Preaching My Heart Out

I literally just got through preaching my last message for Winter Camp here at Trinity Pines Encampment. As happens so many times I preached my heart out. I stepped down from the stage and sighed a prayer to the Lord, “I gave everything I had. I preached what you wanted me to and I gave my best. I did not hold back.” I then walked to the back of the room to watch the Lord work. I am not sure if much happened at least from what I could see.

Before the service, as I prayed with the worship band, I confessed to them I was not feeling stirred in my heart. In fact, I felt downright lethargic. After our prayer time together we had over an hour before the beginning of the service.

I came back to my hotel room to cry out for God to help me. I pleaded for Him to stir the message in my soul and to empower me to be able to preach it. He answered my prayers giving me more energy and passion to preach. I preached my heart out in the time allotted to me from the Old Testament book Hosea. In the end I left dejected wondering if anybody really got it. The students went into discussion groups to talk about the message so I did not get to hear what the Lord did in response to that message. I started the weekend praying for twenty salvations. The total attendance among students for the weekend was seventy and most of them were church students. I don’t know if there was even one who came to saving faith in Jesus Christ. I left the meeting room to come to my hotel room to be alone and to try to sort out my feelings, which I seem to do best when writing.

I preached on three themes tonight. Returning to the Lord in repentance. The chastisement of God, when we as God’s people, continue to live in sin. The third theme was pressing in to really know God and not to settle for knowing about Him. It sure seemed like this point went over most of the student’s head. I saw adult leaders who seemed to miss this as well as students. Over and over I keep trying to preach at camps and retreats and even at Seminole that a vibrant relationship with Christ is the only hope that we will love God supremely and say “no” to sin and “yes” to His purposes and His ways. I write about this, pray for all of us, me included, to be transformed by this truth. I know many people have quiet times but how many really press in and press on to know the Lord. This message largely seems to come up empty.

There is no way I can put into words what God is doing in me and revealing to me. I try but I fumble for words and I get frustrated that I do not know how to paint portraits with words to communicate the importance of pursuing a relationship with God. My prayer times have been rich, extended, and powerful. I have been meeting with God in my home, office, the prayer room at church, the prayer cabin I love so much outside Palestine, TX , in a mountain home in Ruidoso, NM, and the prayer garden here at Trinity Pines in very profound ways. When I do press in to know God it makes me more passionate about sharing with those I love what He is sharing with me and doing inside of me.

How do I convey passionately enough, fervently enough, and persistently enough that any hope we ever have to be successful in the Christian life comes down to pursuing knowing God relentlessly? Day after day we must take up the pursuit of God again and again. Jonathan Edwards understood this in the mid 1700’s. A. W. Tozer understood this in the mid 1900’s. Why can’t I communicate this truth in a way that God uses to bring about life change in the early 2000’s? Both Edwards and Tozer were largely misunderstood in their lifetimes.

I try. I continually meditate on word pictures and metaphors to communicate and inspire people toward a growing relationship with the Lord. I challenge with truth trusting God every step of the way to impart it through the Holy Spirit. I pray and pray and pray. I have never prayed harder or longer in my life than God has me doing these days and yet other than what He is doing in me I wonder how much impact it has on others.

Still everywhere I go I meet vast majorities of Christians who are not passionate to know God or to follow Him wholeheartedly and seem pretty content, immovable and even calloused to continue life as usual. Preaching does not seem to make much difference and often I find I am fighting battles to have the flames of my heart rekindled and reignited while trusting God to the same in others.

I struggle with sin continually and hate this flesh that robs me of more knowledge of God. At times this walk is lonely. I do not regret that so much of pursuing God must be done in isolation and seclusion. What I regret is how few I have to talk with about the deep things God is doing in me. Moving as much as we have makes it hard to have those deep relationships that make it easier to share the deepest parts of our hearts and souls.

When I preach my heart out on these themes it is so frustrating not to be able to find the right language to communicate it more effectively. There is a burning in my heart that I cannot translate into words. In fact, it probably is something more caught than taught. My heart yearns to walk deeper in God and to climb higher in my knowledge of Him. I weary of so much religious activities. Though I am lonely I often find I prefer to sit alone before the Lord or to walk with Him in some isolated spot in private worship so we can commune. He understands. I love corporate worship as well but find I no longer have to have bands, crowds, sound systems, and etc to really meet with God.

I don’t know if I will ever be able to write or preach effectively on this. No matter how much I want to and try to it seems I come up woefully short. My only consolation is found in the scriptures. “So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the mater for which I sent it.” [Is 55:11]