My life was not always like
this. Granted, I was raised in church, grew up loving it and even spent
years training for and participating in ministry before connecting with
the prayer movement. But even with all of those preparatory
experiences, it would have been hard to imagine the transformation that
our family went through a few years ago.
 I’m
finding more and more those who become people of prayer have stories
which resonate with one another. While the processes may vary in length
and detail, they generally share two key experiences.
For
the first 32 years of my life, had you told me I was missing something
in my walk with God, I would have stared at you quizzically. I
was lacking, yet entirely unaware of my own need. When the need for
intimacy with God began to stir within me, my heart became awakened.
It was like a decaf coffee drinker suddenly switching to regular. I was
alive on the inside.
A
few years ago, I had an assistant who brought a pot of coffee to a
meeting. Unable to decide between decaf or regular, she brought a pot
of half decaf, half regular. As I remember, no one drank any of it.
Why? Because decaf and regular coffee drinkers are looking for an
entirely different experience. Regular drinkers are looking for a tangible effect. Decaf drinkers just like the feel of a mug in their hands.
Me?
I drink regular, almost without exception. I abhor decaf. Decaf merely
appeals for our desire for a real cup of coffee without causing us any
sort of internal stirring.
Within
the present culture there is a very real effort to decaffeinate
Jesus...to give people the ambiance of an encounter with God without
actually having to encounter Him. They desire to appease their desire
for God and assuage their inner cry for a walk with the Holy without
succumbing to the affect it would certainly have on their heart. In
effect, Jesus in a brown thrift store mug, more as a hand warmer than
an actual drink. He becomes their prop to carry around, but never to
partake of.
An
encounter with Jesus should never be a decaffeinated experience, “And
they said to one another, ‘Did not our heart burn within us while He
talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?’”
(Luke 24:32).
Regular
Jesus will do something to your heart. You can’t be around Him without
it touching you to the core. You cannot drink from His cup and walk
away unaffected.
As
my family began to explore our new hunger for intimacy with God, we
felt a measure of what the disciples felt as they walked on that road,
our hearts burned within us. We felt newly alive. We knew we
couldn’t go back to the old way of thinking and feeling about Jesus and
yet that alone was not enough.
While
an awakened heart is the beginning of a journey deep into God, it is
not enough. In fact, it’s more like an aching than a fulfillment. The
only thing worse than not knowing there is more is knowing there is
more and not finding it.
In
the book of Acts, Saul is going from town to town and persecuting
Christians when Jesus appears to him. The brightness of Jesus’
countenance knocks Saul to the ground and while he lays there
incapacitated, Jesus speaks. Finally, Saul musters the strength to
reply: “Lord, what do you want me to do?”
Saul
instantly goes from Chief Persecuting Officer to a man on a trajectory
to become an Apostle and radically change the way billions of people
would live through centuries. One would expect this sort of encounter
would have been witnessed by a throng of people to confirm it. Instead, we read, “And the men who journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice but seeing no one” (Acts 9:7).
I
wonder what was said a half mile or mile down the road, as Saul’s men
led him, now blind, to the place the Voice had told him to go.
”Did you hear anything?”
“I heard nothing….”
“Me either…methinks the Captain has gone mad.”
He had not gone mad, he’d just had a very personal encounter with Jesus that no one else had experienced. It led him to a personal transformation which changed his immediate behavior and eternal destiny.
I
don’t know of anyone in my circle of friends who has had this dramatic
of an encounter, but those pursuing a life of prayer have experienced a
distinct call to it. It’s caused them to sell businesses, leave
careers, even move across the country to join likeminded
people. Why? Because what began as an awakened heart grew into a call
on their lives. Their decisions may not have been understood by those close to them, but they were not dissuaded.
Joining
the prayer movement was not something I could have anticipated. As the
Ray Kinsella character said in the movie Field of Dreams, “…until
I heard the voice, I'd never done a crazy thing in my whole life.” All
I knew was I had been invited and in saying yes to the invitation,
everything I had been doing seemed unbearably safe. I literally feared
what the long-term affect of playing it safe would be on my young
children. I had to go where this thing was taking me.
You may find yourself identifying with these two points, a heart awakening and a personal invitation to intimacy with God.
If so, let me encourage you to yield to the call. It may mean staying
right where you are and going deep in God, or it might mean a season as
an intern at IHOP, learning how to walk out your new awakening. Either
way, ask God for a clear word and walk away from anything which falls
short of His plan for you.
Likewise,
there may be people reading this who don’t identify. You feel like
you’ve swallowed a decaf Jesus. You’ve heard the teaching and you’ve
pondered the lessons, but your heart is yet to burn within you. I’d encourage you to invite God to fill you in a new way, with the gift of hunger.
As
westerners who traditionally spend a great deal of time and money
avoiding need in our lives, we underestimate the value of
dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction is actually the beginning of healthy
Christian living. Ask God for the gift of dissatisfaction and then
follow your hunger with prayer and fasting. You’ll be amazed where it
takes you
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