Knowing the God Who LOVES You and MEETS You in the Secret Place

Where do you go to commune with God? 

Do you go to a chapel or a church?  to a favorite place near a stream, at a mountain retreat, or on a beach? Do you go to a "prayer closet," a special place in your own home?

Or maybe you are frustrated because there never seems to be a time and a "place" where you can go. Maybe you're a mom with young children or a special needs child. Perhaps you are a working mom or a worker who needs to moonlight at a second job to make ends meet. Maybe you or a loved one has a handicap or serious illness that takes you to services and medical places that seem to consume your life. Where is the place for you?

I have good news for all of us who know God through His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. There's a place where we each can go ... at any time, at any place, without special clothing, without travel, without special access, without expense, without religious paraphernalia, without anything ... except our eternal souls, beloved by our God and united to Him in the deepest of the deep ... the place of our union in our spirit with Him.

Can I tell you about how I began to learn about this place of communion ... this “deep place where nobody goes* or can go?

For me it was at a very dark time in our family. Our then 20 year old son Jeremy had just walked through the trial of his young life of faith. He had been diagnosed with cancer in January of that year.

After a long surgery and a radioactive iodine treatment, Jeremy was cancer free. We were elated but exhausted. All I can say is that God carried us through ... and His Presence was almost tangible!

But then about a month later, our 16 year old daughter came to us with the scary news of having also found several lumps. So, of course, we went to the oncologist and found out that they were indeed tumors. Suspecting that they could be benign because of her age, the doctor decided a "wait and see" strategy for a couple months would be wise, to see if the tumors might start to shrink on their own.

And so we waited … 

And that's when intense darkness descended upon this mama's soul. The "waiting game" was a killer! 

The DARKNESS all around me!

One dark morning on my way to teach my preschool class, with the horrific possibility of having two children with cancer obsessing my mind, my conversation with the Lord went like this:

Lord, How can this be happening? How can we have two children with cancer? What kind of toxic waste-dump have we been living in?

After more struggle and questioning, God assured me that He was doing a work in our family. I replied, 

I trust you are doing something, Lord, and I don't have to understand it all. But how, as Mom, do I make it through?

Clear as a bell in the darkness of the pre-dawn, the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart,

Go to the place where you and I live together and nothing can touch.

Not cancer, not the darkness, not people, not circumstances, nothing! 

Even though I didn't totally understand, I went there ... to that deep inner place of soul/spirit union with my God. And there I experienced the Peace that passes understanding! 

But then when I would begin to look at the darkness and upheaval all around, chosing instead to live again on the "surface place where everyone lives,"* I would go back into turmoil.

I made it through the back and forth action of my soul ... deep place of peace, then surface place of turmoil ... back and forth, but all the while I was learning.

Over the years since that hard but glorious lesson, I have learned to go day by day to that secret place where God and I live together. I don't have to be in any special geographic place. Although I love my beach days of communion with God, those days are rare. But my times of communion with my God are every day ... any time of the day or night and any place at all. 

And they are for you too (or can be), my dear sisters and brothers! Go to the Secret Place where you live together with your God, the deep place where no one else can go and nothing that comes at you can touch.

Then you and I can go out to the “surface place where everyone lives”* and bring the fullness of Christ Who lives in us to the people and circumstances all around us each day. 

Lord, teach me to commune with You in the place where we live together — the place of spirit union where it’s just You and me. Teach me that you are more than enough for anything I will face today.
And Lord, teach me how, because of that place of immunity, I am totally safe & secure in the One Who knows me and LOVES me. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

… To you the night shines as bright as day.
Darkness and light are the same to you.
Psalm 139:12 NLT

*from Jill Briscoe, The Deep Place Where Nobody Goes