When God knit us together in the womb, He designed each of us with certain dreams and callings. Each dream and calling was woven according to a) what would bring Him the most glory, and b) what would be for our good.  When He looked upon our unformed body, the brooding question was, “What will bring forth the most joyful love from this  heart to Myself?” The gifts He gave us are given not just to impact others for His name, but to open our own hearts in love to Him…. Like Eric Liddell of Chariots of Fire says, “When I run, I feel His pleasure!”

But it doesn’t always seem so simple because God likes to create set-ups for miracles to manifest His glory. This often means He speaks destiny (gives a prophetic word) into a place of barrenness or weakness.  I.e. “Impossible with man, but possible with God!”

The fulfillment of a prophetic word is supposed to say, “Look at God! How great and how kind He is!” But we usually fantasize about it saying, “Look at me! How great I am!” Therefore, a massive refining process usually follows a prophetic word. The vessel must be purified in order for that word to come to pass.

He gives a prophetic word to us because we will need it to hang on through the refining process. The prophetic word does not so much mean “You are so special to Me” but “You are called to pour your life out, and you are so weak, and I want to help you stay steady.”

Once we begin to die to the fleshly visions of our own grandeur, we see how utterly barren we are. We see we cannot even fulfill the word. We can hardly even run with the dream that pounds in our chest. It will take God to fulfill it but He does not seem at all in a hurry. We might wonder if we heard wrong. We might blame man for messing up God’s plan.

This can be a painful, desert place. We feel stuck. Here we are at a crossroads, with 3 main choices:

1. We strive to make it happen. Bitterness usually accompanies this path. Why can’t people just see our calling?
2. We die to the dream. It is so painful to keep believing while not seeing that we stop watering the seed He planted. We stop being faithful to cultivate the ground where it was planted. Depression awaits travelers on this road.

Or,

3. We cling to the dream, and we do what we can to cultivate it, but we surrender the how, when, where of it’s fulfillment. Peace awaits these pilgrims.

In the early days of IHOPKC, I carried about 5 yrs worth of prophetic words about singing and leading worship. But there was a time when I wasn’t really approved to lead worship. It wasn’t clearly spoken to me but I just knew… You know such things when you’ve led once and then no one asks you to lead again for a really long time – even when a worship leader doesn’t show; and you’re standing right there; but instead they’re making 10 phone calls for someone to come in and lead. I can laugh about it now. But in the midst of this, it was heart-wrenching, and I said to God, “All those words must have been wrong.” And He whispered back, “If you really believe in those words, will you take voice lessons? I would count that as faith in My word.”

And so I did. And through such simple, seemingly unrewarding actions, we cling to His promises.

When God clearly plants a dream in your heart, I do not believe it’s biblical to die to the dream itself. But didn’t God call Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on the altar? Yes, but God did not call Abraham to die to the word He spoke, but only to the when He would bring it about, how He would bring it about, where He would bring it about, etc. We know this was the nature of Abraham’s surrender because Heb. 11:17-18 says he so believed God’s word to him that he thought Isaac would be raised from the dead if he sacrificed him.

Finally, as Hebrews 11 also indicates, I believe that most of the big prophetic words we receive are actually MOSTLY about the Millennium.

Look briefly at the famous promise of Ps. 37:4: “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.”  Ps. 37 is all about “The Great Turn Around” when those who’ve been waiting inherit the earth.

In this context, He gives us a few pointers on how to carry our hearts in the waiting. Here are two of them.

1. “Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness” - Just do what’s right and be faithful in the little things.
2. “Delight yourself in the Lord” – Make Me the great Delight of your soul, the BEST PART of what you’re looking forward to.

In order to do these 2 things, we have to die to the visions of our own grandeur and get lost in the vision of His.  For one who does this, He says, “I will give you the desires of your heart.”  I can almost hear Him joyfully shouting, “There is coming a day when that promise I gave you which has become in you a burning desire will be fulfilled!”

Therefore, He says, “Just be faithful and holy and WAIT! I’ve got a lot more time than these 70 years to fulfill your dreams! I’ve got thousands of years! Don’t think you have to grasp and strive to fulfill what I spoke to you. Just be faithful in little things. Just be holy in the midst of the pressures. And just wait. Those who wait will inherit the earth.”

 And yet, part of biblical waiting is believing that He will break into THIS AGE with signs of the age to come. The author of Hebrews calls it “powers of the age to come.” In essence, every good gift points toward the day when the Father of Lights gets to shower all of His goodness upon a people who will not corrupt His gifts with self-ambition and sin.”  Healings and miracles are powers of the age to come.  A little bit of manifest anointing on our ministry is power of the Millennial kingdom when we will REALLY SEE results!

God wants us to live in a posture of expectancy for Him to break in NOW with “partial signs” of what He’ll do in fullness one day. If you want to read how God spoke about this through a squirrel, check out my former post, “How God Spoke Through a Squirrel.”

“I want to come where you live.”

This is, in essence, what the Lord said to sinful Zacchaeus (Luke 19:5).

He didn’t say, “I’ll meet you at the city square” (where any man can pretend his mess away), but “I want to come where you live.”

Jesus doesn’t want a coffee-shop relationship with us, where we put on our best front. He wants to come where we live. What are the thoughts that rage within us each day? What comes out of us when no one is looking? Do we treat our family members in a way we wouldn’t dare treat anyone else? Where do we actually live? He says, “I want to come there.”

 Why? So He can see what He already knows?  No, so the shame of our hiding is broken, so He can recreate our living space, and so we begin to abide in Him.

We don’t know what transpired in Jesus’ visit to Zacchaeus’ home. But we do know that by the end of it, Zacchaeus was eager to live differently.

Make no mistake, if we open to Him, He will (in all love) challenge our living condition, open the storage areas where we’ve packed our pain away, open the windows and let the light in. But we will be the gladder for it!

In the deception of our pride, we imagine that if we let Jesus into the place we are ashamed of—where we live—that we will sorely regret it, and so will He. But the “sinners” who fell broken at Jesus’ feet were never the ones who regretted talking with Jesus. It was only the people who wanted to keep living a lie who wished He would get out of their lives.

Oh, the joyful freedom that comes when we let Him rearrange us on the inside!

And as my whole life becomes a love-offering of obedience (no known resistance within me to His word), then I find that He not only comes where I live… He stays.  And I am so, so, so glad He does. He is the most joyful Man I have ever known.

“If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him” (John 14:23).

 “You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).

Don’t we all have areas of our hearts that we wish were different? We see our lack, struggle, even wretchedness. We don’t want to talk about it. We’d rather put forth our best at all times.

We construct a glittering image before our own eyes, before others, and before God. This is the false self: a façade, a fearful fabrication that denies and hides the “unlovable” in us, lest we be rejected for what is really inside of us.

But there is no intimacy for the false self. (It is like a self-fulfilling prophecy. We hide because we feel unlovable, but in hiding we become unlovable: the “unlovable” cannot be reached.) The Lord does not bond with a glittering image, but with a contrite spirit. We might sit en-masked before Him, and He will talk with us. But we feel “untouched,” as though the Deep of Him has not touched the deep of us. And indeed it has not. At least not there, where it is most needed.

Yet God is always pursuing our hearts. (He is not half so easily put off by our scared hearts as we might imagine.) At just the right time, God will address our true, needy self. This is conviction, and it is a gift, an invitation, that comes straight from Him.

If we respond to His gift by dropping our mask, exposing our need, this is confession. He is faithful to forgive us in this most vulnerable place. His mercy rushes down, like a waterfall, to the lowest places of our fractured souls! The deeper the sin, the deeper the gratitude we will feel as His love rushes in—that He would go so low to show us the Father.

And such encounter births true repentance in us: a genuine resolve to turn from the sin He cleansed us from, never to seek it again.

I have found the false self has layers of hiding. Coming out of its falsehood is a process.

 First, I have to acknowledge a hurt, or a wound. Someone wronged me, and I must drop the mask that I am impenetrable. The wrong done to me was not ok. The wound cannot be healed by God’s love, until the wrong is acknowledged by me (not necessarily admitted by the wrong-doer). That which is repressed or excused cannot be forgiven. The first step in forgiveness is acknowledging the wrong that was done. (When God forgives us, He first takes account of our wrong. Never does His forgiveness involve excusing us, or glossing over our sin, as though sin is ok.)

Then, I must admit my wrong response to the wrong that was done to me… I believed the lie. Or I hardened my heart in anger, building walls of self-protection instead of entrusting my soul to God. Or I lashed out in retaliation. I must drop the mask that says all this is justified. It is not ok. (The wrong done against me was not ok, but neither was my response.)

Many times there is a shameful root of sin which lies beneath the surface of our wrong-doing. We might confess the wrong actions, the visible fruit of our sin. But we leave the deeper problem undisturbed. It’s another layer of the false self. And it’s keeping us from deeper intimacy.

For example, I might confess that I have slandered in response to someone mistreating me. But I hide the fact that my heart is screaming, “I hate her!” I would rather not give voice to that wretchedness. Let it be enough that I repent of slander. That’s ugly enough, right?! Wrong! He does not want part of our hearts. He wants all of it.

Only when my sickness is exposed can it be healed. Only as I come out of hiding can I experience love.

To come out of shame and into His light, this is freedom! “How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered…in whose spirit is no deceit” (Ps. 32:1-2). Oh, the joy of living with an exposed, cleansed heart!

It takes so much energy to maintain a glittering image! And all that work for a false self that Christ never died for! He only came for the true self – the sick and needy self (i.e. all of us).

Let’s put it in practical terms: When you talk to Him, speak from your heart. (He desires truth in the inmost parts.) No more fakeness.

Or do we think we are more spiritual than Moses, Elijah, David, Peter, and all the saints who poured out their hearts to the Lord?

He wants to hear your voice—yes, even the most wretched cries within you that you have dared not utter to any other. You will not be left an orphan. He will take up residence there. He will turn that wilderness into a garden. And You will be undone with how deep and far His love goes.

In 2010 I wrote a song called, “All Is For Your Glory.”

In 2011, my worship-leader friend, Laura Hackett, gave it a lot of exposure through her traveling ministry and worship sets in the prayer room, so that people started asking me to record it. After finding out how much it costs to record (even one song!) I put the idea to rest, but I did pray a little prayer that God would provide the money if it was in His heart for me to record this song. To my surprise, the money suddenly came in.

I recorded it in December, and it has just been released on lisagottshall.bandcamp.com.

Some have asked how I wrote “All Is For Your Glory.”  The bridge, “Put me anywhere, just put Your glory in me…,” came to me as a chorus during a set in the prayer room (IHOPKC). We were singing through Ps. 84, and I was looking at v. 10- “I’d rather be a doorkeeper…”  Some weeks later as I was playing keyboard at home and singing the bridge over and over, the chorus came to me. I sang the chorus for months before I wrote the verses. What pushed me over the edge in writing this song was a riveting message by Stephen Venable (IHOPU instructor) on the supremacy of Christ. That message gave me great courage to open my heart to God’s loving desire to shake self-obsession out of me.

This song is personal to me because when I wrote it, I was in a season of surrendering something very special to me: singing. Because some life circumstances had changed—which had to do with being a mom—it looked like I was not going to be able to sing on an IHOP team for another 5-10 years. I figured by the time 5-10 years rolled around I would be so out of the loop that I would never get back on a team. Of course, I knew I’d keep singing at home, and I love the way He gives Himself to me at home, but there is a unique way that His word unfolds to my heart in the context of a team of prophetic singers and musicians that has been so precious to me.

At some point during this struggle, God sank an anchor into my heart called, “His glory, not mine,” and through tears I began praying, “If it brings You glory to wait to fulfill this calling You’ve given me until the age to come, then so be it. My life is for Your glory.”

That particular season ended with me being able to continue singing on a team, but the anchor God put in me during that time continues to position my heart in surrender to Him. For the rest of my days I want to go to war against self-ambition: My life is for His glory, not mine.

When John and I had our first child nearly 6 years ago, I went through an identity crisis. I was accustomed to 50 hours a week in the prayer room. Suddenly I could barely stay awake for 10 minutes of prayer in the hiddenness of my own home. For one year, the Lord allowed me to experience massive inner turmoil, because He saw the healing that would come at the end of it. Every day of that year I was torn between feeling such delight in mothering our child and a condemning sense that I was no longer wholehearted because I could not join in the corporate life of prayer like I used to. The accusation came from within—absolutely no person told me I was a failure. It surfaced out of wrong and wounded ideas about God. And it was energized by a religious spirit of torment.

The biggest breakthrough came when I repented of idolatry of the heart: Appearing wholehearted had become more important to me than actually being wholehearted. I was worshipping images of devotion rather than the Recipient of devotion.

Matthew 6 became the bread of life to me in that time because there Jesus defines wholeheartedness differently than we tend to:

Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward with your Father in heaven. Therefore when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do…that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward.  But when you do a charitable deed… [let it be] in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly (verses 1-4).

“Your Father who sees in secret…” God’s not measuring the appearance of righteousness, only the reality of it. He actually sees in secret… every movement of my heart for Him that is never seen or affirmed, every choice to serve others instead of serving myself, each prayer that comes from my heart whether it’s on a microphone or not… He sees in secret. Who am I in secret—when no one’s looking or applauding?

“Do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do…that they may have glory from men… They have their reward.” Sometimes when I find myself living for man’s praise rather than God’s, I say to myself something like this: Now that you’ve been applauded, do you feel better? Aren’t you glad you had 1 minute of feeling awesome! But it ends there. What’s unto man ends with man. But what’s unto God is never forgotten and rewarded forever. Had that deed been done unto God, it could have been reward which you experienced for all eternity, but rather you traded it for a minute of man’s praise! From now on, live for Your Father’s smile!

“[He] will Himself reward you openly…” Jesus promises the Father will reward those who live before Him in secret. And He promises to do it “openly”—in front of others—because the soul’s desire for justice and reward is a trace of God’s own image stamped upon us. The longing to be affirmed is legitimate. The question is simply: Who do I want affirmation from, God or man?  If man, then I may strive to attain it, but my reward ends there.

That day I repented from living before man’s eyes, something like a bronze ceiling broke open over my heart. I felt my love could fly into the heavens, right into the heart of Him for whom I was made. Now every moment mattered. Now no service was too small. Now each day became a love song I could sing in a thousand different ways. What a glorious way to live—to know we are gazed upon and cherished in secret. And to know that He is storing up reward that will never wear out!

“The Lord knows the days of the upright, and their inheritance shall be forever.” (Ps. 37:18)

“Oh, how great is Your goodness, which You have laid up for those who fear You…!” (Ps. 31:19)

Feeble footsteps forward are better than no footsteps at all. In the course of a year, moving forward one inch a day gets us a lot further than no movement. We often cower in the face of the mighty things in our walk with God, such as prayer, fasting, working through deep-rooted issues of the heart (fear, anger, etc.). We see these things as mountains or marathons—unattainable, insurmountable.

But God defines mighty differently than we do. He does not call “mighty” that which is easy for us to do in our own strength. What He calls mighty is the movement of our hearts to keep putting one foot forward again and again when it’s hard, seemingly unrewarding and weak.

God uses the “smallness” of our steps to produce humility in us rather than an arrogant, self-sufficient spirit.  God does not despise feeble footsteps; it is we, who wrongly measure our growth in comparison with others, who negate their worth.

There is great fortitude in feeble footsteps.

Some of the things that keep me from valuing and taking feeble footsteps are:

1.  Comparison. I disqualify the worth of my “baby step” by comparing it to the seemingly big step of another. I say, “Since my step is small, I might as well not take it at all.”

2.  Excuses and Blame-shifting. Such as: “It’s too hard to fast when you’re a mom. It’s  too hard to abstain from food when I’m serving it to my kids.” The truth: Where there’s a will, there’s a way. (What about starting with no sweets? This can go a long way when all you want is some chocolate to ease your frazzles from a full day!) The kind of excuse we tend to entertain the most is blame-shifting. For example: “I just can’t live with a joyful heart when I am regularly treated so rudely.”

Hmm… NOTE TO SELF: There is ultimately only one garden you’ve been commissioned to tend and keep: yours. You will not give account for your brother’s mistreatment of you. But you will give account for what you grow in your own garden in response.

3.  Waiting for the desire. “Since I don’t want to fast and pray out of legalism, I will wait until I have desire.” The problem is I stopped asking God to give me desire, to enlarge my heart, to draw me. Oops—big oops. (The glorious thing is that when He does put desire in me, I will have humility in the thing because I’ll know where I was before His help came.)

I’ve found that hunger begets hunger. When He gives hunger to take a feeble footstep forward, soon I am hungry to take another step and another—faster and further-reaching. Then suddenly, like a wee-one who has learned to walk, I realize I can run! …But not without taking feeble footsteps over and over, until the muscles have been trained in the motion!

Here are some synonyms for fortitude: Strength, Courage, Resilience, Guts, Staying power, Grit, Stamina, Determination, Endurance.

This is where feeble footsteps lead!

Every marathon runner was once a baby who learned not to despise the smallness of his/her steps. Each mountain climber was once a toddler who learned to get up after he/she fell down.

And even once we are grown… A marathon is only completed one step at a time. Not even the weakest step should be despised.

Oh, the fortitude of feeble footsteps! How can we expect to move forward without them?

It’s a very risky thing to suppress the truth when the word of God comes to you.

If I don’t receive His word to me today, I might not be able to hear Him speak so well tomorrow. Heart-hardening = hearing loss.

He says, “Today if you hear My voice, do not harden your hearts” (Heb. 3:7-13), because we do not have the guarantee that we will even be able to hear His voice in a year or two if we keep refusing Him. “Today,” explains the author of Hebrews, “lest any of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Heb. 3:13).

In C. S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew, the first book of the Chronicles of Narnia, Aslan (a lion depicting Jesus) explains to a boy that his uncle cannot hear the truth anymore; he has repressed it for too long. Aslan says something like this to the boy: “When I talk with you, you hear My words. But when I talk to him, he only hears an animal roaring.”

We were made to have vibrant hearts that leap when we hear His voice! Sin hinders our ability to hear. We imagine we can cling to a little bitterness, foster a bit of envy, enjoy some immorality…and then later pick where we left off with God. But we have no such guarantee! Our hearing is hampered as we resist conviction, and we might not be able to hear Him at all if we continue to willfully sin. No wonder Paul says, “He has now reconciled you…to present you before Him holy and blameless…if indeed you continue in the faith…steadfast” (Col. 1:22-23).

One of my favorite IHOP choruses goes like this:

“Your love is not a concept, it’s a Burning Heart that demands a response
So take me past the language, and put deep in me a desire for abandonment.”

Love demands a response. Heart-hardening = hearing loss. My ability to hear Him is affected by my response to Him.

What kind of response is He looking for? Simply a real and humble one. I think He says to us, “Let go of all that pretending nonsense. Be real with Me. It’s the real you I died for.”

When I was 14 years old I began falling into some sin. Shaken by my desire to continue in it, I confided in one of my sisters, who gave me powerful advice. It radically rescued me out of the trap of the evil one. She said, “You need to pray for a hatred of this sin.”

That night I began praying that God would give me a hatred of the sin, and a couple of days later, I found myself refusing that sin. I could not continue in it because God was changing my heart.

We do not have to fight the war against sin alone. If we will open to Jesus, and ask Him to give us a hatred for sin, He will help us. He will fight jealously for us and with us.

I don’t ever want to stop hearing Him. I don’t want to harden my wounded heart with bitterness. I want to just open my bleeding heart to Him and let Him speak into it… then do whatever He says.

I’m convinced everyone possesses a God-given longing for greatness. As believers, we might have thought this longing was from some dark place in our souls, or from the devil. Perhaps we have tried repeatedly to repent of it.  But when two disciples asked Jesus for a position of greatness in His Father’s kingdom, He didn’t rebuke them for their desire. He did shock them with how to fulfill it. “Whoever wishes to be great…must be the servant” (Mt. 20:26-28). Our longing for greatness is not wicked. Our self-exalting attempts to satisfy it are!

How do we get power on the inside to walk the path of greatness that Jesus sets before us? Where do we get the fuel to serve without resentment, without regard for recognition?

Here’s how: When we know our dearness to God and His promise to one day openly reward every choice for humility and servanthood in Him, we are empowered to go low and serve. Just before Jesus washed His disciples’ feet, He was pondering His greatness (Jn. 13:3). Reclining at a table, He was thinking about how He had power over all things; how one day all would bow before Him; how He would soon ascend to sit at the right hand of the Father. He remembered how all the angels stood in awe of Him in heaven! And as such thoughts filled His mind, He arose from the table and went to the lowest place. Without resentment He bowed down to wash the dirtiest part of the very ones who were about to abandon Him—even deny Him—in His darkest hour.

In Colossians 3:1-14, Paul reveals the same movement of the heart. I would paraphrase it something like this:

You’ve been raised and seated with Christ on the most powerful throne in the entire universe. Fill your thoughts with this. You’re going to be glorified with Christ when He appears. The Father will openly reward every hidden act of love. In the twinkling of an eye, your body will be changed to display the measure of glory you cultivated during your earthly life. So starve out the cravings of your old nature: sexual immorality, greed, and grasping after worldly things to satisfy your eternal longings. Completely turn your back upon anger, slander, and unclean speech. For (remember!) you have taken off your old self, and you have put on the new self, which is growing in glory as it grows in Christ. Therefore, as ones appointed for greatness, set apart for God and deeply loved by Him, clothe yourselves with tenderness and humility… and above all, put on love.

Paul told the Corinthians that they were acting like “mere men” by their envious fractions (1 Cor. 3:1-3). His implication is that if they knew their greatness, they wouldn’t have to squabble anymore over who belongs to whom. A thief wouldn’t need to steal anymore if he knew he were already rich with inheritance.

So, why do we grasp for men’s approval when the King of the Ages is lovingly watching us? Why do we care if our good deeds go unnoticed by people when we have a Father who sees in secret and will openly reward us in the next age? Oh, when I know it deep in my heart, I will gladly serve (in prayer and deed) those who might never know or thank me.

Now, God doesn’t tell us we have to feel kind and humble. He says to put on kindness and humility. And as we make the choice to cultivate His nature, He’ll meet us there; and He’ll change our emotions in time.

Greatness is forged by choices for love and righteousness, whether we feel virtuous in the moment or not.

In Matthew 5:19, Jesus said that the one who follows His teaching—namely the teaching He was giving in Sermon on the Mount—and teaches others to do the same will be great in the kingdom of heaven. When we are faithful to be a servant to the Word, regardless of the persecution or disapproval it brings from others, we are at once serving God and others. We have become the servant of all.

Father, I set my heart again today to put on Christ’s character. And if, in the moment, I don’t feel it, that’s ok. I’m going to put it on anyway. Thank You that You will transform my emotions in the process, and You will one day openly reward each choice for love and holiness.

There are lots of squirrels in our yard. Abby (age 5) and Andrew (age 3) regularly ask to hold them. One day I got so tired of explaining to them that squirrels always run away from us that one day I told Abby, “I’m sorry, but you will not be able to hold squirrels until Jesus comes back to be King over all the earth. Then you will get to be friends with all the wild animals!”

The next day a baby squirrel walked right up to Abby, as if begging to be held. She picked it up! She held it for a long time. Andrew did, too. They played with it for about 2 hours before we let it go back to its home.

What a laugh! I think God was winking at me and saying, “I can break in with powers of the age to come anytime I want to!”

He might have also been asking, “Will you live with a looking heart—eager for Me to testify of the coming Day?”

The Day of the Lord is coming. It is His day. Christ will come back to the earth to restore it by bringing every government and every facet of creation (including all the animals—see Isa. 11:5-9) under the leadership of His righteousness, humility, and justice. He will reign, in joyful partnership with His people, until everything is brought under His feet. Then He will do what no king has done before. He will take it all—every achievement, every government, all the money, all the honor—and give it to His Father (1 Cor. 15:22). “I did it all for love, Father! All along, I’ve been serving You, not Myself. I did it all for You! You are the portion of My inheritance and My cup!”

In His Day and the ages that follow the Lord will fulfill every promise He has made to us. He has so much goodness stored up for those who live before His eyes and wait for His recompense (Ps. 31:19). No eye has seen, no ear has heard, nor has it even entered into the heart of man all that He has prepared for those who love Him (1 Cor. 2:9). No good thing will He withhold for those who walked rightly before Him (Ps. 84:11); for the meek, those who wait, will inherit the earth and enjoy great peace; and God will fulfill the desires of their hearts (Ps. 37).

So many promises. We are waiting for SO MANY promises in the Word, not to mention the personal dreams that God has planted within our hearts!

Lord, are Your promises for now or then?

Jesus didn’t receive all His promises in this age. Why do I think I will? He’s still waiting… why wouldn’t I? He saw this age as mostly about walking in joyful servanthood—being confident that His Father sees and will reward one day. Shouldn’t I? Is a servant greater than His master?

Neither did the saints receive the fullness of what they were promised…yet (Heb. 11). They are still waiting… Why wouldn’t I?

Now some of the traffic in my soul begins to settle. The “road rage” is receding. I don’t have to grasp or strive to fulfill what God spoke to me. I just need to be faithful in the little things. I just need to be holy in the midst of the pressures. And to just wait…

Does this mean I look for a life of misery? Do we conclude that all God’s promises are for then, not now?

No, no! Abraham and the others of Hebrews 11 would tell us that part of faith-filled waiting is believing that He will break into this age with signs of the age to come. The author of Hebrews calls them “powers of the age to come.” Healings and miracles are powers of the age to come.  A little bit of manifest anointing on our ministry is power of the Millennial kingdom when we will see massive results when we sing/play/pray.

God wants us to live in a posture of expectancy for Him to break in NOW with “partial signs” of what He’ll do in fullness one day. He wants to testify of that Day to our hearts and to those who do not yet believe.

Yes, Lord, I will! I will believe again that You want to heal today, not just then. I will look for You to make Your name great in our eyes today, not just then.

And at the end of His Day (which I believe is the end of the Millennium), we will all agree with Christ that our Father is our exceedingly great reward! The reason we will love holding squirrels (or living out our dreams) so very much is because we will experience His pleasure as we do it! And forever, living out our dreams will be about fellowship with Him.

I grew up in a religious environment where deep things of the heart were not so easily expressed, even positive things like joy. Once, in the beginning days of IHOP-KC, I was telling the Lord, “I want to have joy! Give me Your joy!” Remembering that Mike Bickle had taught on the joy of Jesus out of Psalm 45:7, I turned to it:  “You love righteousness and hate wickedness; Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You With the oil of gladness more than Your companions.”

I remember the spot in the prayer room where I was standing that day. I stood there in shock. God, You mean to tell me that the reason Jesus has more joy than any other human on the earth is because He loves righteousness and hates wickedness?

Wouldn’t you think it would say, “You love righteousness and hates wickedness, therefore You are so angry and annoyed because there is no one who is righteous—no, not one!” But no! “Therefore,” the Scripture says, He has more joy than anyone!

I wondered, Could it be, Lord, that the more righteous I become the more joyful I become? And I imagine He broke into a smile when I asked this of Him and said, “Yes! Blessed are they whose way is blameless! Their hearts are not weighed down! They are free to love! Free to enjoy My goodness!”

When you read the Gospels’ accounts of Christ, do you see the happiest man that ever walked the earth?

Sometimes God acts in ways that we don’t understand. Maybe we don’t always see His kindness in His severity (because we don’t have all the information like He does). More times than I can count, while reading the Gospels I have exclaimed to the Lord, “What You said to that person seems downright rude! Help me see what You saw, that I might understand what You said!”

It is not accusation to dialogue with the Lord in this way; it is wrestling. Accusation insists I know something God does not. Wrestling insists God knows something I do not and reaches for renewing of the mind.

So as we see the way Christ interacted with people, we can—and should!—ask the Holy Spirit, “Show me what this scenario looked like considering this Man was the most gracious, merciful, joyful man that ever walked the earth?” As we hear His words we can ask, “What would have these words sounded like, considering He was the holiest and happiest man ever?”  (It is Christ’s promise to us—that the Counselor would take belongs to Him and disclose it to us!)

How different instruction sounds when it comes from a heart that’s full of joy; and correction, when it flows from a heart of compassion! His zeal to deal with sin is simply His passion to set His people free into the joy He created them for. He just wants to remove what hinders love.

I see myself very differently when I look through His eyes of joy. Only then can I interpret His discipline rightly! I see others differently, too—enabled to rejoice over my companions, even as He does! “As for the saints who are on the earth, they are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight” (Ps. 16:3). Usually when I am cranky with others it is because I think God is cranky with me. It is in beholding His glad heart that I become a person of gladness.

How this makes sense of what we know about Jesus and the people who loved and hated Him! Children love vibrant people. They don’t like ol’ cranks! Sinners like genuine and happy people, not stiff and mean folks. And ambitious religious leaders hate lively ones who put people before their program.

Could we stop accusing Him? Could we enter into the wrestling of faith, assuming He knows something we don’t—that if we knew all He knew we would never suspect Him of being too harsh again?

Let’s allow the Holy Spirit to make Ps. 45:7 the holy lens through which we interpret all His words and deeds.