Something that has perplexed me since being here at IHOP, every night I am in the prayer room from midnight to 6 a.m, and since being here getting to know quite a few people here that I have gotten to know and have a pretty good relationship with, I always wondered why I would just get this lifted spirit when they would walk by while pacing, or I would see them in the hallway when I would get water. Or by some random chance I end up sitting next to them through the whole night. I always thought it was something weird, but it turns out that the familiarity of someone, and the safeness that we feel when being around someone we know, is just a natural reaction after spending hours on end engaging spiritually with a bunch of people that I haven't a clue about.
A few days ago it was about 4 a.m and I was just absolutely getting to a point of exhaustion from the day past, and didn't see how I was going to make it the last 2 hours of the night. I was pacing up and down the aisle in the back pondering these thoughts when Mark walks in the door after coming back from the restroom and walk right by me. In that moment there wasn't a person that I would have rather seen. All of a sudden my spirits were lifted, I was energized, and ready to finish out the night. I don't know what it was, but my spirit get like this shot of adrenaline after he walked by me. Just having the simple thought in my head that, "Oh, I know you, I like you a lot, I know that you know, that you know what is going through my head and it gives me encouragement to know that you know this!" Lou Engle said something in one of his sermons that has stuck with me, there's something about confessing your sins to one another, and helping each other by praying for one another, and then seeing him later outside of that environment and knowing that you are clean to the max! Just knowing that Mark is human, and he has struggles, and I have struggles, yet we are both in this thing together, running sprinting, kicking, and crawling our way towards the intimacy of Jesus with every night we spend in the prayer room.
Sunday night we had our song of solomon class taught by Sada, which I always thoroughly enjoy. She talked briefly about this feeling of seeing someone in the prayer room that we know and being encouraged by it, and it was just funny because it spoke directly to me. Her point in sharing about this was that she had a tip for us. The tip was that as we pace through the nights that we would be praying that Jesus, because a real man, that we would walk into Him. That we would be just pacing back and forth and all of a sudden Jesus walks in the room and lifts our heart to a deeper desire to search after Him as He so intrigues us. I loved this concept so last night and tonight I have been praying that I would encounter Jesus in a real way. That He would speak to me when I go out to get some water, that he would walk by me as I pace reading His Word. That as Mark lifts my heart when he walks by, so would Jesus enlarge my love for Him as He encounters me in some way, whatever it may be.
Even as I was writing this Mark walked by and seriously without even thinking there was just a, "Oh, I like that guy alot." Going on in my head. I could actually feel a comfort in just seeing him. I'm gonna go pray some more that Jesus would lift my heart in the same way.
Strength & Honor,
Grace & Peace.
Isaac
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