Getting Real

I began writing a blog this morning, and was getting frustrated as I felt it getting drier and drier. Finally, I felt God ask, “Are you ready to get real?”

I began thinking about what was really going on with me—and began to write.

The worship conference we are having this week at World Revival Church began Wednesday. I was taken by surprise that evening when God began dealing with me while a speaker shared about what being a child of God is supposed to look like. I began to cry—actually deep, heart-wrenching sobs as God began revealing feelings of grief, abandonment, and isolation.

Yet even as I cried, I could feel myself holding back; I wasn’t willing to let God work as deeply in me as he wanted to.

I remember the analogy I heard from a teacher at World Revival School of Ministry: when something is wrong with us physically, we can go to a surgeon who will cut us open, put his hands inside of us, cut things out, and sew up the broken pieces.

Yet, so often we back away in fear when God comes to do the same thing. Even though I knew the hurting had to come before the healing—the doctor has to cut you open before he can remove the cancer—I was so afraid of the pain that I shut it down.

No surprise, then, as the week went on, that I began feeling a distance from God. He had come close, and I had pushed him away. My heart, which had been so soft and open to him, had now begun to harden.

Ironically, the conference we are having is called “RESPOND.” Because of my wrong response, I was now feeling both the pain of the distance and the pain God had brought to the surface that I hadn’t allowed him to heal.

So today, as I’ve been writing and getting real, I’ve begun my turn back towards God. Overwhelmingly, I immediately felt his response back to me; and even though the pain is still there to deal with, I’m not so afraid anymore. It’s going to be a good week.