I feel spiritually naked tonight. The Lord has stripped me down to my bare heart.

This weekend I have been at the emanate MORE conference and the past two days I have found myself crying unexplainably. How many of you know that our spirits a lot of times understand what’s happening before our minds ever do? My spirit was preparing my heart for the work that Daddy was planning on establishing.

Tonight, Daddy pulled back another layer of His heart for me. I experienced the Father in a way I had never experienced before. I continued to cry during the entire service, still unaware of why these unfounded emotions were deciding to surface. After I made my way through the infamous fire tunnel, my stomach was writhing in pain as if it were trying to birth something. I made my way to the back of the sanctuary and sat on the floor up against the wall crying and clenching my stomach. “You are a daughter.” I heard the Father say to me. “You are MY daughter.” Then I felt the Father’s arms wrap around me as I laid in His chest weeping. The Lord continued to strip away another layer of my heart in exchange for His.

My heart laid on the floor in the midst of my shaking, burning body. I saw Jesus walk up to me and kneel on one knee. He held out His hands and behold! I saw my black heart being restored back to it’s vibrant red self. Life was being infused in me once again. He held my heart out to me and said, “This is the greater reality. This is My reality.” I opened my hands to receive the heart and realized that it was already inside me. Jesus smiled and shook His head. “Beloved daughter. Your heart is healed. No longer will you operate from lack, or fear, or competition. Tonight, I mark you with a greater revelation of sonship. Tonight you step into the daughter that I called you to almost two years ago we you first went to Slow Burn.”

I continued to cry as I felt the Father cradle me in His bosom. Never have I felt so loved and desired. For the first time in my life I didn’t want a revelation of the Father’s heart so I could perform better. I wanted it because I needed it. Art for arts sake, brings forth the understanding that He wanted me to be loved by Him more than He wanted me to love and serve Him. As Christa Black said last night, “If we let Him love us, loving and serving Him will be an overflow.”

Vulnerability is a very scary and beautiful place to position yourself in. I remember last season when the Lord took me through a season of experiencing authentic vulnerability. However, nothing quite compares to the way He stripped me down to my very essence tonight. I laid on the floor spiritually naked of all walls, barriers, and systems that try to come up and prevent us from having intimacy with the Father.

Tonight I experienced a new type of intimacy with Daddy. One that I can only imagine is saved for the most intimate of moments. Security, peace, and love filled my ever-expanding heart. He let me weep in His arms and whispered what a beautiful daughter I was. Over and over His words uprooted that desperate, attention-seeking, competitive orphan that I had believed I was. But Romans 8 tells us that when we receive the garment of Christ we:

“have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.” For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children.” Romans 8:15-16 

No longer a slave, but an adored son/daughter. No longer an orphan, but a son. John 14:18 says, No, I will not abandon you as orphans—I will come to you. Daddy came for me tonight. He held my heart in His hands and stood against every lie and demonic attack that was ever spoken against me. He stood in the midst of my heartbreak and spoke new depths of restoration and life into me.

You’re a son, dear friend. You’re a daughter, sweet girl. Let Daddy love on you. His deepest desire is to love you back to the way you were created to be. Wholeness. Restoration. Beauty.

This summer the Lord told me I was going to enter a season of preparation. With that call, I have been learning about honoring commitments, submitting to leadership, valuing self-control, operating in discipline, and everything that goes along with dying to self. I have been given books to read and reread this summer, and am even being taught practical stuff like cooking, buying organic groceries, managing a household, waking up and going to bed early, and stewarding finances.

I can tell there’s a special grace on my life in this season because it’s been easier to pursue all of these things than it has in any other season of my life. Sure, it’s not a piece of cake (when is discipline ever?) But I can feel myself being empowered to pursue my season of preparation with a whole heart.

However, the Lord’s been teaching me something else during this season. Wholeness. Sozo, complete and total healing, has to do with spirit, soul, AND body. The Lord is calling us into wholeness in every single one of those areas. While my past two years of college have had me actively engaged in pursing spiritual and emotional healing and wholeness, I have neglected the physical side. After struggling with body image in 9th grade, I was scared to watch what I eat because I didn’t want to enter into an obsession over food again. With the relief of not caring what I ate, I did just that. I ate everything and anything without regard. Freshman year of college, I would workout and go through phases of eating healthy, but I noticed I would do this whenever my life felt out-of-control. I would use food and exercise as a way to manipulate the amount of control I had in my life. Then, I would become fearful of entering into obsession with food again and would stop. It was a long and difficult battle.

But for the first time in my life my heart has been set on something far different. Instead of desiring control and weight loss, my heart longs for total health and wellness. How can I believe in a God that wants to heal and put crap in my body that destroys it? God isn’t just a God of healing because He wants to be. He IS healing because He loves wholeness. My heart has been transformed. I don’t want to eat things with little calories, I want to eat whole foods and organic and fresh things. My eyes are fixed on something completely different this time. The Lord is finally the foundation and rock for my desire for health—not some addition to. It’s be beautiful to watch my body desire to go to bed early and wake up early. It’s funny how the same foods I use to long for, I now cannot stand. My 6am workout routines are an exciting fulfillment in my day.

But here’s the thing about God. It’s impossible to receive without giving away. As my heart has been changed to pursue my total wholeness, it has also be positioned to desire that for other people. I remember all the times I would beg people to stay up late and talk with me who had to be up early the next morning for either work or class. In my mind it didn’t matter that they would only get 3-4 hours of sleep. I wanted to talk to them. Me, me, me, me, me. My selfishness has been transformed into an empowerment. If you have to be up at 5:30am, GO TO BED EARLY. There will be no lack of time. I desire other people to walk and pursue wholeness in every area now. I repent to all of the people that my selfishness was a stumbling block last semester. I can’t remember the number of times I talked people out of doing homework and into skipping class. All for the sake of my desires.

It’s beautiful how self-transformation overflows into a heart for other people. The core of my heart is to empower people to be everything God created for them to be—why wouldn’t that mean physically as well. A poverty mindset is continually being destroyed as I spend a little more on organic and fresh foods rather than artificial and processed foods. The things that I value are changing. For instance, I now value wholeness and health over extra money to waste.

Wholeness is so beautiful. I can finally feel my body coming into alignment with my spirit and soul. The beautiful nature of a God of increase, though, is that my spirit and soul are experiencing greater levels of wholeness during this season as well. I can hardly remember the girl I was at the beginning of this past school year. Shoot, I can hardly remember the girl I was at the end of this school year. I feel like the Lord has taken me so deep these past couple weeks. So, as I continue to pursue wholeness in every area of my life, I set my gaze upon Jesus, remembering whose heart I reflect.

“Don’t desire escape more than you want freedom.”

My pastor spoke those words out over a year ago. I remember being rocked by the statement, but not fully aware of its implications.

Escape is so easy. Things get hard and running away always seems to be my natural response. Numb the pain, don’t deal with the issues, and run the other way.

Lately, I had been experiencing a frustration in worship. I felt like I could only go so deep before it would be capped off. It’s like I knew there was so much more, but I couldn’t ever attain it during worship, which would leave me frustrated and dejected. Then the other day, as I was talking to my friend Kellie about it, she asked why I was afraid of going deeper. After contemplating her question, I realized that I was afraid of going deeper and not leaving changed. Pausing, I realized how weird my words were. Why did I want to leave changed? Why was that so important? Obviously, when we really enter into the Lord’s presence it’s impossible not to leave changed, but why was leaving changed such a desperation of my heart?

As I continued talking, revelation started flooding from my mouth. I realized that I wanted to leave changed because I thought it would make me immune to the stuff that I was dealing with. If I left changed and full of grace and peace I wouldn’t have to struggle with the frustration and unrest I was beginning to feel towards people. I realized it was escape.

Now note, when we enter into the presence of the Lord we will leave full of grace and peace—but the distinction here is subtle. So subtle I almost didn’t notice it.

Anything of value requires sacrifice. Something can be expensive, but not valuable. The value in friendships comes with the blood, sweat, and tears it takes to fight for them in the midst of attack. If everyone agreed all of the time and nothing ever happened, the friendships wouldn’t have as much value. The value comes in the time spent fighting and sacrificing. Hearts grow closer together during the vulnerable times of hard conversations and disagreements. It’s choosing not to run away and staying to fight that makes the friendships worth having.

I’m often asked, “Why do we have to like so many people before we find our future spouse? Why can’t we just be attracted to that one person we’re supposed to marry?” The same principle applies. The relationship is given meaning and value when we realize that we’ve fought to guard our hearts only to ultimately choose the one we’re supposed to be with.

So back to my needing to escape with the Lord. The fighting and struggling through the problems—choosing to rely on the Lord in every moment—is what gives birth to new growth and maturity. If every time I had a problem I used the Lord as a way to escape the emotions, I would never experience the beauty and value in fighting for freedom and maturity. The refining fire gives meaning to the struggles. It’s so cool to look back in freedom and be amazed at how far you’ve grown. God’s not a genie that wants to grant you wishes of escape. He wants to share life and provide faith for you during the fighting. He doesn’t just want to make all your problems go away, He wants to teach you how to deal with them and choose Him in the midst.

Maturity comes through fighting. Laboring with the Lord is what gives the maturity value.

True freedom is being able to not choose offense or bitterness even when something is offensive.

If you have to become angry or offended when circumstances prompt you to, you are bound by that anger and offense. True freedom is being free enough to choose joy and reconciliation, regardless of circumstance. You are not a victim of your circumstances; you were created for victory. That’s because the Spirit of the living God dwells within you.

If you cannot help but get angry when you’re offended, you are in bondage to offense because you cannot choose something different. I’m not saying choosing not to be offended is easy, but the mark of a free creation means that we are free to choose our reactions and responses. Saturday night, the Lord imparted a supernatural love to me the has taken more faith and risk to step out in than anything I’ve ever experienced before. Part of me wants to be allowed to feel hurt or rejected, but my heart refuses to receive it. Even though my mind justifies offense, the Lord did something to my heart that has given it the freedom to choose joy and love.

The definition of freedom is, “The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.” True freedom means that we have the power to choose joy and love in every circumstance and are not enslaved to offense, anger, or rejection.

Being able to walk in true freedom has been one of the most supernatural experiences of my life. The Lord has been exposing a lot of my entitlement issues and asking me to lay them down. I’m not entitled to understanding. I’m not entitled to offense. I’m not entitled to acceptance. I’m not entitled to being right. I’m not entitled to being liked. I’m not entitled to self-pity. Things that I didn’t even know I could feel entitled to, the Lord’s been exposing. It’s the most beautiful journey in the world and all a part of going to the next glory.

The Lord has called me to be intentional and pursue every heart that He’s put around me right now. I don’t have the option of picking and choosing which hearts I want to pursue and which hearts I don’t. It’s what He’s burnt on my heart and I have to fight for that at all costs—risking all comfort and safety. But it’s having true freedom that allows me to do such things.

Psalm 119:45
I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts.

Isaiah 61:1
The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.

2 Corinthians 3:17
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

Galatians 5:1
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

It’s no secret that we were excited about what God had in store for us at Bethel. However, what we didn’t realize was the incredible blessings He desired to pour out on us along the way.

Two weeks ago, five girls bought their plane tickets to Sacramento, CA and a shuttle pass to Redding. They had no idea where they were going to stay or how they were going to get around. All they knew was that they were hungry for God and they wanted to be where the Spirit was moving. What started out as a silly dream soon became a reality for these five daughters. In a step of faith, they all secured their tickets and continued to wait for the Lord to provide all that He had promised. They could feel the Lord drawing out their hearts, but they had no idea that an identity of deeper sonship would be revealed. Days before they boarded their plane, an opportunity to stay in one of our friend’s grandparent’s guest apartment in Redding opened up. Excitement arose as they made solidified their plans. Ready for ministry, the girls prayed for person after person in the Sacramento airport. One girl was praying for the guy sitting beside her on the plane before they even left Nashville. It was obvious that ministry was everywhere. It was obvious that this trip was bigger than Bethel Church. People are hungry for a desperate move of God.

At the Sacramento airport, the girls asked in faith for God to provide a car. With little understanding on how this would come to pass, they continued to offer up their desires in faith. When we got picked up from the airport, the beautiful women whose guest house we were staying in asked us how we were going to get around. We told her that we were hoping our friends in Redding would be able to pick us up or something, but in reality we had no idea. Dreams beyond dreams she offered us an extra car that they have for the week. Tears and thanksgiving emanating from their hearts, they graciously poured out thanksgiving.

Now, I am sitting by this beautiful river outside of our guest house with the California sun setting. My heart is overflowing as I begin to realize just how much I mean to Daddy. I never thought I was worth this much to Him. A free floor to sleep on with a week long bus pass maybe, but this! Never.

Time after time He continually reveals His extravagant heart to me, but this time—He has outdone Himself. And yet He’s telling me He’s only begun. Every moment of this is offending my understanding. Nothing makes sense. I

The beautiful part is that He didn’t give it to us all at once. He beckoned us to step out in faith and obedience little by little. And with each step of obedience we found ourselves with deeper treasures of the Father’s heart. It’s moments like these when the English language feels so cheap. My heart is truly captivated by this God who pours out His love.