Longing For His Appearing

A while back, I read a series by Shawn Blanc about Aposotlic Blogging, where he was challenging writers of the blogging world to recognize that they have a voice and to use their blog as a platform for proclaiming the message that God had given them.  This started me on a journey of asking myself the question, “Do I have something of value worth saying?”  My blog had the occassional meaningful post, but mostly it was “one random post after another”, as Shawn put it.  It wasn’t until recently that I created this new blog to focus on writing that had more depth and purpose, while still allowing myself to write about the more random events of life in my sister blog.

At the same time, ever since I began to seek to write with purpose and ask God what message He would have me proclaim, I have had the constant reminder of what Shawn mentioned in a post about the necessity for a life of encounter with God in order to have an apostolic blog.

…you have to fight for that secret place with God. You have to fight for time with God. Time in the Word. Time in Prayer. This is your only hope for so much more than just a good weblog. You have to live a life of encounter.

This has really challenged me as a writer and a blogger because if I truly desire to be a prophetic messenger through the medium of the Internet, then I cannot rely on clever words and posts while having a shallow relationship with God and no depth in the Word.  This has propelled me to seek God in a new way, to seek after His heart and find out what He is saying and what He is doing.  Over the last couple weeks, He has been speaking to me on several different topics as I’ve been studying and praying, yet I’ve been reluctant to write about any of it yet.  I want to allow Him to place a burning within me and I want to be able to write with authority that can only come from long hours of meditation and communion with Him.  Allow me to quote Shawn once more…

Call me logical, but you can’t say something without first having something to say. And if you really want to touch people then you have to have more than just words. You need a reality. You need sincerity and anointing. You need a genuine encounter with God…Remember, intimacy with God comes above everything else. If you have a burden to use your site to touch deeper things in God, then you need to have an even higher vision for your own heart.

So while I feel the itch to write and it sort of bugs me to go for longer periods without posting, these words ring true with me – intimacy with Him must come first.  I’ve been enjoying the revelation He’s been touching my heart with more than ever and I truly hope it will be worth the wait.  I desire His anointing to be a messenger in this age, whether it’s through blogging, through singing at our house of prayer, or through coffee with a friend – I want to be a voice that is more than a “clanging gong” and actually has substance that comes from time spent in the secret place.