The mystery of intercession is such a weighty thing, and yet its promise ushers in the fullness of life’s most glorious moments.
It’s incredible, really. Almost impossible to comprehend.
Day rolls into night, week melts into month—praying, asking, beseeching—crying out to God to stretch forth His mighty hand and MOVE.
Hear, God. Answer. Release your power to work wonders.
Months stack into years.
Lord, come. MOVE.
Morning breaks anew. Down on your knees again, calling. Interceding.
Today is the day.
In the Father’s eternal timetable, the kairos moment shouts forth.
Answers come flooding, and the shock is stunning.
It’s a quiet shock, like the kind of miracle joy you feel when holding that tiny babe you’ve just agonized for hours to bring into this spinning world. Relief, thankfulness, thrill. Still wonder.
Be still, my soul. Know that He is God.
I awoke to find that today was like any other. By morning’s end, I was surprised by joy.
Surprised?
Should I not, like those stalwart patriarchs of faith, expect that God can do what He says He can? Should I not stand, feet of faith spread confidently with strength of purpose, sure in the answer’s arrival?
Ah, but like those patriarchs, I have seen much. I have been buffeted by the schemes of my enemy, schemes set in place to wear down my soul. And I wonder… will God? CAN is no longer the question. WILL is the unspoken wondering, the hidden thorn that tucks unbidden in my heart.
Would that I had been able to yank that festering barb from my heart before the breakthrough came.
And YET, grace.
Grace, so wild and rich, so calm and sure. So undeserved and so MUCH.
I had pictured this moment in the quiet places. Pictured the intense relief, the singing joy, the dancing thankfulness. And then, when God came through and answers broke like a rushing wall of cleansing change, it was incredible. Glorious. But shouts of joy were surprisingly deferred for quiet gratefulness. Oh, Lord.
God did hear. He knew.
Thank you, Abba. Let my heartbeat of overwhelmed gratitude reach your ears as a song of praise, a melody of profound thanksgiving.
You have been more than enough.
May I offer this answer back to you as a love-gift, that I might be the one leper who turns back in awe, overcome by your love that consumes with healing power, your grace that gives what was never deserved but is so freely offered. And let me remember… you held the healing in your heart all the while, just as you held my heart’s cry.
Your plans, your ways, they are perfect. And I am immeasurably, soul-satisfied glad.
Special thanks to Rick Delanty who has granted permission to use his beautiful art in this post.
Into the Wilderness has just been published!
