I spent the weekend glued to the news channels watching events unfold in the Middle East. It was like a bad accident on the freeway and I just couldn’t stop myself from rubber-necking.  It all continues to break my heart; people dying without Jesus; people suffering and grieving, losing everything they own, going hungry and living in fear; terrorists refusing to give up their ways; bombing innocent people, spewing forth hate and encouraging more hate.

I know it all must break God’s heart.

Becky asked a question about my previous post on this war. She asked,

"So how do we live focused on Him…..so those that don’t know…aren’t completely undone??"

Such a good question! But I think you answered it, at least in part, within your question: Keep our focus on God. This is how I believe we keep ourselves from coming completely undone. Keeping others from coming undone is another matter…

After spending many days writing and re-writing this post, all I can truly offer you is the reason I still have hope, the way I still live focused on Jesus, and pray that somehow my post will make sense to you.

My relationship with Jesus is very, very intimate. He has burrowed his way into the depths of my heart and soul and set up camp there. He speaks to me every moment of the day; and yeah, I really do hear His voice. Call me crazy if you like. But God speaks to me, personally. Not just "through His Word", as in through the Bible, but truly in words and images He puts in my head and through strong gut feelings and "knowings" (the only way I know how to express the strong convictions I get at times) in my soul. But more than speaking and revealing, He moves me. Deep within, He excites me and inspires me.

We are connected at a level I have never known before. He satisfies me in a way nothing ever has before. And it just grows deeper every day.

From the time I was little I knew God talked to me. Around 11 or 12 my relationship with God really started developing, as I "discovered" the Bible as something written just for me, like love letters and how-tos and explanations on how things work written with me in mind and in a way I could understand. I had never understood the Bible so clearly before, it had never actually made sense before that time, now suddenly it did; and within weeks I was walking the fields behind my home every morning at dawn and talking to God about everything from the beauty of the sunrise to the speed of the jackrabbits running across the path in front of us to the deeper meanings of Galatians or Ephesians.

Since that time I very often sense the presence of God, literally feel Him sitting beside me, and hear His voice as He speaks to me, jokes with me, points things out to me; I’ve even had visions from Him and dreams too, mostly about current things but a couple of times it was a warning of future danger.

I used to think I was weird; that this kind of thing wasn’t normal for the average Christian. I thought I just inherited it from my mom, who from a very young age used to talk with God in her family’s apple orchards after school, even though she didn’t become a follower if Jesus until she was in her early 20s. Throughout her life she was a very strong prayer warrior. But most people I talked to didn’t have the kind of intimate conversations with God that my mom did and I do. I thought it was sad because I want everyone to know the God of crazy jokes and wild love that I do, but I learned to keep my mouth shut because of the ridicule the church can dole out to weirdos like me.

It wasn’t until I went to Mosaic LA and heard Erwin talk about hearing from God, talking with God, the same way I do that I finally realized, "hey wait. This is the way it’s supposed to be for followers of Jesus! I’m not so weird after all!"

Thirteen years later I am fully convinced beyond doubt that the only way to keep your focus on God, to live focused on Him, is to live in deep intimacy with Him. Deeper than I have even — which is hard for me to imagine, but I know it must exist.

I think this is what is missing in the life of the Church today. We talk about being "on mission" and loving each other and loving those who don’t know Jesus; of being relevant to the culture we live in, of submitting all our dreams to God and of dreaming big with and for God. And we strive and strive and strive to do these things, all on our own. And we feel somehow sinful when we finally fail and cry out to God, "I just can’t do it." When all the while He’s thinking, "of course you can’t! I never made you do to that alone. When are you going to ask me to help you, to do it for you and with you? When are you going to include me in your prayers, and listen to what I have to say, because I am talking you know, or at least I want to and would if I could get a word in edge-wise in your prayer time. Listen to Me! Fight with Me. Include Me!"

When I talk to most Christians outside of Mosaic I still get the sideways looks when I talk about what God said to me recently. Or I get looks of envy, where people tell me how they wish God spoke to them that way, but that He just doesn’t. I’ve always wished I had the courage say what I really think, which is, "bullshit. Yes He does. Or at least He wants to. He wants to talk with you that way. He wants you to hear His whispers and His jokes and teasing. He wants you to fight with Him, to wrestle with Him until dawn as Jacob did. He wants to have the same kind of relationship with you. He wants it. The only one holding Him back is you."

But I think I would get punched, hard, if I actually said that, don’t you?

But I have to tell ya, I sincerely believe, with all my heart, that lack intimacy with God is at the core of what ails most followers of Jesus. Just hearing God’s voice and conversing with Him isn’t enough. I speak from experience.

Even though I have heard His voice since I was very young, and conversed with Him ever since then, it wasn’t until the ache in my soul became unbearable eight years ago that I finally heard God’s whispering promise that intimacy with Him would breathe Life into every dry bone and dead fiber of my being. Many things led up to that moment, too many to talk of here, but I have never been the same since. I have been on a constant thrill-ride journey that continually strips away all my pretenses and all my vices so that I am free to wrap my arms fully around God, around my Bridegroom, and press into Him completely, and be more intimate with Him today than I was the day before.

‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel.  Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.’ " Ezek 37:12-14

Do you really talk to God, like you talk to your friends? Not the holy-church kind of talk — God bless the Middle East and bring peace to the world… — but really talk. "Man, this stinks! This is scary. I don’t know what to do with this. I’m afraid…. I love this! This is so beautiful. What do you think?"

Do you really listen to God, or rather, listen for God’s voice. Not the one that comes from the black ink on the pages of the Bible, though that one is just just as relevant and powerful and meaningful. But do you listen for that still small voice of Holy Spirit, quietly whispering, "I am with you. I love you. No one can snatch you out of My hand. You are Mine. My purposes will stand. I am He. I make known the beginning from the end. I call you friend…."

That is where intimacy begins. In the quiet still whispers of God. In His gentle loving responses to your expressions to Him of agony and fear and, yes, anger. In His call to argue your case with Him; in His willingness to wrestle with you until dawn and in your willingness to open the most fragile places of our hearts and lay them bare before Him.

The question is, will you enter into intimacy with Him? Will you step into that life?

I am convinced that only through this path of intimacy can true peace and hope be found. Only down this path do we learn how to really keep our focus on Him. And only through this intimacy do we really Live.

Does that make sense? Have I lost you along the way? Did I answer your question, Becky? Or just confuse you more…?