Yesterday morning in my prayer walk at dawn I found myself on the banks of the Conewago Creek. It was a beautiful setting: birds were singing lustily, wild geese were finding breakfast in the surrounding fields, a bull frog was occasionally reminding me of his hidden but watchful presence. All this, as the fog was slowly lifting. I suddenly found myself with a strong desire to be down by the creek side instead of observing the creek from an elevated bank. But the brush covered bank appeared unstable and I finally convinced myself that observing the stream from the bank was almost the same as actually being down by the stream.
As I turned to walk away from the bank, still in prayer, I suddenly tripped and fell. As I was falling I had the thought, “I am going to end up head first in this stream.” But instead of that I landed firmly on my knees. As I rested there for a moment I saw that there was a direct and stable way to descend the bank to the creek side. So I quickly made my way to the stream’s edge. As I touched the edge of the water with my sneakered foot the urge to be in the stream returned and I stepped into the middle of the stream.
As I stood in the stream I sensed God saying several things to me:
1.” I do not want you to be satisfied to just observe what I am doing, I want you to be in the center of the river that proceeds from the throne of God. I want you to move into a deeper intimacy with me. (Observing the move of God is not the same as participating in the move of God.)
- The path to deeper intimacy is best discovered on your knees in prayer.
- I so much want a deeper relationship with you, that I am willing to bring you to your knees so you can find the way.”
As I finally left the center of the stream I was filled with joy at the word that the Lord had given me. I looked forward with anticipation to the Kingdom Life Network Conference to begin in the evening at Grace Chapel with guests from all over the world. I knew in my spirit that God wanted to lead all of us in the conference to a deeper place with Himself and that that journey would start from a place of humility on our knees.
theexpandingshrink 