Jehovah Jireh Part 3 - God of Hidden Treasures
“So what brings you guys to Kansas City?”
We get that a lot, which is understandable. But wow is that a loaded question…that is really hard to answer! Why did we move out here? How do we even start to answer that? God told us to? To be a part of the house of prayer? To go deep with God? To get ready and equipped for Jesus’ second return? Haha…no easy answers…especially when it’s not 100% clear even to us!
The International House of Prayer is a HUGE part of why we are here. Couldn’t we have just prayed in Los Angeles? Doesn’t God hear prayers no matter where you are? Of course! But these guys have been running hard with 24 hour night and day prayer for more than 10 years straight. Not one time in those 10 years have they left the alter unattended. Out of this constant worship and prayer, God has released amazing revelation, amazing teaching, amazing insight into God and what he is doing in the land. This community has learned to entertain the presence of God, to seek him with all that they have…seriously, just being here it seems like heaven is somehow ‘closer’. Prayer and worship, intimacy with Jesus, it drives everything they do here…the ministry school, the music academy, the children’s equipping center…everything!
The day I quit the weather company in Kansas…no, the HOUR I quit, I drove straight to the prayer room. For some reason, quitting was more emotionally stressful than interviewing. And there, after the fact, I just felt this emotional burden totally lift. I felt free in ways I can’t even begin to express. My boss didn’t take the news of my quitting very well, and it was actually a very uncomfortable experience. I quit, awkwardly walked out the door by myself, smiled to God, and said to myself, “Good riddance!”
I made it to the prayer room and found a seat in the back. As I tried to engage, I saw all around me…treasure. Not ‘real’ treasure…I must have been seeing something in my spirit, because when I saw the treasure I had a rush of memories. Memories from my days in college, when I used to close myself in a closet and seek his face for hours on end. I saw all these faces of God, and was reminded of how God showed himself to me, disclosed different aspects of who he was, took me deep into his presence to show me his wonderful beauty. I was reminded of the Exodus…and the insane revelations God has given over the years. A new way of doing church, which is actually a really old way, the first way! Cutting out Sunday service to become a house of prayer. The Kingdom of God. The Gospel. The Primacy of Loving God.
In that blur of memories, I was made suddenly aware of how much treasure God has given me. And in that same instance, I was made suddenly aware of the poverty of my spirit…and how much I needed God’s treasures again. In light of the treasures in the room, and the memories in my head, I began to ask aloud, “God, give me treasures. Make me rich again. Make me wealthy again.” I wept and prayed that, over and over again. A totally ironic prayer, considering I just QUIT my job, and here I am asking God to make me rich! Obviously, a different kind of wealth.
The treasure of the knowledge of God…intimacy born only out of time and seeking his face. We all know that we need to spend time seeking God’s face…but we also know that that is exactly the first thing to go when we get busy. As a working adult, active in the church, raising three kids, trying to do God’s will, with only 24 hours in a day…intimacy with God is one of the first things we let slip. Spend time with God? Read the word? Pray, worship, interceded…wait on God? It’s the first thing to get rationalized away.
Most of us are guilty of it, and suddenly we are very poor in spirit. And though we can make it, for weeks, months, even years, on the bare minimum, sometimes more, often less…we are cheating ourselves from the intimacy and depth for which we were really created. By not carving out and defending the necessary time and space, we sacrifice really going deep with God. Our revelation becomes old. Our insights are not our own. Our authority dwindles. And it is the mercy, the compassion, the grace of God to show us our poverty and how desperate we really are for more of him.
“God, make me rich. Make me wealthy again.” This chance, to go deep and find treasure; IHOP, Lee’s Summit Missouri…rural Missouri! This is God’s mercy, compassion, and grace to me…in this hour, spiritual hunger for more, is his greatest provision.