I have already shared how Heidi coached us to present ourselves before God and invite him to break our hearts that He might enlarge them and give us His compassion. I also shared that God began that process in me in a surprising way. On Saturday, He told me that I was poor and naked and blind and that I needed to buy gold and white robes and salve for my eyes from Him. So I began asking Him for that on Saturday.
Sunday morning Rolland Baker spoke at our church service. I wish I could say I had a wonderful time there and a powerful experience with God. (I think many did have that type of encounter with God, but I was not one of them.) I was still stuck on crying out for God to increase my hunger and passion for Him and trying to process Rev 3:17-19 that God had spoken to me the morning before.
Rolland is a good speaker, and he brought up many points in his sermon. The one that I particularly remember was how He talked about "giving up and becoming completely dependent on God." He said that we often rely on our own resources to try and resolve or handle what comes our way. But we need to simply give up to God and say we can't handle it, God you handle it. He developed it in his teaching a great deal more than I am developing it here. [If you want to hear his teaching, you can buy the tape of the service from Elmhurst Baptist Church by sending them a check for $5.00 and requesting the tape of Rolland Baker from April 6, 2003. Their address is Elmhurst Baptist Church, 380 Elmhurst St, Hayward CA 94544.]
During his service, just before the altar call, he said "God wants to show you that while you think you are rich, you are really poor and naked and blind. He wants you to buy gold from Him. He is inviting you to cry out to God -- 'Lord whatever it takes to make me stop depending on myself and truly depend on You -- please do it in my life."
That lined up so much with what God had spoken to me from Rev 3:17-19 on Saturday morning. I went up to the altar call and began to cry out for God to make this change in me. It did not go like I expected. God did not meet me in some wonderful or powerful way. Instead, I began to see all of my faults. I felt so small and so dirty. I remember thinking to myself, "I don't have anything that God would possibly want. I don't have a single thing to offer Him." I remember thinking, "I feel so dirty and unworthy, I can't imagine why God would even want me." I began to look at all that I felt God had called me to do and to realize how totally insufficient I was for doing it. I began to feel that it had been presumption to even think that God wanted to use me -- because I had absolutely nothing to offer Him -- and when I took a true look at myself, I could not find anything good in there. I began to think that maybe I should give up ministry and get a secular job. I began to think maybe I should leave church leadership and drop very quietly into the background. I felt so dirty, so insufficient and so helpless before God. I could not imagine why I had ever felt called of God or why God would possibly want me. I had nothing to offer Him.
I could hear some of the people around me at the altar breaking into quiet laughter. I knew God was touching them in a very positive way. But not me. I just felt dirty and inadequate and insufficient and I could not find anything positive within me to offer to God. I did not like what I was seeing. I did not like it at all. I am usually filled with confidence and joy, so these feelings were sort of alien to me. I began to wonder if maybe this wasn't the hand of God on me. I began to wonder if maybe a spirit of rejection or condemnation had somehow landed on me and was tormenting me.
So I began to cry out to God to please deliver me from any demonic spirits that might have somehow gotten control of my thinking and emotions. Then I heard God say very clearly and distinctly, "Teresa, this is not a demon. This is My Spirit. You asked Me to break your heart so that I might enlarge it. Did you think that would be a painless or easy process?"
I just kneeled there feeling very awful and very small before God. I began to think that maybe He did not want me any more, that I'd been measured and found wanting. I began to wonder if maybe God was tossing me aside because of the gunk that was within me.
"Teresa, do you really think I am that unfaithful to My servants?"
Oh great, now in addition to everything else, I was offending God by slandering His character. How could He possibly use me? I felt so utterly awful. I began to pray that if God did not have any more plans and purpose for my life, that He would please take me home now. I did not want to live if I could not be living for Him and in Him. Yet the very idea of living 'for Him and in Him' seemed rather hopeless as I took a good look at myself and saw my inadequacies and my weaknesses. It was not a pleasant experience for me being before Him at the altar.
I began to throw myself onto His mercy. I felt very vulnerable and very inadequate and His mercy seemed like the safest place I could possibly be. I had thrown myself on His mercy in the past, and He had always met me with mercy when I did this. I had no idea how else to respond to what I was seeing in myself, so I once again threw myself on His mercy.
I heard a thought, "Teresa, you have thrown yourself on My mercy and My mercy you shall have." That began to comfort me, but then I began to wonder, 'was that really God's voice was that my own heart telling me what I hoped He would tell me. What if God did not have any mercy for me? What if I was just too dirty and insufficient for Him to want to bother with me anymore?
God did not answer me directly, but after a short while, His peace began to settle over me. I knelt there in His peace. Yes, I was dirty and inadequate, but somehow that realization could not torment me anymore. I was aware that some of the others around me were being touched in very strong and positive ways, and I desired that type of touch myself. But that was not what God was doing in me right now. So I simply accepted what He was doing and waited on Him. He continued to saturate me in His peace, but He did not speak to me directly.
I was at the altar close to two hours. Then it "felt like I was done." So I got up.
During the day, I got into a situation where I was trying hard to communicate something I'd felt passionate about -- but the people who I was talking to simply did not get it. I could tell, from their reactions, that I was either getting flustered or defensive. That seemed to underscore my own inadqeuacies to me. It seemed to pile yet another shortcoming on top of the inadequacies God had already shown me. I had this feeling that I just could not do anything right. Part of me wanted to quit or to "just give up."
Then God gave me a bit of a break for the intensity that He had been "dealing with me" with. I spent the evening with my husband and we had a very pleasant time together. So I temporarily put my experience of the day behind me, then I had a good night's sleep.
But I woke up in the wee hours of Monday morning, and my mind began to review what God had been showing me about myself. That sense of despair, helplessness and to some degree hopelessness came on me again. I began to ask God if I'd blown it -- did He still had a destiny and a calling for me? (When God confronts you with your inadequacies and shortcomings, it is a very difficult experience. It can make you feel like there is no way He could possibly ever want to use you again.)
After a while, God told me to get up and go read John 14 until He spoke to me from it. He did not take a long time to speak to me. Verse three jumped out at me. It said, "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." Jesus began to speak to me that He was not rejecting me or throwing me away, but He was preparing me so that He could move me to the next phase of His plans for me.
Then He told me to go read John 6:37-40. This was not a new passage to me. It was one He had spoken to me from years before, when I was in such a difficult trial that I was not sure if I would "make it". The passage says, "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and whoever comes to Me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do My will but to do the will of Him who sent Me. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that I shall lose none of all that He has given Me, but raise them up at the last day. For My Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."
Then God spoke to me and said, "Teresa, I am not discusted with you. I am not throwing you away or rejecting you. I have promised that I will keep you -- and I will indeed keep you. However, I am answering the prayer you prayed Friday night to break your heart that I might enlarge it. This is a difficult process for you, but I will get you through it."
That conversation helped me a lot. It is not fun when God shows a person their inadequacies and weaknesses -- when He rubs your face in the areas where you fall short. But how can I become totally dependent on Him until I let go of the deception that I am capable in my own merit? How can I expect Him to enlarge my heart and give me His compassion until I allow Him to first break me?
I suspect that this breaking process is far from over. I am not sure how long this will go on. (Maybe two months, since He spoke to me about two months on Friday night?) I hope it is not that long because it is not a fun process -- I don't like it. But I so desire to live in His presence and walk in His compassion that I am willing to go through it with Him. At the end of it, I hope I will be a different person than I am today -- that I will be more like Him and more dependent on Him in every area of my life and walk. I hope this process will enable me to walk in greater intimacy with Him and to do more of the things Jesus did when He walked on the earth.
Now that I have processed this a little bit, I am not sorry that I prayed those prayers that Heidi and Rolland coached us to pray -- "Lord break My heart so that you might enlarge it and fill me with Your compassion" and then "Lord, do whatever it takes to make me become fully dependent on You."
It is Monday afternoon now, and I have find that God has been meeting me throughout the day. I have periods where I find myself in sweet fellowship with Him and other times where He shows me inadequacies and stirs me up to desire to be more like Him. This type of transformation is not a fun process, but it is a good and a necessary process. Each of us, at some point or another, needs to go through it. Now is my turn....
[Previous Article] [Next Article]