The older I get the more I value my deep experiences with God. I had one of those today. After having such a busy week celebrating Thanksgiving with my family I found my self anxious to get my personal time with God back. I found my way to my carpet this morning and just poured my heart out before the Lord. Wow, how He promises to meet us. The more we seek Him the more we do find Him.

I am not sure of how long I was in prayer when a spirit if worship came over me in a strong way. I found myself rolled over on my back with my arms out spread eagle. I was worshipping and singing in the Spirit when suddenly I saw myself literally hugging the Cross and screaming with all of my might. ”God I trust You”! I began to weep in the presence of the Lord because I began to feel strength in my soul once again. You see, I have always felt like I lived a life of faith while in ministry until I really HAD to live a life of faith. I began to praise God for every prayer He has answered and for the beautiful way that He has provided for us over the months and though I don’t always know how to face tomorrow, He will grant me the strength to face today and then I know I can trust Him with my tomorrow. We are in such a season of trial in our home but I have watched at how even our kids have seen God move on our behalf in miraculous ways knowing that this year has been so hard for them too and they aren’t sure where we’ll be tomorrow either. But I know that seeing the mighty hand of God at work in our lives is something that will always stay with them.

God is doing such a purging and cleansing in my heart right now and He has made sure to silence my life to get me to this point and I so praise Him for it. I’ve shared before about how much the Psalms have spoken to me these past few months and when I get to the end I just have to start over again because how much God is speaking to me through it all. Psalms 19:12-14 says, How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart? Cleanse me from these hidden faults. Keep me from deliberate sins! Don’t let them control me. Then I will be free of guilt and innocent of great sin. May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart be pleasing to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

As I go along this journey, I have made this my prayer. I believe at times we can’t sleep at night because we know that there are things lurking in our hearts that we haven’t quite resolved. So, we try every formula we can to remedy our insomnia when sometimes all that is needed is just falling out of bed onto our knees and just telling God the truth about us. We may think that we hide things real well from people but He stares right into our souls and stirs conviction until we come clean before Him. I admit that my biggest struggle has been people…feeling like I have never lived up to their expectations of me but I have also found that maybe they haven’t lived up to mine either. It doesn’t matter what we hide behind, God knows the real us and sometimes the real us can be real ugly. The more He teaches me where I wrong, the more I see a great need for His never ending grace in my life and I have found that He is the only one that can really love unconditionally. I have chosen to surrender and allow His Spirit to continue to work in me until I have no more strength for deliberate sin. Maybe then…I will be raptured or get a good nights sleep.

He really does love us. Surrender those areas that you know are deliberate sin. We all have hidden faults even though we don’t want to admit it. Let Him have his perfect work in you that you may be perfect and entire, lacking nothing. James 1:4 He is developing our character as painful as it is but we will come out as pure gold and ready for His presence in the end.