The Peculiar Flow

I was reading Psalm 5, and when I finished, I started praying.

But my prayer surprised me.

Psalm 5 speaks plainly about wickedness, deceit, evil, and those who do wrong. And naturally, my mind went to the dishonesty I have been dealing with in my court case.

I could have prayed for exposure.

I could have prayed for judgment.

I could have prayed for everything they had done to come crashing back down on them.

But instead, I heard myself saying:

“Lord, I don’t want them to come to disaster. I want them to come to You. We are better together. Change their hearts. Make them come to You.”

And almost immediately, I was reminded of a familiar scripture:

“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways…”

2 Chronicles 7:14.

So I went there.

And while I was reading 2 Chronicles 7, God brought an old dream back to my remembrance.

In the dream, I had been brought into this intensely bright place.

Everything was white.

There were no details I could really make out. No furniture. No scenery. No distractions. Just overwhelming light.

I was wearing what I described at the time as burlap, almost like sackcloth. I somehow knew I was in the presence of God, and I also knew I had come exactly as I was.

Then He asked me a question:

“What do you think is keeping you from moving forward?”

At the time, I assumed He meant success.

So I started giving Him the answers I had rehearsed in my own mind.

My anxiety.

My depression.

My fear of speaking.

The things I believed had been holding me back.

And as I confessed each one, something started happening.

A whirlwind began coming from my stomach.

It felt as though the things I was naming were being pulled out of me as I confessed them.

But when I finished naming everything I thought was wrong, the whirlwind didn’t stop.

It grew.

It expanded from me until it started pulling up everything around me.

I was standing in what felt like the eye of a tornado, watching the floor beneath me and the space around me get ripped away.

And I remember crying out:

“God, I just needed You to take the anxiety. Why would You take what I’m standing on?”

And He answered:

“Even what you’re standing on has to change.”

For a long time, I thought He was talking about confidence.

I thought He was rebuilding the way I saw myself.

And maybe that was part of it.

But now I understand something deeper.

It wasn’t only about removing anxiety.

It was about purification.

Because sometimes we ask God to remove the obvious things that hurt while never realizing there are other things underneath them that have become part of what we stand on.

Pain can produce pride.

Rejection can produce arrogance.

Betrayal can produce bitterness.

Fear can produce control.

Being mistreated can make vengeance feel justified.

And because those things grew out of something that genuinely hurt us, we may not even recognize what they have become.

We call it protecting ourselves.

We call it discernment.

We call it having boundaries.

We call it knowing better now.

Meanwhile, God may be looking underneath all of it and saying:

“Even what you’re standing on has to change.”

That is what 2 Chronicles 7:14 stirred in me.

“If my people…”

God was not speaking to people who did not know His name.

He was speaking to His people.

People who prayed.

People who belonged to Him.

People who could call on Him.

And yet He still said there must be humility.

There must be seeking.

There must be turning.

It made me wonder how many people are talking to God while still carrying things in their hearts that keep them from experiencing the depth of His presence He desires for them.

Not because God has abandoned them.

Not because He does not love them.

But because closeness with God has a way of exposing what cannot remain.

Psalm 24 asks:

“Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place?”

And the answer includes:

“He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart.”

That word stopped me.

Pure.

Not perfect.

Pure.

A heart that can remain soft before God even after life has given it every reason to harden.

A heart that can be wronged and still pray for the person doing the wrong.

A heart that can ask for truth without craving destruction.

A heart that wants justice without becoming consumed by vengeance.

A heart that can walk through a storm without allowing the storm to decide what lives inside of it.

That is the victory.

I could win a court case and still lose something far more valuable if I allowed bitterness to become the foundation I stood on.

I could be proven right and still leave the situation carrying pride, hatred, resentment, or revenge.

But what if the greater victory is that I can walk through injustice and still enter the presence of God with a heart that says:

“Save them too.”

What if purification is not God taking something from me, but God protecting my access to what is greater?

His presence.

His voice.

His peace.

His heart.

I understand the dream differently now.

God was not simply removing anxiety from me.

He was challenging the foundation.

The things I blamed.

The things I hid behind.

The things pain had deposited.

The things I had normalized.

Even the things that felt small.

Because when God is drawing us deeper, He will address things we did not know were standing between where we are and where He is calling us.

And purification is not always gentle.

Sometimes it feels like everything underneath you is being removed.

Sometimes the things you thought were keeping you safe have to go.

Sometimes the identity you built around what happened to you has to go.

Sometimes God answers, “Take this away,” by reaching much deeper than the thing you originally named.

But now I understand why.

I want a pure heart.

I want a contrite heart before God.

I want to be able to hear Him when everything around me is loud.

I want to be able to enter His presence without carrying hatred for someone He still desires to save.

I want to walk through fire without becoming fire toward everybody else.

And I know now that this kind of heart does not happen accidentally.

It requires surrender.

It requires humility.

It requires repentance.

It requires allowing God to show you what pain planted in you.

And sometimes it requires praying for people you would have once asked Him to punish.

So my prayer has changed.

Lord, purify our hearts.

Not just the obvious places.

Go beneath what we can see.

Pull out what pain planted.

Pull out what betrayal planted.

Pull out what rejection planted.

Pull out whatever pride grew around the places where we once felt powerless.

Teach us to seek justice without becoming cruel.

Teach us to tell the truth without hatred.

Teach us to endure storms without allowing them to contaminate our hearts.

And if what we are standing on cannot carry us into the place You are calling us, then change what we are standing on.

Because being right is not enough for me.

Winning is not enough for me.

I want Your presence.

And if purification is the cost of remaining close to You, then Lord, keep my heart pure.