The Seven Longings of the Human Heart

The Seven Longings of the Human Heart

Book Study on the book by Mike Bickle

March 2011

Summary:

1. The Longing to be Enjoyed by God.

We were created to be enjoyed in a personal way by our Creator.  When we believe this truth we are set free from accusation, rejection, and shame.  He doesn’t just love us, He likes us!  This revelation keeps us  running to Him and not from Him when we mess up.

2. The Longing for Fascination.

God invented the idea of pleasure.  He created us with the desire to be amazed in order to drive us to the Amazing One. Spiritual pleasure resonates at a deeper level than any other pleasure.  He wants us to experience “divine entertainment” and overcome spiritual boredom by plumbing the depths of God.

3. The Longing for Beauty.

We reflect God’s beauty, and we are moved by beauty.  We long to possess beauty, to be striking and engaging.  “We are meant to feel beautiful before God and there is something powerful about those who genuinely do.”  The Holy Spirit wants to show us what God looks like and then show us what we look like to God.   He is the Bridegroom and we are the Bride.  His beauty is transferable to humans though Jesus.

4. The Longing for Greatness.

There is something within the heart of man that yearns to be crowned with greatness.  God satisfies our longing to be great by granting us, His Bride, a position of authority surpassing even the highest ranking angels.  We will rule and reign with Him.  Our nobility is in the Kingdom of Heaven, not of this world.

5. The Longing for Intimacy Without Shame.  

God created us with a profound desire to fully know and to be known without shame.  Loneliness severely breaks and bruises us, and it is not God’s plan for us.  The Father has permitted Jesus to pour His glory out on us now in part, and in fullness in the age to come.  There is a difference between solitude and loneliness.  Worldly counterfeit intimacy is what brings shame.

6. The Longing to be Wholehearted.

You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart is not just a command, it is a prophetic statement.  The time is coming when followers of God will follow Him with wholehearted love, not mindless ritual.  The supernatural work of the Holy Spirit empowers us to walk out full obedience.  We were created for Holy Romance; people who are in love give up a lot less frequently than those who are not in love.  It reduces burnout and reduces temptation.

7. The Longing to make a deep and lasting Impact.

We long to share things with others that change them or bring them joy and goodness.  This is not innately self-serving or a sign of weakness or vanity; it’s an expression of being created in the likeness of God.  We are very important, but only have lasting significance as we walk in obedience to God’s will for our lives.

My Perspective:

The Longing for beauty and for intimacy without shame resonate with me the most.  I have spent a lot of time and effort trying to mask my loneliness and insecurities; trying not to be that cliché single woman in her thirties, desperate for a husband.  It has not been easy living alone and being in a community of friends who are all married.  Somewhere along the line I started to believe I not worthy of love and marriage, and that being single was somehow more holy or virtuous.  I’m not sure how one can hold both opinions at the same time, but I did.  My married friends were envious of me and the freedom I had and I was envious of them with their built in best friend and house full of people.  I wouldn’t even let myself pray for a husband because I was 1) afraid that He would say no, and 2) I was afraid it was a selfish request.  If He knows the true desire of my heart, why should I have to ask Him? I’ve come to the conclusion that I am pretty messed up in this department.  I had done the Song of Songs study and had come to the deepest revelation of God’s love and affection for me than I had ever known, but still felt like longing to be pursued and for a husband and family was wrong.   Hope deferred had truly made my heart sick. (Proverbs 13:12)

The first thing that I was faced with when I arrived and started the internship was loneliness.  I was confronted with the spirit of rejection 3 times in the first week as people prayed and spoke prophetically over me.  I was actually angry and questioning God as I was facing the reality and asked the Lord, “Really? Is this what I came all the way out here for?”  I felt like there were much more important things to focus on.  But finally the 3^rd person helped me pray through and come out of agreement with this spirit of rejection.  At that point I realized that I had developed a huge “back off” sign on my forehead.  I was rejecting people; warning them away from me by my demeanor before they would have a chance to reject me.  I found it really hard to trust new people and certain types of guys and even women.  I was holding on to the hurt and rejection from past encounters and I needed to let go of them and be healed. 

The 2^nd step was confronting my thoughts on desiring a husband and family.  God encountered me through a very wise and Godly couple and showed me that I needed to be praying specifically for my future partner.  Through this encounter I realized that I had believed something about myself and about God that was not true.  He had never called me to be single, but I had projected that fear on Him due to my insecurities about being beautiful and lovable, and due to misguided words of others about being called to singleness.  He began to restore my hope in marriage and I have begun to pray for the one He will send to me. 

The 3^rd step was restoring a right perspective about the goodness of marriage and partnership and raising a family, which He started through a couple of Craig Cook’s sessions.  Further encounter and confirmation came through the “True Feminine” session of Pure Heart.  I have gone through quite a lot emotionally the past couple of weeks trying to get rid of the garbage and believe the truth about how God views me.  I need healing and to come out of agreement with what the world calls beautiful and see myself and others as He sees us.

God has called me to be a Forerunner.  Hi is placing a message inside of me that is busting at the seams to get out of me. I cannot afford a “back off” sign on my spiritual forehead or a fear of rejection that will keep me from speaking truth.  I cannot afford to judge others; appearances the way I have judged my own.  I need God’s perspective  on myself, to truly love myself and see myself as He sees me so that it’s possible to see and love others the same way  So the answer to my own question is “Yes, really.  This is what you came here for.”

I am learning that the longings in my heart are not sinful or selfish; they are part of God’s design to draw us to Him.  While we will never be fully satisfied until we see Him face to face, we can be satisfied in part here on earth if we seek His face and allow the Holy Spirit to transform our desires into the holy desires of God’s will for us.  He created the concept of unity in marriage and raising families.  It is a prophetic picture of our salvation relationship with Jesus.  He has awakened a desire in me for adoption through this whole experience as well.  Especially for crisis pregnancy situations; providing a home for babies saved from planned abortions.  Coming into agreement with how He loves me frees up my heart to receive love from others and to move more freely in the calling He has placed on my life.  It makes me more approachable and makes me more willing to approach others.  A heart free of the clutches of fear of rejection is a heart that can be used for the glory of God and the Harvest of souls.

Fast Forward: February 2013

Since moving to Michigan and pursuing the dreams of God’s heart for my life, I have seen a huge difference in my everyday life.  The healing that I received during my time at IHOP-KC from the Lord has been a gift and has led to an ongoing transformation of my soul.  There is a new found confidence that allows me to look people in the eye, to have the courage to give a ready answer for the hope that lies within me, and to testify to the goodness of His healing Hand.  The Lord has been opening doors for me to be light and to bloom where He has planted me. Situations that I would have shied away from, conversations that I would never have imagined, answers and wisdom that I could never have come to on my own, have become the norm in my life.  I have been able to embrace the fact that I am introverted but not be shy, and not to use it as a reason to isolate myself from the unknown.  I have come to trust the Spirit that lives within me to give me the words to say (and NOT to say) in any and all given situations.  He is faithful and true.  He is Healer.  And He uses weak and broke people to declare these truths.

the miracle of the missing mini-notebook...

I love being able to share this testimony to the power of God.

A couple of weeks ago on a Friday morning, I consciously made the decision to leave my mini-notebook computer in my room. Normally I take it everywhere I go. But on this day, I knew that the schedule was intense and I would not even have a moment to open it. So I left it lying on my bed, where I had been using it to listen to the prayer room while getting ready for class.

When I returned home around 10:30 pm, I began clearing things off of my bed so I could go to sleep. I realized that the computer was not sitting there and began looking for it. It was no where to be found, though the cord and the slipcover were still sitting there. I went downstairs, walked through the house looking around, and then asked Amy if she had seen it. It was not downstairs either. I went back to my room and looked again. It was definitely gone.

For the previous couple weeks Amy and Stan had been having the house painted; mostly outside, but the deal also included the inside foyer. That day Amy had paid them and they had packed everything up, even though they were supposed to return on Saturday for some touch up work. We quickly realized that one of the painters must have taken it, and since there was only 1 in the house that day, we knew which one.

Amy stopped payment on her check and Stan started calling and texting the two men who had been working on the house. To protect the "not-so-innocent", we will name our painters Bert and Ernie. Bert was hired for the job, and he asked his brother-in-law, Ernie, to help him out.

On that fateful Friday, Bert had been painting the foyer and hallway in front of the bedrooms. Amy gave Bert the check, and he and Ernie cleaned up all of the equipment and left. They deposited Amy's check into Ernie's bank, and Ernie went ahead and gave Bert his half, even though the check hadn't actually cleared. Ernie was the only one who returned Stan's messages, and it was quickly obvious that he knew nothing about it. He was upset that the check would not go through, especially since he had basically just paid Bert out of his own pocket. Stan told him that unless the computer was returned he would not issue a new check. So Ernie started working on my behalf to secure the computer, even though Bert hadn't even admitted taking it yet. I started praying and left it in the Lord's hands.

Monday was my day off, so I took the time to speak to a police officer and make a report of the theft. He agreed that we should continue to pursue Ernie since he was trying to be helpful and he would call him as well to encourage him to talk to Bert on my behalf. Ernie finally got a confession out of Bert when he told him that the laptop was only worth maybe $350 brand new, maybe $100 if he pawned it. He said "It' only worth $350??" and Ernie had his proof. Ernie offered to go and pick up the computer and bring it to me, because Bert had also confessed to having open warrants out for his arrest already. By 6:00 Monday evening, 3 days after the theft, Ernie was back on our doorstep with the computer in hand.

But wait! There's more!!

When I opened the computer to make sure that it was ok, there was a strange password screen on it. My password didn't work. I didn't panic because Stan is an IT Guru, and I figured he could fix it for me. So I handed Ernie the new check and thanked him for his help. A few minutes later Stan came to take a look at it, and he said that a "bios password" (I'm not sure of spelling, nor definition!) had been intentionally placed on the hard drive to keep me out of it. We had to get that information from Bert to get it open. Stan contacted Ernie and said that if he didn't get the password that he was going to cancel the second check.

When Ernie called Bert, Bert denied ever even opening the computer. There was no way, however, that it happened any other way. This is where the other half of the miracle comes into play. Ernie asked someone in their relational sphere and they happened to know that Bert used a particular password on several online accounts. Ernie let us know what it was, and it was exactly the right password! Seriously, this all happened in about 20 minutes time after I got the computer back. Basically, Bert had put the password on the computer to be hateful. Bert probably would have never given it up! It was by the Sovereign hand of God that we got the right password on the first try. I opened the computer and everything else was intact.

In my thank you note to Ernie, I let him know that I was a missionary in town for training and that the computer had been a gift to aid me in ministry. I looked up the definition of his name, and in Hebrew it means Faithful and Bold, so I shared that with him and that I believed God used him to bring justice to my circumstance. I let him know how much it meant to me that he had the courage and boldness to retrieve the computer, to look me in the eye and to apologize for something he hadn't even done. I had the opportunity speak life and encouragement into this man that I didn't even know. Stan also agreed to not pro-rate the check and allow Ernie to finish the job. Ernie was shown a measure of mercy from Stan, myself, and the police officer that is supernatural and can only happen through the grace of God.

I give God the glory for orchestrating this entire event. He heard my cry for Him to make the wrong things right, and He gave me the opportunity to testify to the goodness of His Name in the process.