A Drop from the Head to the Heart...

So I have put off writing for a number of reasons. One, I am learning and experiencing so much, it’s difficult to collect and condense my thoughts, emotions and revelations in to a blog-friendly piece of writing. There is a long trail of events, struggles and breakthroughs and I would love to share them all…but you have to start somewhere right? I’m going to start with Psalm 37:23...

“The Lord directs the steps of the Godly. He DELIGHTS in every detail of their lives.”

Now a common theme since I've arrived at Bethel seems to be that God more than just loves his children, he delights in them. It was easy for me to believe God loved me, but delighted in me? I had a hard time with that. There are people you love, but it's almost because you have to. You don’t necessarily delight in everybody you love. I think I always saw God as loving me because he had to, even though I didn't really deserve it. I never imagined God delighted in me. I was really struggling with fear and anxiety the first two weeks I was here. I ended up having a conversation with the people I live with and one of them said, “ I feel like this is going to be a year of really discovering your core beliefs about God; how you see him and how you believe he sees you.” I realized how crucial what you believe about God and the way that he sees you is, because everything you do flows out of that belief. Do you believe God is actually good all the time? Do you believe he loves you desperately? Do you believe he actually delights in you? I almost felt crushed beneath the burden of my own logic and my false beliefs about God. I went to my bedroom after that conversation and decided to write down verses in the bible that talk about God delighting in me. I thought, "This is so cheesy, but something's gotta change."

Psalm 37:23
“The Lord directs the steps of the Godly. He DELIGHTS in every detail of their lives.”

Psalm 149:4
“For the Lord DELIGHTS in his people; he crowns the humble with victory.”

Zephaniah 3:17
“The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great DELIGHT in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”

I went to school the next day and the teaching was on prophesy. At the end of the teaching, Kris (the one teaching) had us all stand up and partner off with someone we didn't know, hold hands, pray, and ask God for a prophetic word for that person. So this guy is holding my hands and we're praying and then he starts laughing and says, "Okay, I got a clear word from God! He really wants you to know that he delights in you! That this is just a season where he wants to hold you in his arms and show you what that means." I could tell from the intensity in this kids eyes he had just heard the voice of God so clearly it actually shocked him. THEN we break into revival groups and we do this exercise where we each write our name on a piece of card board and then they collect all the pieces and pass them out again, name down, so you cant see whose it is. Our revival group pastor tells us to ask God for a prophetic word and write it on the card board and then pass it to our right, and continue doing that until they have made it all the way around the room. I was thinking, "This is stupid." But I really asked God to give me words and I wrote whatever I heard on every piece of cardboard. For one I heard "Delight" so I wrote it down. Then they collected them and passed them back to us. When I got mine back, I flip it over and saw the word DELIGHT, in my own hand writing...I had written it on my own piece not knowing it was mine! At this point I can actually sense a shift happening on the inside. For the next two days I felt so overwhelmed with a feeling I can only compare to falling in love. It changes everything; how you view yourself, how you view others, how you view your problems and the future. I went to worship last night and I couldn't stop smiling. I was thinking "Wow, you actually do delight in me..." As I am thinking this, they start playing Cory Asbury's song "Where I belong" The bridge of that song just repeats, "Delight in me, delight in me, delight in me." I felt like my heart was going to explode, I had never experienced anything like it before in my life. My heart came into a new understanding of what my logic was trying to argue. Nobody could have convinced me with scripture or theology, I needed the experience. Experience unlocks mystery, it allows us to perceive things with our whole beings rather than just our minds. It doesn't take believing something to experience it. It simply takes wanting to believe something, and the willingness to say "Okay God, show me...I need to know this for myself." So ask God how he sees you, you will be surprised at his willingness to show you. You are in for the experience of a lifetime!