us that, however, at times He does withdraw His manifest presence (the feeling of His presence) for a season and for a purpose. This is what happened to me. It was dry. It was a desert. Because I knew what it was like to live with His manifest presence, the absence of it was eye opening. Life without His manifest presence was drying me out, like a tree cut off from it's water source, slowly withering, until it became too much and I began to cry out to Him in sadness of heart, for I missed Him dearly and I told Him so.

The day I wept for His presence I moved like a living dead about my world. I managed to get to a friend's art show opening that evening and something strange and wonderful began to manifest. As I stepped into the art gallery I began to feel water rising around me, the supernatural water tap of God's manifest presence began to flow. The water rose around me and I couldn't speak, the waters of His manifest presence moved me around the room and into the next, where my eyes and heart fixed on a triptych titled, 'ONE'. As I inhaled, He filled me, and in a matter of seconds I knew Him like I had never known Him before. He took over my mind and flooded it with revelation that soaked into the dry ground of my heart. I saw Him. The tap of the water of His manifest presence was now fully on.

I found the artist and asked her about 'ONE', I asked her what she saw when she created it and what her interpretation was. She saw nothing and had no interpretation, the title was random – this is how she works – leaving it very personal to the viewer to make their own interpretation. She did tell me, however, that she prays before she paints, and that she anoints her hands with oil and blesses the work before she begins and while she paints she prays. It became very clear to me then, that God Himself painted this work, through submitted hands, for me. While I wandered my desert, He painted for me and planned this day, knowing the end from the beginning all along. What revelation, and what deep knowledge of Him and His mysterious ways, did this journey give me. He is faithful and He is love and He knows the end from the beginning. I can always trust Him.

Life is not easy. God did not say so either. He did say we'd have trials, and He said He would never leave or forsake us. This was true even when I could not feel Him. He knows the end from the beginning, and if we should ever question His lovingkindess let us remember His innocence and His sacrifice.

Lamentations 3:33

“For He does not willingly bring

affliction

or grief to the children of men.”

Losing Religion

I used to have a favourite quote, “If what you think does not reflect truth, then what you feel will not reflect reality.” I am happy to say that I have since lost my religion; thank God for that. I now know that what the heart feels is just as real as what your mind knows. I learned this as my programmed brain would speak the truth to my heart, but my heart did not care and continued feeling what it was feeling until God, Himself, came to touch it.

I am a well read Christian. I know my Bible. My mind devours, ponders and examines matters. My mind is a wonderful tool, but it cannot tell my heart what to feel. My mind is useful in preventing me from straying from the right path, my will is strong enough to enable me to soldier-on in the right direction, or to stand when I have done my all. In a way, my mind and will are there to carry my heart through the difficult seasons, but not to invalidate what it feels or to tell it what to feel, because what the heart feels is real to the heart. The mind and will must respect the heart and allow it to feel, to work things through with God in raw honesty, otherwise you will be like a house divided, which we know cannot stand forever.

This then reveals the main difference between mere religion and a healthy relationship with God (true Christianity). The difference is that for healthy relationship the heart must be on board, and for the heart to be on board, there must be an encounter with the Living God, in real time. The heart needs rescuing and wooing. God knows how to do both and with such grace it takes your breath away. When your heart really encounters God, it is never the same again. Your heart finds out it is loved, which enables it to truly love in return.

A heart that knows it is loved unconditionally allows the mind and will to carry it along the right path when it feels pain. When the heart knows it is loved unconditionally it can lead you to accomplish far beyond what a knowledgeable mind, on it's own, ever could. The heart is where life happens and that is what God is after; He is a Father, Friend, Husband. Just as we desire real and true relationship, so does He, after all, we are made in His image – not the other way around.

When I thought the truth in my mind should tell my heart what it should feel, it was accepted and respected in the “Christian club”, but I have found that the less I live in that duplicity, the more the world and the religious outcast come to smell the sweet fragrance of Jesus. Imagine that. The more I pay attention to my heart, the more I can see, hear, and feel His. I think this is an essential transformation. If we are ever going to walk as the Son of God did, we need to lose our religion.

Hannah; Lover Of God

1 Samuel 1

Elkanah said, “Do I not mean more to you than ten sons?” Yes, he did. Elkanah was Hannah's portion. They had a special relationship. Elkanah loved Hannah, he gave her double portions, he was troubled by Hannah's sadness. Children were a desire of her heart, but I believe that in itself was not the source of her sadness. Her desire caused yearning, but her sadness grew from the tormenting attacks of Elkanah's other bride, Peninah. The torment drove Hannah to tears and to prayer, interceding for the birth of her desire.

Was Hannah idolotrous? No. She promised to give her firstborn to the Lord.

Her prayer was not idolotrous, it was consecrated prayer, sanctified, given over to God. Therefore, I believe, her desire and resulting intercession were from the Lord. God caused good fruit to come from Hannah's circumstances (... God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose...”). She birthed a man in prayer and then in the natural - for God's purpose. She prayed for a son and vowed to give him to the Lord, as a Nazarite, set apart, consecrated, a worshipper of God for all his days. Hannah was a worshipper of God, so much so that she did not take ownership of her desire, the child she birthed. Integrity. Fear of the Lord.

After Hannah prayed and Eli the priest understood and declared agreement, her burden lifted. God remembered her during intimacy with her husband and she concieved and gave birth to the son she asked the Lord for. She birthed the answer to her prayer. God placed the seed for Samuel in her, but it required consecrated prayer to come to fruition. Samuel was God's idea. He gave Hannah the burden, but until she was willing to release Samuel back to the Lord He would not allow conception. Why did God not choose one of Peninah's children? They were also Elkanah's seed were they not? It was Hannah's seed God wanted. He closed her womb. Why? Because Samuel had to come through prayer and was to be set apart to the Lord. Hannah had to come to that place first. The only thing we know about Peninah is that she provoked a barren woman to tears. Perhaps Peninah was jealous of the double portions their husband was giving to Hannah. Perhaps Peninah thought she was better than Hannah because she was able to bear children, after all, the Lord had not closed her womb. Perhaps Peninah thought that Hannah must have sinned, or done something to deserve her barrenness, and then told Hannah so. Perhaps Peninah thought she did everything right and that was why she had all those children. Perhaps she was jealous, that even after she bore Elkanah children while Hannah had none, Hannah recieved the double portion from Elkanah, their husband... because, as it is written, he loved her and the Lord had closed her womb. Hannah, naturally speaking, produced nothing, yet Elkanah loved her and gave her a double portion. Peninah's heart was being exposed. Outwardly she had the upper hand on Hannah. Outwardly everything seemed stacked in Peninah's favour. Outwardly Peninah was to be envied. But Hannah was receiving the double portion. Why? Because of the nature of her relationship with Elkanah (think of relationship with God). He did mean more to her than ten sons. She loved Elkanah and he knew it. Hannah's journey was necessary to produce the type of fruit God wanted. God wanted Samuel. God's people needed Samuel.

I believe Hannah was not grieved because she did not have a child, she was grieved because of Peninah. This is proved by her willingness to give the child to the Lord for his entire life. So what did birthing Samuel, a child she vowed to give away, do for Hannah? It silenced her accuser. She could move on. Peninah would have much food for thought, much opportunity for introspection and perhaps even conviction. Perhaps Peninah would see the Lord's hand, repent of her judgemental accusations and bless Hannah, then perhaps peace and unity would return to their house We don't know what Peninah did with the outcome, the scriptures don't elaborate any further. What we do know, is that Hannah experienced and declared God's goodness (aka glory!) and when the purity of her heart was proved, God rewarded her with blessed fruitfulness.