My husband had a huge preaching tape collection when we got married. If you remember from my post about our story (the early days), his love for preaching, preachers, and God’s Word was one of the things that actually attracted me to him in the first place.
Well, you know how life has a way of making us become so busy. Sometimes, we simply lose our focus. As the years went by, we didn’t listen to his old preaching tapes as much. Oh, don’t get me wrong—we still listened to some preaching. Holinesspreachingonline.com was/is a valuable resource for us! But a lot of those tapes in the collection he had— those old messages of glory (some where we were even present at some of those meetings and personally won spiritual victories during those services!!) ceased to be played in our home. Some of the reason being that cassette tapes have become almost obselete in this day of fast technology. Our cars no longer had tape decks installed in them. Our old tape player got old and didn’t play well anymore and gradually, those old tapes got relegated to dusty totes in storage in our basement. They stayed there for many, many years—unseen and untouched, almost forgotten.
But the Lord has really been “stirring up my nest” this year. As I started my pursuit after God, I have slowly begun to find Him. (Sometimes in the smallest of ways or in the most remarkable of places!!)
I know 2020 was such a hard year for all of us. That isolation and removal from normalcy really did a number on a lot of us. Due to being unable to attend church in person, we began to listen to a lot of churches on Mixlr and even supplemented that with great sermons by mighty Holiness men of God listed on Holinesspreachingonline.com when we could. Holiness Voices Radio (app) also became a huge help to our home to set an atmosphere to invite God’s presence to dwell with us. Where we couldn’t go to church in person, we realized our need to do something to feed the Spirit. We couldn’t just do nothing at all !!
Through all that, I began to really realize the need to stay engulfed in the Word, whether through holiness singing or through preaching. I dearly missed our church services. But due to the law of neglect, gradually, due to circumstances beyond our control, by default, we all begin to grow more and more carnal. (One good example as to why God instructed us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together— Don’t miss church!! Whether you think you do or not, YOU DO NEED IT! )
When we were able to return to church finally, someone said, “Are you farther along spiritually this year than you were last year?” That comment smote my heart. As I reflected and looked back over the previous year, ( and yes, I do realize it hadn’t been a typical year—it was a crazy, abnormal, difficult year for us all) but I couldn’t point to ANY major spiritual victories or even any spiritual ground gained; I didn’t see any significant spiritual progress in my walk with God. Yeah, I held on! I didn’t even entertain the idea of quitting but I had been rocked into a sense of complacency. I realized I wasn’t actively pursuing after God!! While I may have went through the motions and said and done all the right things, my heart wasn’t really in it. There is so much more to walking with God than a simple head knowledge!! My hunger for Him wasn’t all consuming! My heart wasn’t longing for Him anymore! I was at ease in Zion!!
My vision to do a work for Him had dimmed significantly as well. (Proverbs 29:18 --Where there is no vision, the people perish) I had trouble seeing beyond my own nose or the four walls of my own home to the struggles and the needs around me, nor did I try to reach out to try to be a blessing to anyone else. Oh, I said I wanted to help or to do a work for God with my lips. But I didn’t ever put legs on my words.
As I examined myself and realized the spiritual state I was in, I was smote with conviction. I knew what it was like to walk in fellowship with God on an intimate level. Yes, there is a price to pay to get there, it IS a narrow way! but you can’t replicate that feeling any other way! There is such a joy knowing you are walking in right relationship with God. I began to repent and ask God to revive and revisit my soul again!!
It didn’t happen instantly. I hadn’t got in that shape over night and I didn’t climb out of it overnight. But gradually over the last year, I have seen God do miraculous things in my own heart. He has really been “stirring up” my nest!! And you know what ?? I don’t mind it one bit!! I am finally once again happy! I can honestly say God HAS restored to me the joy of my salvation!!
It doesn’t take much to make me cry anymore. This is such a huge deal! I went months and months, rarely being moved to tears by anything, at least, not spiritually. I felt so dry and empty inside. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to feel God nor I was rebellious. I simply had not been fervent in feeding my spirit. I had allowed my flesh way too much say in my life. I catered to it. I pampered it. I didn’t make it do anything uncomfortable.
And I was miserable inside.
There is no true happiness outside of God. Look at King Solomon. In Ecclesiastes, he tells us that very same thing. He tried it all. There wasn’t anything he withheld from his flesh. But in the end, he was just as unhappy and unfulfilled as before, if not more so.
Possessions, power, prestige, things, even relationships alone, can not complete us. When God made us, he placed a void down deep inside our souls that only HE can fill. He made us to experience that empty feeling inside so we would search for Him. That void is God shaped. Only He can fill it. People have tried for ages to fill it with other things—illicit drugs, promiscuity, alcohol, fame, fortune, power, prestige, esteem, money, pride—but not one of those things have ever came close to filling that hole inside.
As I began to feed the Spirit once again, I gradually became more and more receptive to God’s Word, His will, and His ways! The more I sought Him, the closer he drew near to me. The “weights” that I had been hanging onto began to seem less and less important to me. One by one, I forgot about why they had been so important to me, anyway. My old, hard, calloused heart was once again becoming tender, fertile ground for His Word!
My prayer became as the Psalmist in Psalm 51:
[1] Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. [2] Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. [3] For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. [4] Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. [5] Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. [6] Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. [7] Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. [8] Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. [9] Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. [10] Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. [11] Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. [12] Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit. [13] Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee. [14] Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. [15] O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise. [16] For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it : thou delightest not in burnt offering. [17] The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
I am pleased to report to you that He has indeed done just that in my life!! Once again, I can feel His Spirit dwelling in my heart. I can feel His leading, His unction, and His peace!
I am sure not perfect, nor have I “recovered all” I need to yet. But finally, I am once again back on the right track—I am on the pursuit to “recover all.”
It has become my all consuming passion!
Several months ago, when my husband’s papaw passed away, he “inherited” a cassette player from helping to clean out his papaw’s estate. We brought it home and cleaned it up. It worked just fine! Later, I bought another cassette tape player with an adapter to make the cassette player compatible for use in our car. I had my husband bring up those dusty totes full of preaching tapes and I began to sort through them all. (Where I was already walking in fellowship with God and He had already been long at work on my heart) when I began to go through those old tapes, reading the titles, preacher’s names, I immediately began to recall some of those old messages and those anointed men of God. Tears sprang to my eyes. My heart swelled with such emotion. I looked at Bill, and said, “I feel like I have just opened a treasure chest! These are priceless treasures!!”
Those totes were full of “those hidden treasures of the heart!!”
We have since been re-listening and absorbing those foundational truths that our movement was build upon. In today’s world of cancel culture, the woke movement, and political correctness, it was so refreshing to this Mama’s heart to hear the meaty truth of God’s Word and His commandments spoken with a Holy boldness, without fear of repercussion! (Despite some of those messages having been preached 20, 30, 40, and some, even 50 years before!, they were just as relevant for today! It sounded like the preacher was preaching right to us in our day, whether it was 1985, 1998, 2001, or 2011. (which goes to show you that the battles haven’t changed. The Devil is still the same! The outer dressings of the sins may have changed names, but the root sins are still the same, despite the generation gap!)
As a family, we have purposed in our heart to try to seek after God! He has done His part. We have found Him to always be near—
His presence is worth it ALL!!
It is gonna take a closer walk to make it in this last day!!
Let’s surrender to God completely and allow Him to help us, as women of God, to seek after His Spirit!! We need Him more now than every before!!
Psalm 42:1-2 —As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God:
From my heart to yours,
-Tiphanie ❤️
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