You will call to Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.  You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.  I will be found by you…
Jeremiah 29:12-14

I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why God is motivating me to write this series.  I shared in my last post, about fasting, how I really am utterly lousy when it comes to implementing that practice, yet God was really clear that I should write that post.  I’m wondering the same thing today, because, even though I have learned a few things over the years about going deep with God, I’m really not very good at it.  Yet, I feel constrained by the Spirit to write this article.  It all just highlights how God’s grace is so amazing!  Just now, as I was telling God how I really don’t think I’m the one to write this, even feeling almost rebellious about it, His presence became so manifest that I could feel it in my body.  All I could do for a few minutes is pray in the spirit while He ministered to me.  How undeserving I am and yet His grace towards me is limitless.

I mentioned praying in the spirit and that is one of the topics, along with a few others, I want to cover in this series, but before I can talk about anything more, there is one question that has to be answered first – how bad do you want God?  How willing are you to go all-in with Him?  Are you willing to lose yourself so thoroughly that Jesus’ prayer for us in John 17:21 becomes a reality in your life?  Here’s what He said:  “May they all be one, as You, Father, are in Me and I am in You.  May they also be one in Us….”  The concept contained in His prayer for us is not only mind-boggling but downright scary.  What does “be one in Us” mean anyway?  I’m not going to try to explain it here, mainly because I can’t, but one thing I do know for sure is that it’s a level of relationship that is far, far deeper than that which I now experience with our Lord.  I also know this – to go deep with Him in that way will require me to die to myself so completely that I’m really not at all sure how much of me will be left.  As I said before, that’s scary.  

Yet I know that it will be okay.  I wasn’t saved and redeemed by Jesus so that I could lose my soul.  He saved my soul and whatever that deep “one in Us” relationship really is, my soul will be intact and I will still be me.  

Listen carefully to my next words.  If you find that you are simply not yet ready to enter into that kind of relationship with our Lord, there is no condemnation toward you from God (Romans 8:1).  Remember, Jesus is fully human as well as fully God.  He understands that “we are but flesh” (Psalms 78:39).  He knows our weaknesses and does not condemn us for them.  Still, and you may as well get used to this idea, He is never going to stop calling you to a deeper place with Him as you continue to live out your life on this planet.  He will never stop teaching you and directing you into life-learning moments, experiences, and events that will pull you closer to Him.  Some of those things are bound to be deeply difficult, but the end result?  Way worth it.  

Anyway, here’s an assignment for you:  spend some time during your quiet times this week pondering that question

How bad do you want Him?

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Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.

Jeremiah 33:3