I am not sure where to start.
There is so much.
Firstly, I would say... that over the last 2 1/2 years in this time of silence. God has been directing me - HERDING me. I knew this ... I have experienced some of the course corrections and leadings, I have clung to the visions, I have clung to truth. I have persevered and waited and been patient, other times it has been railing at God, angry, and wildly impatient. All along the way lamenting ... absorbed in the holy complaint. Asking God 'why?', and trying to work it all out in my mind. At different moments on this journey I felt His shepherd hook - directing me - pushing me one way or another with a direction to take or a nudge to get back on track. Even though there has been leading ... in the dailyness of it all it has not felt intimate at all. It has felt awful. Hard. Exhausting. Horrible. Numb. Quiet. The shepherd's hook - does not feel intimate. I am grateful for it ... but it is simply not the same.
What is Intimacy? The dictionary defines it this way: closeness, togetherness, affinity, rapport, attachment, familiarity, friendliness, friendship, amity, affection, warmth, confidence; and also: intimate relations between husband and wife - intercourse.
To me - it is face to face contact. Breath to breathe. Heart hearing heart. Connection. Song of Songs speaks about intimacy. It has different stages certainly, it moves and shifts, and Jesus asks us to change and grow - to mature. But it's that life on life - open - loving - togetherness. This to me is what we all should want with Jesus. Abiding, oneness, union with Christ.
I feel like I'm being told I'm not supposed to want this. Over and over again. By many people. Or at least that what I am asking for is the wrong thing ... or I'm just off the mark or something. Am I? Because this is quite upsetting if its true.
The journey from head to heart
We talk about this journey - as the longest - because we can know something is true - long before we can experience it as truth. Its like the mountains that are 75 miles off here at the top of the hill. I can see them - I can tell they are solid truth. But until I am up in them -- I will never know them. You can't know something without experiencing it. The journey from the head to the heart is long because to get there we have to wait on God for revelation - we have to be touched by Him to make it come alive in us. Isn't that true in all things? Worship follows this pattern - I can sing a song like I have been for the past 2 years - I can acknowledge the truth - I can even raise my hands acknowledging that truth but until God comes in with his presence and speaks those words of truth into my soul - it is only then that I awaken to the truth and worship in total abandon.
A seed can sit for years in a dry package but for it to come alive it needs water and sunlight, soil and nutrients. Thats what is missing from these 2 and 1/2 years. I have had no water. I cannot come alive without it. Is it wrong to seek it? I don't want to come alive for the sake of my life - tho I want that too - I want to come alive unto God -- to bring him pleasure and joy. I want to worship him wholly, to see Him freely, to love him.
I am not expecting this to come in a certain way ... the way doesn't matter to me - what I have known in the past is just a frame of reference - the calling of the garden. I have no prescription for what it looks like - I just want the face to face touch of intimacy to ignite my soul - to enliven it - so that I might worship as I am meant to. I get that this dry time of wilderness is purposeful. I want to honor my time here and embrace it. I know I have not fully done that. But even still life and water and the experience of God are what I am heading for. Isn't that why Jesus came - to have life to its fullest - to take his bride as His inheritance - free from slavery - to walk with Him in the garden.
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