Close to God’s Heart

April 4, 2013 ~ Issue 41

Hello Friends,

If you’ve been trying to draw closer to God’s heart, then you know that heart-level obedience to Him is the key to experiencing His love for you, but you may still face obstacles that seem to stand in the way of truly coming into the Lord’s embrace. I want to paint you a picture of what drawing close to God’s heart looks like in human terms by telling you how my friend and co-laborer, Barbie Poling, drew close to my heart. This message will come to you in two parts, “Close to God’s Heart” and the second part in a couple of weeks, “An Attitude of Surrender.”

Barbie has a sweet personality, she’s funny, talented, and she participates with me in the work of the ministry, but these things are not what endears her to my heart. I want to share with you how Barbie came to be so close to my heart, and it’s my hope you’ll be able to see the parallel of how God wants us to draw near to His heart.

When Barbie first started pressing in to know me and what I was about doing, she asked me lots of questions. But her questions didn’t come with any sort of judgment, nor did they come with the need to argue against me when what I said differed from her previously held ideas. We had many vigorous discussions, but it was always in the spirit of love and with the intent to come to a mutual understanding. Her questions came only with a true desire to understand why I did what I did, or said what I said, or why I made the particular decisions she saw me making, or decisions I had made before knowing her. She didn’t just assume to know what I meant or why I did something so she could form judgments concerning me. She wanted to know me! She had no other agenda but to know me! She never gathered information and knowledge from me to serve her own aims or her own agenda. In fact, she actually didn’t have her own agenda at all. She simply wanted to know me. This was a very refreshing and unique friendship for me, because there had been in the past other dear friends who did serve their own ideas while under the guise of “helping” me, and I knew it at the time. I felt much like Jesus experienced with Judas’ misunderstandings concerning what Jesus’ work was about.

But this was not so with Barbie. The Lord had accomplished a deep work in her heart, and she no longer filtered impressions through the lens of her flesh toward the forming of false judgments. She came to know my heart, and assumed the humble posture that she could learn some things from me. She began to step to my side in local ministry, wanting to be completely involved with me down to the details—many practical and logistical details! This was in itself amazing to me since no one had ever wanted to participate with me at that level before.

I don’t think that Barbie ever intended to participate with me in ministry. Like I said, she was interested in me, and she was interested in what concerned me instead of coming around to be involved in my ministry. She began taking up my concerns as her own, and those concerns were the work of the Lord’s ministry. Barbie began the habit of responding to my expressed desires and needs simply by telling me that she’d take care of it. She’d say things like, “What can I do to help you with that?” and “I can do that for you.” I’ve actually heard this one offer countless times—hundreds, to be sure! She helped me in so many practical, unglorious ways, and continued to draw closer to my heart. I came to trust in her genuine desire to serve me in my work of the Lord’s ministry. She had no strings of wrong expectation attached whatsoever.

After a few years, Barbie began to check out my previous ministry of Lifestyle of Learning™ that Jim and I had had to lay down to rest back in 2005 due to health issues that prevented me from the work of keeping it going. As Barbie was led by the Spirit toward the need to rebuild a web presence for me, she began researching everything she could get her hands on from our old inoperative and archived website, even though she wasn’t very familiar at all with my books and past messages. She asked me questions that stimulated my memory about my prior ministry and people I had known. She found my old LOLFriends group online and began participating there answering questions, becoming more and more familiar with my work.

She continued to draw closer to me as she got to know me more, and eventually wanted to help me step up our local ministry to include Lifestyle of Learning™ principles, which had been the platform for my previous ministry, but which she was only becoming familiar with at that time.

Barbie eventually chose to come into business with me. She experienced a revelation from the Lord about it and knew she was called to help me “come back” from the failures caused by the unforseen circumstances of my life. I was astounded that every idea she came up with would be exactly what my own heart wanted to do. It seemed to me that the Lord had her tracking with me in the spirit, and she continued to track with me through hundreds and hundreds of decisions both small and large ones. Many decisions have been made over the last two years while building business together, and I can completely trust Barbie even when there isn’t time to “run things by me.” I know that her intentions are to honor my own wishes in keeping with the Spirit of the Lord’s ministry.

Barbie and I have gone through a lot together and she has completely endeared herself to my heart by taking on my concerns and even some of my painful sufferings as her own—my losses, my health, my ministry, my family’s business and livelihood, really just about everything in my life that’s been hard. She, and Tim right along with her, have been there to help in any way they could to address needs, lift burdens, and make life possible during the hard times of recovering from loss. We have helped many people over the years that have never returned any sort of help to us. Together, Tim and Barbie believe that God called them to bless me and my family and help us, embracing us much like the one leper out of ten who returned to embrace the Good Lord with a grateful heart.

You may ask, why would anyone do such things? The answer is of course due to a grateful heart for being rescued from a life of sin and self-righteousness.

You see, I wasn’t just sitting around tending to my own life after we experienced loss. I was continuing to reach out to bring life to others—the ministry the Lord had given me to carry. Even through my worst times, I never stopped ministry. Barbie and Tim were the recipients of my ministry, along with others who were around us at the same time. Barbie saw this, and once she was free, she took on these concerns I had for other people as her own. She took on my own personal concerns as well, and made it increasingly more possible for me to build the business (not rebuild the old one, but build a whole new business) that would support the ministry outreach, and hopefully to provide livelihood for my family eventually as well. I am so grateful and deeply blessed. God has been so abundantly good to me to fulfill some of His promises to me through Barbie and Tim. They have both become very dear to my heart and to my family.

Are you drawing near to the Lord’s heart the way Barbie drew near to mine? The Lord tests us to see how far we will follow Him. He tests our motivations. In your home, there are many concerns; many of them relational. Will you lay down your life to be concerned about what your children are concerned about? What about your husband’s concerns? If the Lord is interested in a certain work in your family, are you available to cooperate with that work out of concern for what concerns Him? To what extent are you willing to go? Obeying God and picking up His concerns as your own will draw you closer to the heart of God, and it will grow you into an authentic Christian who knows how to love.

As believers there is never supposed to be the attitude that enough sacrifice is enough, and yet it’s common for ministries, believers, and even parents to put a ceiling on following the Lord. Will we only take on those concerns that appeal to us or will we “grade” the concerns according to those we will validate as “worthy” of our attention and those we want nothing to do with? Do we only choose those things that bring us a measure of glory or where there’s something in it for us? Or will we go the unglorious route of personal self-sacrifice?

To be near God’s heart, you have to do things His way, according to His concerns—the work of the Gospel, which is the ministry of reconciliation. Self-sacrificial love IS His way. We must come to know Him to take on His concerns as our own. When we don’t know Him, but we still want to serve Him, we misunderstand what He actually wants from us, and make our service to Him all about ourself instead.

I know I am dear to the Lord’s heart due to continued sacrificial obedience by faith—taking on the Lord’s concerns as my own—even when life is hard for me. I have His blessed assurance every single day of my life, and I’ve experienced many of His promises to me come to pass. Barbie has grown nearer and dearer to my heart because she has taken on my expressed concerns as her own, and she has continued to learn how to love sacrificially. We are about our Father’s business together, taking on His expressed concerns as our own, which was made possible through an attitude of surrender that we both have had in our relationship with the Lord. We’re in unity just like members of a family are supposed to be in unity. In my next message, I want to talk about this attitude and what it looks like and what it doesn’t.

I hope you will join me in drawing nearer to the Lord’s heart!

If you haven’t already taken a look at our new free gifts on our coaching website, you can go here to see our new introductory video with testimonials:

You won’t want to miss listening to the 40” audio I prepared to encourage you. “Your Hope Inspired” presents an idea I want to implant in your mind to influence you toward something good, and strengthen your expectation of obtaining it. And if you’d rather read it, you can download the message in pdf format. It also includes a unique discussion of each of the five God-given forces for growth, which provide the subject content of the five programs in “Making Heart-Level Connections.”

And if that’s not enough to inspire you, I’ve also prepared for you a 56” audio of my own earliest testimonies of how God worked in these five areas of growth in my own life to bring me into a vital relationship with Him. I describe some of my experiences that accomplished powerful changes in me, and the progression of the daily activity of my life that was taking place inbetween times. As I did my best to obey the Lord’s instruction, He brought me and my family into everything we needed to make a whole-life education possible for my family. He has been so good to me, and He wants you to experience His goodness too! This audio is also available in a 14-pg eArticle so you can read it at your convenience.

Again, all four of these inspiring, content rich downloads are my gift to you right now!

Go here to get your free gifts:

Another gift we have just for those who purchase one of the coaching programs is the opportunity to join our private Facebook discussion group, “Making Heart Connections”. It’s an intimate, caring, and loving place to learn how to share about your growth process in the Lord with other moms on the same journey as you. When you purchase any of the Making Heart-Level Connections mini coaching programs, we will add you to the group.

Bless you in your journey toward increasing hope in the Lord,

Marilyn Howshall for Lifestyle of Learning™ Ministries

[Lifestyle of Learning™/LOLACHE eNewsletter ~ April 4, 2013, Issue 41]