In The Deep Recesses of His Heart, Where I Long To Be...
I remember the first time in my spiritual life the connection between my mind/intellect and my heart/spirit was complete. I was reading SOS chapter 4, verse 9: "You have ravished my heart and given me courage, my sister, my bride; you have ravished my heart and given me courage with one look from your eyes, with one jewell of your necklace." Words don't serve justice to that feeling - I just sat in my basement and cried, letting Jesus pour His oil over me...
It seems like those moments come less and less frequently. Or, maybe my hope and expectation for their re-occurrence are so great that it just seems like it's been forever. At times it seems my spirit man is being stirred, and yet my mind cannot grasp the meaning...or if a connection has been made, it is still incomplete somehow - as if I've got some unconscious way of blocking it to prevent a complete circuit. It's as if I'm on the verge of something that would be too much, too deep, too powerful if it was fully released. God wants desperately to reveal Himself to my spirit, but maybe I am afraid or I don't feel like I can handle the fullness of it. I have all of these wires full of energy with nothing to connect them to or to plug them into...
Last night I was reading my fiction pick for the summer, "The Four-Chambered Heart," by Anais Nin, and this line kept me up all night: "The heart...is an organ...consisting of four chambers...A wall seperates the chambers on the left from those on the right and no direct communication is possible between them..." She alludes to the different compartments of our spirit here, the different places we store certain memories or parts of our being that cannot we do not allow to interact with others. "... a place in some obscure recess, where flows eternal love, in a realm so different from the one inhabited by Rango (current lover of the female character) that they would never meet or collide, in the vast cities of the interior."
There is a place in the vast cities of my interior that God wants to fertilize, that He wants to open up, but this place seems to keep seperate and obscure the secrets of the goodness of Jesus. They seem so far away or so hidden when I long for my spirit to feel/experience what my mind knows. Yet when my whole being begins to grasp the meaning of my relationship to Jesus, the reality of His person, His character, His love for humanity (that's ME!), it's so close and large, for some reason I clam up, I close that place up.
The best I can do at times is to imagine our God as the God of a different planet alone or different people (but not me), and I envision the most amazing love story of a God who loved this people so much that He left His place of power to become physically changed in the likeness of humanity, left His throne to become one of them, and live among the, and yet they rejected Him. But, He went ahead and took all of their "bad qualities" as His, He took the responsibility for everything they did wrong because He loved them so much that He wanted them to have beauty and purity and righteousness anyway. I picture this tender, compassionate God-Man who is also the fiercest warrior, the most just judge, and the wisest of anything wise - perfection that goes so much deeper than our skeletal description. Then, He comes and places me among those people whom He loves - I am one of them, and for a moment the chambers on the left and right of my heart communicate, for a time I clearly understand. My mind and spirit and body comprehend fully for a teeny tiny second, and then it's static. I can go back and try to remember, but it's not the same.
How I long to constantly live in that place, "... a place in some obscure recess, where flows eternal love in a realm so different...in the vast cities of the interior," in a place where love seems too simple a word to describe the fierce connection I feel with my God, where my whole being overflows with His beauty and goodness and where I truly know that He is indeed IN me, and He is beginning to show me the depths of His heart.
It seems like those moments come less and less frequently. Or, maybe my hope and expectation for their re-occurrence are so great that it just seems like it's been forever. At times it seems my spirit man is being stirred, and yet my mind cannot grasp the meaning...or if a connection has been made, it is still incomplete somehow - as if I've got some unconscious way of blocking it to prevent a complete circuit. It's as if I'm on the verge of something that would be too much, too deep, too powerful if it was fully released. God wants desperately to reveal Himself to my spirit, but maybe I am afraid or I don't feel like I can handle the fullness of it. I have all of these wires full of energy with nothing to connect them to or to plug them into...
Last night I was reading my fiction pick for the summer, "The Four-Chambered Heart," by Anais Nin, and this line kept me up all night: "The heart...is an organ...consisting of four chambers...A wall seperates the chambers on the left from those on the right and no direct communication is possible between them..." She alludes to the different compartments of our spirit here, the different places we store certain memories or parts of our being that cannot we do not allow to interact with others. "... a place in some obscure recess, where flows eternal love, in a realm so different from the one inhabited by Rango (current lover of the female character) that they would never meet or collide, in the vast cities of the interior."
There is a place in the vast cities of my interior that God wants to fertilize, that He wants to open up, but this place seems to keep seperate and obscure the secrets of the goodness of Jesus. They seem so far away or so hidden when I long for my spirit to feel/experience what my mind knows. Yet when my whole being begins to grasp the meaning of my relationship to Jesus, the reality of His person, His character, His love for humanity (that's ME!), it's so close and large, for some reason I clam up, I close that place up.
The best I can do at times is to imagine our God as the God of a different planet alone or different people (but not me), and I envision the most amazing love story of a God who loved this people so much that He left His place of power to become physically changed in the likeness of humanity, left His throne to become one of them, and live among the, and yet they rejected Him. But, He went ahead and took all of their "bad qualities" as His, He took the responsibility for everything they did wrong because He loved them so much that He wanted them to have beauty and purity and righteousness anyway. I picture this tender, compassionate God-Man who is also the fiercest warrior, the most just judge, and the wisest of anything wise - perfection that goes so much deeper than our skeletal description. Then, He comes and places me among those people whom He loves - I am one of them, and for a moment the chambers on the left and right of my heart communicate, for a time I clearly understand. My mind and spirit and body comprehend fully for a teeny tiny second, and then it's static. I can go back and try to remember, but it's not the same.
How I long to constantly live in that place, "... a place in some obscure recess, where flows eternal love in a realm so different...in the vast cities of the interior," in a place where love seems too simple a word to describe the fierce connection I feel with my God, where my whole being overflows with His beauty and goodness and where I truly know that He is indeed IN me, and He is beginning to show me the depths of His heart.
posted by KariBryant @ 2:35 PM
2 Comments:
At 11:25 AM,
Anonymous said…
Your post made me recall this Violet Burning lyric from the song "Undone:"
Wait...don’t hide
Shelter me in your side
There my strength derived
I am done
So is that the way the story goes?
In your arms I know
It’s all right
Let me know if you wan the complete lyrics. It's a great song about contending for God.
At 3:39 AM,
Anonymous said…
What an awesome description of the manner in which He draws us into that place of deeper relationship-the place where He penetrates our hearts, but leaves us hungry for more. As I read your postings, I am encouraged that to be in such a place is indeed, His gift of love-sickness, that keeps us going hard after Him. He teases us, doesn't He, giving us just enough of Himself to drive us crazy, causing us to throw off everything for one more moment with Him. Keep doing what you do, going hard in your place of hunger! Tell John that I would very much like the rest of the lyrics . . . I'll keep on fanning the flames of love here in Hockley.
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