Agreeing With God's Heart and Leadership!

There are a lot of different tangents I could go off on when talking about the subject of agreement. Mostly, we hear about the importance of agreement in prayer – having another person to stand with us in agreement believing the Lord for something. And that is so important - agreeing with each other in prayer. We don’t, as often, consider the Lord’s heart as one who is looking for someone to agree with Him. I believe this is a key to pursuing and having a more intimate relationship and partnership with Him. In better terms, God is looking for friends.

The best example I can think of when thinking about partnership is the relationship between a wife and husband. If they are not in agreement on key issues, it’s just not going to work. It doesn’t mean one is controlling or manipulating the other. There is a freedom for both husband and wife to have their own personality. Yet, it is vitally important for them to have the same values when it comes to making decisions in their lives. That is what the Lord is wanting – that we would have His values – to really partner with Him. He doesn’t want our relationship to be like a master/slave relationship, to where we don’t have a brain. He wants to hear our hearts and He wants to communicate back with us. We can speak our wants and desires to Him, and He wants to share the secrets of His hearts with us. A lot of times we are really good at talking to Him, but listening is a lot harder. He has so much He wants to tell you about your personal life and everything that is involved with it! Do you see how this type of relationship is a two way, not one way type of relationship? We walk with Him together in partnership. Yes, we can have this kind of friendship with God. It’s not limited to the pastor, worship leader, or person on the stage on Sunday mornings (thank goodness). It’s for every grandma, child, full-time worker, and homeless person. It’s for anyone. And everyone! It’s for the person who has made a lot of mistakes and for the person that has a lot of ugly issues. It’s for the poor, the rich, and everyone in between! His heart is big enough for all of us and He really is wanting friends!

This kind of friendship with God does not happen automatically. It takes work. It takes discipline. It takes time. It’s not always easy for us to quiet our hearts enough to actually listen to His goals, His thoughts, and His leadership strategies (or just for His whispers of "I love you"). We are quick to jump into what we think is best (so many times He does bless this!), when He is wanting us to stop and listen to what He would have us do. It’s leaning upon His wisdom, His guidance, His timing, and His judgments on decisions in our lives. It’s about trusting Him and knowing He is good. And it’s not easy, but it is key to partnership with Him and living under His leadership. He is the perfect and best leader!

Not only does He want us to stop, listen, and agree with His plans for our lives, but also with His thoughts and emotions towards us as well as those around us. It’s nothing magical or overly spiritual. It’s simple. He wants us to agree with Him and believe that we are loved and wanted by Him. He wants us to agree with Him that He loves to hear our voice and He wants us to come near to Him. He wants us to agree with Him that we are never alone. He wants us to agree with His heart that He is not disappointed with us or mad at us. Sometimes when I am in a rut, I make myself say it outloud, "I AM YOUR FAVORITE. I AM SO LOVED BY YOU. I AM BEAUTIFU TO YOU. YOUR HEART IS FOR ME. I AM THE APPLE OF YOUR EYE." Sometimes it takes awhile to break through, but sooner or later the heaviness lifts and my heart experiences His pleasure over me again. Peace comes. The accuser wants us to stay in that place of yuckiness when the Lord has a better place for us - the place of experiencing His pleasure over our lives. The words that come out of our mouth does take root in our hearts. Begin to proclaim truth out of your mouth. Pray it. Sing it. Read it. Write it. Tell it.

Then, He wants us to agree with His heart about someone else. This is the most powerful thing on the earth – to agree with God’s heart about someone else. It’s powerful because how God views us is amazingly different than we view ourselves and how we view others. He loves differently. If we can fill our hearts and minds on the love of the Father about ourselves, He will surely give us a bit of His heart for others. In doing so, we can be His hand and heart extended to another. When we agree with God about ourselves, we will be the most confident, yet humble people on the earth. Why? Because we are not ignorant of our humanity. We know that we are all a little disfunctional. And when we realize that God sees that, and HE STILL LOVES US EXTRAVAGANTLY, we can't help but have a meek and humble heart before this kind of God. He wants us to be confident and in agreement with Him about ourselves, and then about others. Bottom line - God wants friendship. God wants friendship with YOU!