My Heart’s Cry

I don’t want the safety of the harbor.  I want to swim out to the deepest depths!

I was at a prayer meeting on Monday night.  We had a specific focus for our prayers, so I was somewhat surprised when the facilitator turned to me and said, “And you, Alisa?  How can we pray for you?”

Although I was caught off-guard, nevertheless, I blurted out my prayer request—no, not a request!—my heart’s cry: “I want more of God!”

All eyes regarded me curiously, so I explained:

I feel like I’m on the beach, and I’ve waded in up to my ankles.  But I want to go farther and deeper.  I want to be completely immersed.  I remember reading about someone who swam so far out into the ocean that they lost sight of the shore.  I want to do that!  I want to lose myself in God!

Changing metaphors, I further explained:

In 2011 I received a prophecy in which God told me that He had set a table before me, and that on the table is everything I could ever want or need.  A few months later I was weeping before the Lord as I faced the very scary task of speaking to churches about Europe as a mission field.  I knew that I needed to do it because the burden was immense, but so was my lifelong fear of speaking in public.  So I was on my knees, weeping and begging God to be there with me as I speak to the churches.

When I calmed down, the Holy Spirit reminded me of the table in the prophecy.  I cried: “I don’t want a gift, I want You, God!”  And I wept all the more.

When I calmed down again, God gently spoke, saying: “My child, I am in every gift, and every gift is simply more of Me.”

That’s what I want: I want every gift!  I want more of God, every bit of Him that He will give me.  I want to lose myself in Him!  And I don’t want this Holy Dissatisfaction to ever end.  I want to stay Hungry for God, and for more of Him!

One of my friends tried to “talk me down off the ledge” by assuring me that it’s okay to live a normal life like everyone else, and that we all want to live in the supernatural.  But I didn’t want to be reassured.  I don’t want to live a “normal” life like everyone else around me—like people who don’t know Jesus.  We were called to be different and to live differently.  Finally the facilitator said that she understood, and she assigned herself as the one to pray for me.

Another one of my friends asked for prayer so that there would be no more misunderstandings about her calling—that she would understand her calling better, but also that her church would understand her calling.  I volunteered to pray for her, and what I prayed was that she would become more secure in her calling so that she didn’t need the stamp of approval from anyone else.

Honestly!  Sometimes other Christians are like crabs in a pot[1], pulling you back down so that you can never escape the “normal” into the supernatural realm of God Almighty.  I think the issue with her church is that they don’t want her to do anything that doesn’t fly under their banner.  She longs to do what God has called her to do, but this opposition (which she has called “misunderstanding”) has made her doubt her calling.  So I also prayed for her to have the holy boldness to obey God no matter what her church thinks about it.

So my heart cries out for more of God, and that this precious friend can experience more of Him as she obeys despite opposition—even the opposition of her pastor.  There is more, if you dare to reach for it.  God is good!

[1] A lone crab can easily climb up out of a pot and escape.  But a pot full—even overflowing—with crabs will not lose a single one.  Why?  Because the others will grab ahold and pull a potential escapee back into the pot.