Behold, I’m standing at the door, knocking. If your heart is open to hear my voice and you open the door within, I will come in to you and feast with you, and you will feast with me.
Revelation 3:20
Communal Exchange
*I’m doing something a bit different this month and taking you “behind the page” for a peek inside my journal.
But first, a little backstory.
The weeks had been hard, and long, and exhausting. I was completely spent emotionally, mentally, creatively, and physically. But there was no time to slow down, no time to stop and rest.
Or so I told myself.
Everything was beginning to feel urgent and desperate and increasingly overwhelming. I don’t like to use the word “stressed.” I don’t want to be one who is always “stressed out,” because to me that means I’m not walking in faith, but in my own strength. Yet I can think of no other word to describe myself in that season.
Here is a peek inside the pages of my journal.
February 17th
Good morning, Father.
Good morning, Jesus.
Good morning, Holy Spirit.
Thank you for all the ways you’ve been working behind the scenes. Things have prayed for a long time are happening. But I wasn’t prepared for how uncomfortable and messy and at times painful it would be to have my prayers answered. Somehow, I thought it would be easy. You would just do the thing and it would be done.
Surprised by the difficulty of the process, it seems I laid down my peace.
Distracted by the messy of it all, I let angst, frustration and even anger rule my heart and my mind.
I’m not sleeping. I’ve had a migraine and neck pain for weeks now. I’m not able to think clearly and tears come easily.
I’m so tired, Father.
I just want to lay in your lap and rest. And weep.
Hideaway for a season.
Go someplace where intercessory worship fills the room, where people are pressing in and drawing near, where the only thing on the agenda is sitting at your feet and lingering.
After journaling what was on my heart, I had communion. And as I prayed, I saw a faint picture of my empty hands extending to Jesus to give Him all I had. Though it was nothing, it was all I could muster.
So, I told Him I wanted to give myself to Him in the very limited way that I knew how. It felt so insignificant, so insufficient, but I saw Him reach out to receive my offering.
I told him I wanted to learn to give Him more and more of myself until He had all of me.
Then I saw myself lifting my hands to Him again and again, frantically, desperately out of the same spirit I’d been living from these past several months.
I had the sense that He would happily take it all, but that it wasn’t necessary. He knew my heart was good, but He was sad that I didn’t feel satisfied with my offering, because He already was.
I sensed that He wanted to slow me so that my surrender was less of a purging and more of a communal exchange.
“Communal exchange.”
That phrase echoed. It captured me and resonated all through my spirit. That’s what my soul was hungry for. Transformation and healing that happen in the lingering, not in racing. In savoring the slow process of relationship rather than powering through an agenda.
Friend, He has a communal exchange for you too. I encourage you to make some time to linger with Him, offer your all to Him and let Him do His kind and gentle work in you.
As you engage with the Scripture Cultivations for this month, you’ll discover the many ways we commune with God. You’ll find words like: speak with, to talk over, to be in company with, to talk together.
You have lots of options! Start by printing off the Scripture Cultivations Plan for free.
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