Cultivating Obedience and Intimacy

Fragments of this blog post have been scattered across twitter, instagram, and texts to my friends throughout the day, but I am going to gather them all together into what I hope you find to be a beautiful story:

Today after getting coffee with a my friend Jason I was driving. 
I passed by a Catholic church and felt a need to go pray for 
revival to break out in that church. 

Yet I kept driving. 

Even still, I knew something more: I needed to stop.

By this point I would have to turn around.

Here I am in my warm car wondering what am I going to do. 
No one is watching. 
No one even knows I felt like I should stop. 

Then I remembered at coffee with Jason how I was telling him how 
I was learning to be obedient in everything with God because 
He was preparing me for more radical obedience in the further. 
Jason told me he was still working on being obedient. 
Something about the way he said it struck my heart.

Something in me had inspired him to be more obedient.

Remembering this I flipped on my turn signal.

I walked into the church lacking knowledge of rituals of entering a Catholic church, but with a purpose burning in my heart I silenced my cell phone, put down the kneeller and prayed.

I prayed for the church to be awakened.
Knowing I would never see how my prayers were answered.

I thanked God for the little, old ladies praying in front of & behind me.
Thanked Him for the intercessors that came to this church everyday.

Encouragement filled my heart.

Sitting in the pew I picked up a hymal. I looked up to see what hymns they had sung on Sunday and going to the first one I found the words:

"You shall cross the barren desert, 

but you shall not die of thirst. 

You shall wonder far in safety 

though you do not know the way.

You shall speak your words in foreign lands 

and all will understand.

Be not afraid.

I go before you always.

Come follow me, and I will give you rest.

Blest are you that weep and mourn, 

for one day you shall laugh.

You shall see the face of God and live.

If you pass through raging waters in the sea, 

you shall not down.

If you walk amid the burning flames, 

you shall not be harmed.

If you stand before the power of hell and death is at your side, 

know that I am with you through it all.

Blessed are your poor, 

for the kingdom shall be theirs.

And if wicked tongues insult and hate you all 

because of me, 

blessed, blessed are you!"

(hymn based on Isaiah 43:2-3; Luke 6:20 entitled Be Not Afraid)

My heart was warmed. 

You see the beautiful thing is this: 

Someone needed to hear the words of the hymn. 

Someone needed to know God is a personal God.

Someone needed to feel His touch.

That someone was me. 

Not because I was having a bad day, 

or because I had a huge decision to make. 

Simply because I am in love with Him.

Therefore my heart desires to hear from Him.

In the little things:

going to a Catholic church to kneel, pray, and read a hymn:

I learned that:

Small acts of obedience

lend themselves to 

cultivating

great depths of intimacy

with our Savior.