What does it mean when Christians encourage one another to to "go into the deep" with God? We tell one another, "launch out into the deep," and remind each other that scripture proclaims that, "deep calls out too deep." The question is, do we really understand what all these terms mean?
I'll tell you what they mean to me. It means going deeper than just surface-level faith. It means that church on Sunday as a mere ritual is not high enough. It means looking for ways to interact with God in a way that is less cerebral and more sensory. In other words, I want to experience God with my five senses, not just treat my faith as though it is a subject to be studied, learned and memorized. I want to hear Him, see Him, taste Him, touch Him and smell Him. God is a real being with real things to say and I want to know Him more and more every day.
The thing is, this kind of faith is not something that happens by accident. It takes determination, discipline, persistence and a certain level of expectation to move away from where we are and move to a deeper place.
The exciting thing is that there is no limit to the vastness of God so this pursuit of the deeper waters of spiritual encounter will never get dull or old. There is newness and wonder at every level.
God wants to meet us in the deep places. That is why we can experience a certain level of glory for a season and then feel as though the waters have dried up where we are. This doesn't mean that God has abandoned us, forgotten us or removed Himself from our lives. He will never do that. What it means is that when He moves, He expects us to move with Him and be led of Him. He's leading us to deeper waters, so when we feel less of Him we must take that as our cue that God is taking us to a new place in Him.
God wants us to pursue Him. We don't graduate to deeper waters simply by being "saved" or "born-again" for a certain amount of time. Seniority in the kingdom is based on desire, discipline and tenacity, not time. We must be ready to follow after Him.
Also, if we are truly looking for a more supernatural connection with God, then once we are in the water we must determine that we won't simply sit on the surface of the water with our water wings on expecting the breeze to coax us gently down the stream. Unless we are proactive and surrounded by God we could end up way off-course or worse in the midst of a storm we cannot survive alone.
To get to deeper waters we must do something in order to position ourselves to move with the Spirit of God. He is not going to force us to move from where we are. We are the ones who get to focus our attention on him so we can be aware of Him, remain connected to Him and move with Him as He leads us.
Here are 3 Keys to walking in deeper waters with God:
1. Ask God to reveal His heart and His desires to you. Then listen for a response. So often we have a long list of things to say to God but we rarely ask Him what He wants to talk about or what He desires. When we ask Him to open His heart to us, we shall receive a response. God loves to share Himself with His children.
2. Obey what He tells you to do and/or believe that it is Him who is speaking. Some of us don't trust ourselves to hear correctly from God. So when we think we've heard from Him we talk ourselves out of taking any action due to fear. Our fear is misplaced though. We ought to be more afraid of disappointing and disobeying God than we are of what others will think if we missed the mark. Obedience moves the heart of God and love compels us to obey.
3. Take the time to get lost in His presence. Hang out with God and enjoy His company. Listen to what He has to say and write it in a journal. Pay attention to that which He is showing or revealing to you. Resist the urge to dismiss the things that come up in your imagination or in your thoughts as insignificant or small. God can and does speak to you and reveal things to you. One word from God can change your life and easily move you from glory to glory. Believe and expect God to reveal deeper realms of who He is to you.
You will have whatever you expect. God has destiny assignments for each of us. It is up to us to to grow in revelation and follow Him daily into deeper waters.
I pray that each of us find ourselves a little deeper in Him each day.
Let me know your thoughts on this post and until next week, remember that you are loved and deeply cherished by Jesus and by me.
xo
Vita
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