How do I get you alone?

I had a terrible nightmare the other night.  It wasn't a "things that go bump in the dark" kind of nightmare.  But rather a total attack on my heart.  I woke up in a cold sweat, frozen in fear, as waves of uncertainty and insecurity washed over me.  I got up with this heaviness hanging over me, and as I drove to work I began to cry under the weight of it.  This dream hit way too close to home.  I realized that there was a part of my heart that I was still holding back from God.  I hardly even knew what to pray, but one thing kept coming out of my mouth: "let there be a death in me."  The only thing I knew was that I needed to yet again die to myself and allow Christ to have full reign in my heart.  What had been meant as an attack on my heart, trying to drag me down, God used to reveal to me places in my heart that I yet needed to surrender to Him.  Places where I needed to die to myself.

I had been listening to Leeland a lot last week and these few lines from the song Weak Man resonated so deeply inside of me:  "Jesus, give me your heart. Let there be a death in me.  I'm making room for all that you are.  Jesus, give me your heart. [...] And I'll be weak, for you are strong, you are strong in a weak man."  I am coming face to face with this fact more and more each day - I am truly nothing of myself.  It is only Christ in me who is strong.  And that's the way it should be!  Beautiful life,

I picked up a copy of My Utmost for His Highest last week to see what all the fuss was about.  And I was stunned.  Each and every time I flipped the page I was rocked yet again.  And then God laid it all down on me.

Chambers speaks to this idea of pride - this pride that I think I know myself.  And yet, it is only my Creator who truly knows me.  It is not until I admit my pride and know to the very depth of who I am that I am truly unworthy, that God can truly speak into my heart in a life-changing way.  I want to share with you some key things that moved me:

"God will keep narrowing us in until He gets us alone.  He will take us through the disappointment of a wounded pride of intellect, through disappointment of heart. He will reveal inordinate affections - things over which we never thought He would have to get us alone.

When God gets us alone by affliction, heartbreak or temptation, by disappointment, sickness or by thwarted affection, by a broken friendship, or by a new friendship - when He gets us absolutely alone, and we are dumbfounded and cannot ask one question, then He begins to expound.

There are whole tracts of stubbornness and ignorance to be revealed by the Holy Spirit in each one of us, and it can only be done when Jesus gets us alone.  Are we alone with Him now, or are we taken up with little fussy notions, fussy comradeships in God's service, fussy ideas about our bodies?  Jesus can expound nothing until we get through all the noisy questions of the head and are alone with Him."

I looked up what expound means: "To lay open; to expose to view; to examine; To lay open the meaning of; to explain or discuss at length; to clear of obscurity; to interpret".  Whoa!  I want Jesus to expound on my life to me!!  Come lay it on me, baby!


I realized this week that this whole past year has been about God getting me alone.  Stealing me away from everything I thought I wanted, everything I busied myself doing, everyone I spent time with, every little thing that cluttered up my heart and mind and time.  This year has been all about this coming away to the secret place.  I was talking with a friend this week and I was saying how this whole concept of being alone with God hit me so clearly-  Why do we go on dates with someone that we are interested in?  Why do girls love sleepovers and girl talk?  Why do we have these coffee dates and spend $6 on a hot drink?  Because you don't get to truly know someone in the midst of a noisy party surrounded by people.  You get to know someone in an intimate way when you come away from regular life, you come away to a place of quiet, a place of peace and solitude, a place to enjoy each other's presence and talk one-on-one about matters of the heart.

I realized that it's the same with God.  I can involve God in my day-to-day life.  I can do life together with Him.  And I absolutely should!  But if I want to truly know Him, to know Him on a deeper level, I must steal away to the secret place to invest myself into an intimate one-on-one relationship with Him.  It is only when He gets me alone that He can reveal Himself to me.  And in revealing Himself to me, He shows me who I am.


"Mercy burn and bring me back to life.  But not before you show me how to die."