Journal Entry to Share #1... God's Emotions

11/11/06 - Non-blog entry in my journal

Yesterday was a powerful day spiritually. Like Marv said, the warfare was just intense. Earlier in the afternoon I had an encounter with the Lord when we were praying for Luke in the Intern class. I had this vision of Jesus weeping over Luke and over the brokenness of Luke's friends and family (the IHOP family) praying and crying out for Luke's healing. Jesus wants us to know that He is weeping with us! He will soon bring comfort to us and healing to Luke. I thought the Lord was saying "by his tears you are healed."

So anyway, this is on top of a word I was given on Tuesday night (which completely did not fit in on Tuesday night and so I always have to wonder when this particular word was for... It was for last night). Psalm 84: 5-7.

(5) Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage. (the set up verse) (6) As they pass through the Valley of Baca (literally the "Valley of Weeping"), they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools ("pools" can be translated "blessings"). (7) They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.

Every tear cried out in the Valley of Weeping, which I believe is where a lot of people were last night, once that tear hits the ground, from that place a spring shall burst forth bringing renewed life. Jesus was weeping with us last night and that is what his tears were doing.

Passing through the Valley of Weeping is only part of the journey, but an important one. Those of us who have set our hearts on a pilgrimage to seek out Jesus have and will pass through this valley. It's so wonderful, though, to know that we "pass through" the Valley, we don't stay there or even linger there, but it is a place we pass through on our journey to find the heart of God. On this pilgrimage we will truly go from "strength to strength" ("peak to peak") in the Lord; He is our strength now, but how much stronger will He appear to be after we have passed through the valley.

Oh, and another thing, this SOOO relates back to Lamentations 2:19 : "Arise, Cry Out in the night." They are so intentionally vague on what it means to "cry out." You can "cry out" with so many different emotions... we can "cry out" out of joy, out of weeping, out of pain, out of anger or rage, out of (you name the emotion). I believe God wants to take us on this journey of experiencing these deep human emotions that He also feels, that He is not devoid of, separate from, or above. He is crying out with us!

I leave you with this. "A voice said, "Cry Out!" And I said, "What shall I cry?"" (Isaiah 40:6)