I grew up thinking God requires acts of service and good works. I thought Christianity was about denying thyself, and that the Gospel was a heavy burden to drag around wherever I went.
I thought God required prayers with an extensive spiritual vocabulary. I thought a prayer was only allowed to be about how great He is - I may never mention my problems to Him or ask Him for anything. And so, that was how I prayed for the first 14 years of my walk with God.
Man, I was so wrong about that.
In the beginning of this year, however, that changed. I realized that God didn't want me to do a bunch of stuff for Him. Sure, it's nice, but it is not what He wants. All He really wants is for us to experience the fullness of His Father Heart.
He is a Father, so He wants to give us gifts and teach us things and dust off our clothes when we trip and fall. He wants to laugh with us when we're happy, but He also wants to draw us into His lap and hold us when we cry.
And that was what I did on the rooftop of a six storey church in Santiago. I crawled into my Father's lap and I cried. Like a little girl, I voiced all my emotions and laid my heart out on that roof. Sometimes I used words, and sometimes I simply cried. Other times, I spoke in tongues because my words in English, Afrikaans and Spanish weren't sufficient.
God was quiet.
I teetered on the edge of being honest with Him: I wanted to tell Him that it feels as if He doesn't hear me.
I whispered, "God, do you even hear when I pray?"
A verse popped into my head. And then another and then another. Then all the sadness and heart-wrenching pain I had experienced during the last two hours evaporated. My God was speaking to me!
He left me with Hosea 2:14-23 as a promise. I then bubbled over with laughter as the Spirit replaced the lies with truth...God's truth.
That night, the old Chanan died and the new Chanan was resurrected in Christ. Praise The Lord!
My tears flow endlessly;
they will not stop
until the Lord looks down
from heaven and sees.
(Lamentations 3:49, 50 NLT)