What my heart has been yearning for is greater intimacy with God. This longing has become more pronouced over the past few months. But I’ve been wishy washy about pursuing deeper intimacy with the Father through prayer and worship because I’ve been ignoring this longing or allowing something else to fill this yearning. This has blinded me to the desperate state of my heart. Thankfully, I’ve spent the last few days at The International House of Prayer’s end of the year “onething” conference. God has met me here and has lavished His grace and love on me. He has in many ways released my heart to respond to Him in love again.

Over this past year or so, I’ve slowly sunk into rationalizing and intellectualizing how I’ve been responding to God. So, instead of just responding to the Father in love, I’ve been responding to Him in how I think I should. Now I know that the only way to approach God is to do it His way which means I need to be steeped in His Word and filled with His Spirit (John 4:23, 24). But, lately I’ve been thinking about it way too much. This has in many ways delayed, even stifled my responses to the Holy Spirit’s leading in my life. So, instead of exercising my heart in worship and love towards God, I’ve been exercising my mind. Now, I also understand that we are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength (Mark 12:30). But, if I truly want intimacy with God I need to be exercising my heart moreso than my mind. Long story made short: this has shrunk my heart.

How I’ve come to this revelation is that on day two of the conference my chest began to literally ache. It was in this moment that God reconnected me to my heart and allowed me to feel the condition of my love-sapped heart. When I don’t allow my heart to respond to the Father in love and adoration my heart becomes lovesick. Since that moment, Holy Spirit has been helping me to stop thinking about how I should respond to the Father and empowering and releasing me to just respond to Him. What’s happened is that I’ve been so concerned about pleasing the Father that I’ve forgotten that He will always delight in me (Psalm 149:4) and rejoice over me (Isaiah 62:5). I’ve forgotten that “I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine” (Song of Songs 6:3). I belong to God and must actively participate in this love relationship by allowing my heart to respond to the Father’s love.

The only love that satisfies and makes me whole is God’s love. This is such a simple truth, but one that wars within me because I’ve been settling for lesser loves, rather than the Father’s unconditional love. His love truly is better than life (Psalm 63:3). But I’ve gotten away from actively responding to the eternal love the Father has for me. Today, my heart is still a bit sore, but I know that the more I exercise my heart in response to God, the stronger my heart will become again. I’m thankful for God’s faithfulness and His intimate concern for me as His beloved. God has reignited my faith and renewed my strength. Bless you Jesus!