There is an ocean
An ocean of love
An ocean that’s endless
An ocean above

A vastness of mercy
A vastness of peace
A vastness of kindness
It’s more than I need

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You are My princess
The apple of My eye
You are My pride
You are Mine

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I know that you love me
And yet don’t feel a thing
I know you’re all around me
And yet I’m filled with fear

There are many blockages we can have that keep us from experiencing God’s love for us.
We probably all have them to a degree.
I’m not even sure we would be able to bear the love of God if we would feel it 100%.
Especially if we would feel guilty for our sin, it might just be too much to handle.

Turn your eyes away from me,
for they overwhelm me!

Song of songs 6:5

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I believe another blockage for experiencing God is unforgiveness.
There’s a story in the bible that talks about a slave that has a tremendous debt with his master and is forgiven. His debt is cancelled.
Then he encounters one of his own subjects that has a much minor debt with him and refuses to release him.
When his masters hears about this he is filled with anger and withdraws the release he originally gave him.

Why?
Because God expects us to extend the forgiveness He gave us to others.
There is no greater debt anyone can have to you, no greater  assault, than your own debt with God before you were saved.
You may think you were a pretty decent person and that the persons who wronged you are more evil than you are.
But our wrongdoing to God is always greater than peoples wrongdoing towards us.

Why?
Because we are not God…
Every sin is done against God because it violates his commandments.
No matter how small your sin may seem, it’s still huge because it’s disobedience against God.
No matter how big someone’s wrongdoing to you is, it’s still small in comparison to your and their sin against God.
What determines the severeness of sin is not how many things someone does wrong but to whom the wrongdoing is done.
I’m by no means trivialising your pain but we have to put it into the right perspective.

God can and will heal our hearts but He does ask us to forgive.
If we don’t we not only resist him but risk losing our salvation.
Now you don’t have to be anxious about that.
All it takes is a willing heart.
He will enable you to forgive through his Spirit inside of you.
You just have to make the choice.

Something that helped me to forgive was the realisation that hurt people hurt people.
The people that hurt me have an unfulfilled need themselves.
We also need to keep in mind that people never are supposed to take God’s place in our lives.
Certain people are meant to fill certain needs we have, yes.
But we all have a place inside us that only God can fill.
And I believe He can even fill the empty places that others leave behind.

We just have to be very careful not to constantly blame others for our misery.
Even if they caused it in the first place, we still have a shelter we can go into to hide and recover.
It’s our own responsibility to make God our hiding place.
God always provides for us where others fail, if only we seek him.

It does not benefit us if we walk around angry and hurt with our head high in the sky because we’ve been wronged.
Sometimes I think we would be less hurt, or even not hurt at all in many cases, if we truly died to self and took up Jesus’s cross, who died for us willingly.
If we wouldn’t make life all about us, and how to get our needs met, but if we fully were devoted to living for God and others, we would not be so hurt all the time.
Then if people reject us, we would not be so offended, because we don’t live to get things from others, but to give instead.
Then if they reject us, we realise that it’s really their loss and not ours, because they really rejected our love for them, if love is what drives us.
And then we even feel sorry for them if they reject us and the love we wanted to give them.

You see God is like that.
He is not so much concerned about what we do to him when we don’t honor him the right way.
I don’t even think we can hurt God in that sense.
We might do him wrong but it’s really us who get hurt by that.
If we don’t give him the right place in our lives we are the ones that miss out on him!

When you read the laws in the old testament it says many times that obeying them is for our good!
Even now we’ve been saved through grace, it still benefits us to obey God.
Grace is never meant to take the place of laws but rather to enable us to obey them.
Because it benefits us.
God’s laws are really spiritual laws like reaping and sowing are in the natural.
They show us what leads to blessing and what takes blessing away from us.
We are still saved by grace but we all know that as believers we can still be quite miserable…
And I believe that this is more often than we realise because of our own doing or attitde.

We need to forgive others and ourselves if we want to experience God’s love for us.
We also need to let go of any offense we have against God.
Not that He did anything wrong, but we might perceive things as hurtful because we don’t understand them.
We need to let God be God and trust that He is good.

But still, even if we choose to forgive, we do need to come into his presence daily so we get healed and are able to keep forgiving, because often people don’t change and we have to keep our hearts soft.
This doesn’t mean we let them hurt us again. It means we forgive them if they do.
Sometimes we need to put up boundaries so people can’t hurt us again.
And just love them from a distance and pray for them that their own hearts get healed.

Unbelief wasn’t the only blockage I experienced.
I had experienced God’s presence before but gradually, without realising, I had stopped forgiving certain people in my life.
I had forgiven them for many years but slowly I had started to take up offense again.
Once I made the choice to keep forgiving, the heavens didn’t feel like brass anymore and I could feel God’s presence again like I had before.

Activation

Ask God who you need to forgive.
It can be yourself or even God, so to say.
Release every sin and offense into God’s hands.
Give them to Jesus who bore it on the cross.
Remember that Jesus also suffered for what others did to you.
The price for their sin was paid as much as the price for yours was.
Jesus was punished for what others did to you as much as for what you did to others or to God.
Then spend time in his presence and let him heal your heart. Daily!

Free Gift Read here how to give your life to God

I hope you received some healing and clearance by removing the previous mentioned blockages for experiencing God.
But there is more…
The greatest way we can resist God is through striving.
What does that mean?

It means we try to earn God.
I a sense we fight God to get blessing from him.
Like Jacob did.

Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him there until daybreak. When the man saw that He did not prevail against Jacob, He touched the socket of his thigh, so the socket of Jacob’s thigh was dislocated, as he wrestled with Him. Then He said, “Let Me go, for the day breaks.”
But Jacob said, “I will not let You go, unless You bless me.”
So He said to him, “What is your name?”
And he said, “Jacob.”
Then the man said, “Your name will no more be called Jacob, but Israel. For you have fought with God and with men, and have prevailed.”
Then Jacob asked Him, “Tell me, I pray You, Your name.”
But He said, “Why do you ask Me My name?” Then He blessed him there.
Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “I have seen God face to face, and my life has been preserved.”
As he crossed over Peniel, the sun rose over him, and he was limping on his thigh.

Genesis 32:24-31

…by his strength he strove with God.
He struggled with the angel, and prevailed;
he wept, and sought favor from Him.

Hosea 12:3,4

It is amazing to me that God lets us fight with him and lets us even prevail!
It shows part of his nature, what He is like.
That He’s gentle and humble and doesn’t barge into our lives and takes over.
He gives us full choice whether we ackowledge him as God or make ourselves god instead by placing ourselves above him.

Jacob fought with God, who appeared here in the form of a man, to extort a blessing from him!
Think about that.
He clearly didn’t believe that God willingly wanted to bless him.
Appearently he didn’t realise that by fighting God he was placing himself above God.
Trying to subdue God and even making him do his will.
It didn’t even dawn on Jacob that the fact this is even is possible, and God allows us to put ourselves above him shows how kind God is.
He thought he had to force a blessing from God.
Like that is even possible.
Like we are more powerful than him.

Jacobs behaviour here seems rather presumptuous right?
And yet, I have been doing the same thing many many times…
Every time I come to spend time with God, and I don’t come in the full confidence that God is there to bless me and surround me with his love.
That I think I have to earn him somehow.
That I’m afraid of not being able to receive anything from him.
I’m actually resisting him and fighting him when I do that.
The opposite of what I want, to receive, happens.
I block him by doing that rather than just soaking him in through faith.
The bible says God opposes the proud.
The mere thought that I can get anything from God through something that I do is plain pride.
Even if I am perfect, my perfection still comes from him.
So life is always a gift.
All of it.

Ho! Everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat.
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.

Is. 55:1

I’ve heard it say we “buy” things from God with our faith.
That’s the currency of heaven.
Not our own achievements (money).
Note that Jacob fought God with his own strength.
We don’t have to weep and work to twist God’s arm to bless us!

Let him who is thirsty come. Let him who desires take the water of life freely.

Rev. 22:17

Now a price has to be paid for sinners to enter heaven.
Not because there’s a pricetag for entering but rather because we were in debt with heaven and this debt had to be settled first.
However Jesus paid this price for us.
Jesus is our legal representative.
He lived a perfect life on our behalf and He paid the penalty for our sin.
The punishment for my past, present and future sin was suffered by Jesus.
He died once and for all.

WE ARE IN RIGHTSTANDING WITH GOD!

If we choose to fight God He will let us win!

When the man saw that He did not prevail against Jacob,

God wants our full surrender but it has to be by our own free will.
So He allows us even to resist him.
But it does have consequences…

He touched the socket of his thigh, so the socket of Jacob’s thigh was dislocated, as he wrestled with Him.

The thigh is the place of a man’s greatest strength.
If we wrestle God it will damage our own strength.
God does allow us to fight him but he allows no man to take his honor.
It will impair us and leave us with a limp.

Then He said, “Let Me go, for the day breaks.”

He could have overpowered Jacob and just left but God still wanted to bless Jacob!!
That was the reason He came in the first place.
Not to fight him.
Maybe Jacob initially thought that He was an enemy but it’s clear he didn’t know God’s good intentions towards him.

But Jacob said, “I will not let You go, unless You bless me.”
So He said to him, “What is your name?”
And he said, “Jacob.”
Then the man said, “Your name will no more be called Jacob, but Israel. For you have fought with God and with men, and have prevailed.”

Jacob means “supplanter”.
It means to take over by force. To take someone elses place.
Basicly a deceiver.
It started all with his birth.
He was the youngest of twins and when his brother came out Jacob grapped his heel.
Trying to hold him back because the oldest gets the greatest inheritance.
Little did he now God would give him the greatest inheritance anyways.
Not because he earned it by birth but because God is the one who chooses whom He blesses.
Not man.
(You may be offended by that but think about it. God does not owe us anything! And He is good to all. It may just look different for different people.)

And here we see again that Jacob tried to take someone elses place.
He tried to overtake God!
His name was fitting still.
Yet God blesses him and gives him another name!

Israel means “God contends/fights”.
Or “one who fights with God”.
What was the difference?
God had become the main character now!
The name still speaks about how Jacob had fought with God.
And when we read the bible we see that the Israelites contended with God all the time.
But it would be different now.
It was a promise that God would be the one that would fight for his people.
He would fight for Jacob.
No need for deception and supplanting anymore.
No need to twist God’s arm.

GOD FIGTHS FOR US!

Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “I have seen God face to face, and my life has been preserved.”

Finally Jacob realises the wonder of this encounter.
Of God appearing to him and allowing him to fight with him.
So what’s the lesson?
That we can trust God.
That He’s good on his promises and wants to bless us beyond our own ability to secure blessings.
God chose to bless us even before we were born.
He intends to lavish us with gifts more than we can even imagine.

Activation

REST
Put on some soothing christian music like Julie True or Dappey T Keys.
Let go of every concern and occupation of your mind and just be.
Just drink in his presence.
Make this a daily habit.

Be blessed!

Free Gift Read here how you can give your life to God

This blockage has much in common with striving.
They both assume we have to earn God.
But where striving thinks we actually have something to earn him, guilt believes we don’t because we messed up too much.

Guilt is all about feeling undeserving to approach God.
After all He is holy and good.
How can we ever measure up to a perfect God?
Where with striving we put ourselves above him, with guilt we can’t let go of how low and undeserving we are.
But the root is the same.
They’re both based on the assumption that God can be earned.
Which is pride.

How can we as creatures, made by God, ever deserve anything from him?
All our ability comes from him.
He is big, we are small.
No child gets fed and clothed and well taken care of because they did anything for it!
You don’t love your child more when they obey than when they don’t!
However if you are a good parent you do teach your children that their behaviour has consequenses.
Either good or bad.
Not because you punish them out of spite but to teach them wrong and right.
They don’t earn your love and approval though.
This always stays the same.
And we might make mistakes as parents and act out of frustration but I do belief this is how it’s supposed to be and I’m sure you agree.

Yet we expect God to be different.
Why?

Because we are not God.
As parents we know very well that just as our children make mistakes from time to time, so do we.
It’s easy to give mercy and forgive if you know that you’re liable to the same things.
You didn’t obey your parents perfectly.
You totally understand that your children have a will of their own and that they are at an age on which they are not able to fully understand everything you ask of them.
Yet they need to obey.
But you understand their struggles in growing up.
And you give them lots of mercy and love even if they don’t deserve it.
You just can’t help yourself because you love them so much right?
That’s the ideal picture anyways.

So why would God be any different?
We are made in his image after all.

Yet we are not altogether wrong in assuming that it’s not exactly the same with God.
His love for us is the same whether we obey or even belief in him or not.
Yet God can’t give us the same mercy as we can give our children.
Not because his love is any less because I believe He loves us way more than we even love our own children.

But we are not God.
And although it’s our job as parents to teach our children certain things, it’s not our job to uphold the universe.
There are certain things that only God can do in a person.
We sure can condition our children in doing the right things but only sofar.
We can’t change their heart.
We can point them to God but only He can actually do something inside of them.
We don’t have to make them pay the full price for their wrongdoing.
We just have to hint to them whether their behaviour is acceptable or not.
And we give them the consequences we feel they need in order to reach that goal.
And there our discipline of them ends.

But how about God?
What does it take for him to teach us what we need to learn?
And how about justice?
God’s love is way bigger than our love and this means it contains aspects we might not understand.
Aspects that our love doesn’t contain.

Read Justice and Forgiveness about why God can’t forgive the way we can.
So that leaves us with guilt.

We cannot possibly measure up to God’s standard of love.
So how do we approach a holy and perfect God?
The answer is the same as for striving:
We accept Jesus sacrifice on our behalf. For our sin.
If we try to appproach God on any other basis, like our own works and behaviour, we’ll always fail.
It’s pure pride in the first place to assume we can get anything from God, including access to his presence, based on what we do.
We have to remind ourselves of his sacrifice for us every time guilt shows up.
We have to remind ourselves that we live through the love of God and not through what we earn.
His love enables us to obey and live holy lives.
We don’t become acceptable to God by living moral lives.
Rather living with good morals is the fruit of accepting his acceptance of us.
We are already loved and accepted through the sacrifice of Jesus.
If we accepted Jesus than God accepts us.
(NB God does not accept us if we don’t receive Jesus sacrifice on our behalf and submit to him.
He still still loves us if we don’t, but He cannot save us then.)

Pride takes credit for what was given or refuses to accept what was given freely and wants to earn it.
And God won’t allow this.
If we do so we take his place.
We take the honor that is only due to him.
The honor of giving life and love.
Freely.
Without strings.

God is the source of our life and the source of our love and obedience.
If we try to live up to his standards without being tuned in to him and connect with his goodness,
we’ll always fail.
He doesn’t ask us to generate something only He can give!
Only through connection with God can we become like him and live a life that is worthy of him.
Yet his presence in our lives is never earned.
It’s alway given.

Activation

What things in your life do you (still) feel guilty about?
Ask the Holy Spirit to show you if you don’t know.
Meditate on what Jesus did for you.
Picture him hanging on the cross, realising that it’s your sin and shame He bore.
Remind yourself daily that it’s finished.
The penalty for your sin has been paid.
Past, present and future sin.
You are forgiven!
(don’t even try to pay him back, you can’t…)
Out of thankfulness you’ll want to obey him more.
Never let guilt be your drive to do anything.
Not even obeying God.
He wants our love.
Not slaves.

Be blessed!

Free Gift Read here how you can give your life to God

Last but not least!
We probably all experienced some of the previous mentioned blockages for experiencing God.
To a degree anyways.
Yet they can be all out of the way and still we might not feel his presence.
Why?

You shall seek Me and find Me, when you shall search for Me with all your heart. 

Jer. 29:13

Allthough I’ve struggled with all of these blockages this might be the one
that tripped me up the most so to say.
God is not hard to find.
The bible says He is near.

“God who made the world and all things in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by hands. Nor is He served by men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives all men life and breath and all things…

…that they should seek the Lord so perhaps they might reach for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. ‘For in Him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are His offspring.’

Acts 17:25,27,28

God is close to us!
That is so comforting to me.
But He is so kind and gentle towards us that He doesn’t overtake our lives.
He wants us to want him.
And He is so absolutely worthy of our desire!
He is so worthy of our full attention.
It’s kind of hard to have an intimate heart to heart conversation with someone who’s mind is elsewhere.
Now God is not offended at us for our distractions the way we might be if someone does not give us the attention we deserve.
Yet He wants our whole heart.

Jesus tells a story in the bible (Matth.13) about reaping and sowing in different kinds of grounds.
It talks about the soil of our heart.
The first one is about when we hear God’s words but they don’t truly enter our hearts.
It’s compared to seed that is sown on a road.
This happens when we don’t understand it.
Birds immidiately pick it up and take it away.

The second one is about seed that falls on rocky soil.
This is about a person that receives God’s words initially with joy but it grows no roots.
When oppression comes because of those words, he falls away.

The third one is what I want to focus on here.
It’s about seed that falls among thorns.
The thorns choke it and make the person unfruitful.
It means the words don’t produce anything good in him.
The thorns are distractions.
The concerns of this world.
I believe this can even be things that are not bad in itself.
But we put them above God and therefore his words don’t stick and grow inside us.

If we hear from God we do have to take attention.
We have to let his words sink in.
I believe God speaks to all people (often through nature or circumstances or other people)
but many times we are not listening and therefore his words fall on deaf ears.
Things in the natural are often a depiction of the spiritual.
Don’t expect God to invade your life if you don’t even turn a listening ear to him.
He absolutely wants to be involved with everything you do, but He wants to be welcome.
And I also belief He deserves nothing less than our full attention.
So why not honor him and give him his desire.
Which is you!
Amazing right? That He longs for our attention and delights in it.
That in a sense we can give God joy.

The first of the ten commandments in the bible is not to have other gods.
When we seek God we have to place him above everything else in our lives.
When our mind is dominated by the things we’re working on or by worries and concerns we don’t give God the first place in our lives.
We have other gods so to say.
A key for experiencing God is to give him our full attention.
There might still be noise on the side but we turn our attention to him.
It takes some practise to do this.
Don’t give up if you don’t manage to do this right away.
Just keep practising.
Quiet all your minds concerns and listen for his voice in your inner being.
It often comes through a subtle thought in your mind or an impression or even a picture.
You also might not literally hear him say something but rather just sense He’s saying it.

Activation

Set apart some time daily in which you quiet yourself and listen for his voice.
Listening to soothing (instrumental) christian music might help you to calm down.
E.g. from Dappey T Keys. https://youtu.be/_5YF8Zb7j-Y
You can also practise hearing his voice by taking moments throughout the day to become quiet and listen. Just ask him what He wants to tell you.
He’ll probably mainly just tell you how much He loves you and how much you mean to him.
But He gives direction for our lives as well.

Be blessed!

Free Gift Read here how you can give your life to God

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth!
Serve the Lord with gladness;
come before His presence with singing.
Know that the Lord, He is God;
it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;
we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.
Enter into His gates with thanksgiving,
and into His courts with praise;
be thankful to Him, and bless His name.
For the Lord is good; His mercy endures forever,
and His faithfulness to all generations.

Psalm 100

Another key for experiencing God is to be thankful.
If your heart is full with bitterness and offenses against God it’s not very likely you will feel his love for you.
Even though his love is still there.
But you resist him if you don’t open your heart in faith that He is good.
You would not come close to someone that is armed and looks hostile towards you.
Now God is not afraid of us but He does not overtake us by force.
He is too kind for that.
The best way to invite God in your life is through praise.
By being thankful.
Then God knows that He’s welcome and He comes rushing in as soon He’s invited and wanted.
(like your cat or dog rushes towards you in joy)

Activation

Ask yourself (or the Holy Spirit) if you have any offenses against God.
Repent.
Choose to believe that He is good and his intentions towards you are good.
Worship.

Be blessed!

Free Gift Read here how you can give your life to God

Waiting

Beautiful butterfly
Tender yet bright
Soaking in the Son’s light
Until it’s ready for flight

Are we going to take a bath?
Well kind of…
A spiritual bath
And how we need it
Daily

Somehow we find it easy to do and earn things, but much more difficult to just lean back and relax.
And yet, that is exactly what we need.
More than all our occupations we need to take care of.

We need to be still
To know, that He is God
Not we
That He takes care of us
Not we for ourselves
Without him we can do nothing
We might as well take some time to honor him for that
To acknowledge him
To just drink in his presence
Because He’s everywhere
And He never leaves us
But if we are constant busy and worried
And don’t take time to enjoy the blessing of his presence
We miss the most important thing in life
Which is to have fellowship with God
Our Maker
The Lover of our soul

The One that knows us better than anyone else
The One that loves us more than anyone can
The One that desires to have our attention
To look into our face
And to bless us tremendously
Simply by the look in his eyes
A look of sheer delight
A gaze of adoration
A longing to be with us
All the time

Now THAT is amazing right?!
A God that not only loves us from a distance but actually wants to be involved with every aspect of our lives.
If only we would let him…
If only we would take time to even acknowledge his existence.
Not as some deity far away.
But Someone who lives close.
Inside our very heart.
If only we would listen
For his silent whisper in our ear
Speaking words of tenderness
Transforming every part
Making us soft and tender
Just like him

You are most invited
We both are
To go on a date with God
To surrender our heart
To give up all concerns
And let the Creator of the universe woo us!

Activation

Turn of devices that can distract you and go to a place where you cannot be disturbed.
(put a sign on your door if you need to)
Make a list of “to-do-things” for later if they come up so you don’t have to worry about forgetting them.
Turn on your favorite soothing christian music if you prefer.
You can also do it without music which might even be better if you manage to get quiet without it.
Perhaps you prefer to go outside to a silent place and let the beauty of nature quiet your minds concerns.
Close your eyes if it helps you not to get distracted.

Acknowledge the presence of God
Allow yourself to just be
You don’t have to take care of anything
You don’t have to earn his favor
You are allowed just to hold hands with your Maker
You don’t have to talk or ask anything
Just enjoy his presence and open your heart for him to speak
Gentle words to your soul
Words of kindness
Not of condemnation

If He convicts you of sin or something you need to change
Just repent and consent
You can trust him
His instructions are always for our good
And He will provide for your every need
Whether spiritual, material, physical or emotional
Then lean in to his love
Let him saturate you
Don’t try to conjure up some sort of feeling
Just believe He’s there
Whether you feel it or not
And be still
And you will receive his love and change into his likeness more and more

Do this every day for as long as you want!
That’s what it looks like to have a love relationship with God, your Maker.
That’s what it looks like to wait on God.

those who wait upon the Lord
shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings as eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
and they shall walk and not faint.

Is. 40:31

Read articles nr. 3 to 7 in “Journey of the heart” about blockages for experiencing God.

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