Intimacy With God in the Secret Placeنموونە

Drawing Close in the Secret Place

One thing I have desired of the LORD,
That will I seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the LORD All the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the LORD,
And to inquire in His temple.
Psalm 27:4

In our intentional times of growing in intimacy with God, we are essentially practicing the Old Testament teaching of waiting upon Him. The Hebrew word, Qavah for wait, means to wait for, look for, expect, and hope. It also means gathering together, binding up, and adhering to. Drawing closer to Jesus in intimacy is to bind our heart with His and gather and adhere our life with His life.

Don’t get discouraged if your first few times of intentionally meeting with the Lord seem to go nowhere. Like priming the pump on a deep well that we haven’t drawn water from for a long time, it may take a few meetups before the dust is knocked off our spirit.

Also, keep in mind that the enemy of your soul will challenge this significant time. He knows the value and power of God’s experienced presence. He knows that wherever Jesus is, people are set free, healed, and empowered by the Holy Spirit and His Word. Press through when this time is challenged, or if you must, reschedule as soon as possible.

You will find genuine refreshment and restoration as you persist in making the secret place a priority. You will not want to go back to living life without this precious and powerful time with God every week or so. Touching base daily with Him in prayer and His Word will keep you attuned to Him. And when the storms of unexpected circumstances take place because we live in a broken and fallen world, your time alone with Jesus and His Word is your rock to stand on Psalm 18:19. No work of darkness or any person can take that away from you.

In closing, cultivating God’s presence in our lives is a feast for our souls and spirits Isaiah 55:2. We’ll find that the lusts and cravings of this world lose their value when we invite the Holy Spirit to overflow us. Ministry burnout is less likely to take place because we are ministering out of His fullness in our lives rather than ministering on the empty fumes of our own strength.

The advantages are limitless, the cost is free, what are we waiting for? Let’s draw close to God in the secret place.

What spoke to you the most from this study?

Was this plan helpful? It was adapted from Refresh - Transformed Thoughts, Emotions, and Lives by Sue Boldt