Faith 15 Deep in the Heart of Me

[HKHaugan]

Faith 15 Deep in the Heart of Me

Those are words from an old ‘40’s’ romantic ballad that describe where we begin almost all of our human understanding about love. It's our need for it and our desire to have it satisfied. God made us to love, but how? It’s right there, ‘deep in the heart of me.’

Even without being conscious of God we sense from birth love has to do with persons, people, others. There's a word that covers how we are aware of, beyond reason, logic and words, the inner part of us---intuition---from Latin intueri, to look in. We intuited we were relational, with all its diversity, from our first breath. From there our life's search for meaning has always involved how we sort out what we perceive. And we intuited that there's nothing worse than being alone. I say intuit because that's what the word attempts to describe like when we say we've had an experience that 'goes beyond words' and it may even 'take our breath away' or 'you know that you know.' It means, as we have said, to have a sense that precedes our rational, logical, intellectual grasp of something. Music, art, drama and literature are built around expressing this basic sense everyone has.

Another thing about intuition, it doesn't just apply to 'a woman's intuition.' It is not gender specific. It is human specific. It is 'image of God' specific. We are born with it. As far as gender is concerned there is a male and female intuition like when a group of couples go out for dinner, men and women will tend to separate and sit together. But beyond those is our basic relational and environmental intuition. It's that invisible indescribable dimension of the awesome moment, the knowing glance, the inspiring action, the touch of tragedy, the shared pain, the joy of watching a child's first steps, finding life has that final blessing of God being real, the satisfaction in something accomplished that came through faith in His presence.

The Lord God made us to be like Him. Jesus shared this when He quoted Isaiah “The secret of the Kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those outside everything is said in parables so that 'they may be ever seeing but never perceiving and ever hearing but never understanding, otherwise they might turn and be forgiven (Mk.4:11-12, Is.6:9-10).'” When He says this He is opening the door to something the Holy Spirit enables us to do, discern and personally experience a reality that can't be verbalized. He intends it to be that intimate. It's our personal intuitive sense. It's a true gift.

Only the individual can know beyond words something so deeply intended for you and I alone. I know what I know that I know how I know what no one else can know but me. And each of us is intended for that kind of personal contact with God who is that personal, that close, that intimate. That's why intuition is so important to grasp. What you intuit through the Word, in the Spirit, from the Lord, is meant for you to act upon. This is the essence of prayer and why we meet to pray together and share what we have been given.

Is it any wonder Jesus would tell His disciples and us, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you For everyone who ask receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened (Lk.11:9-10).”

Here's Paul's approach, “And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and"... now catch this... "depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern"...see what I mean?... "what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ---to the glory and praise of God (Php.1:9-11).”