If our hearts don't have anything that it breaks for, there are still roads to tread between God's heart and our own. We must press in until we arrive there. Likewise, if our hearts don't have anything to hope for at the moment when tragedy and trials present themselves, it could only mean that there is a distance of sort in which we must walk, with the Spirit, to get closer to God's heart. It is crucial. This is especially for those who say they want to be or are a praying community. For those who have chosen to stand in the gap for others through prayer, perhaps the depth of both shall only increase together, until hope is all there is left.

--Entry from mid December 2014

My spirit grieves tonight as I recognize the disciplines I have neglected and failed to keep up. I grieve for a reason beyond this; it is the people I have neglected as a result. As a result of not having spent time in the Word, and carefully upholding it as the Bread of Life, I have as a result lost a kind of sensitivity and urgency of the saving grace of God and His will for his people. Lost touch with his purpose- to seek and save the lost. I felt the times where I have grieved the Spirit. I had just begun to read The Journals of Jim Elliot a few days ago. Even in his early entries it is evident how deep his convictions were. This neglect of the time spent with Him has led me to a perpetual state of rambling prayers that sort of, and sort of didn't, come from my heart. Deep down in me, I know sort-of's just do not, and will not, make the mark. Like Hendricks writes in his book, it is a sort of prayer that comes from someone who is "catching up on his prayer life, and scrapes the Milky Way and takes a tour of the mission field and reviews his theology." Which, he states the probability that Peter would've gone 20 feet under water had he prayed that prayer in the moment he was sinking into the water, as supposed to saying "the most beautifully concise prayer in the Bible: 'Lord, save me.'"

I grieved yet again as I read Amy's blog. She wrote of a few beautiful memories and stories of those on the streets of NY she had once ministered to. Those she mentioned have all past away as of today. I grieve as I think of many people on the streets do possibly die without anyone knowing their names, and particularly for those of whom with genuine desires for change in their struggles and brokenness, yet lacked the strength through the love of a friend to make that first step. There has never been anything as fulfilling than having met Chuck, Pyro, James, and others I have met when I was in Austin and SF. I grieved because I had forgotten how beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news. I grieved because there has been little people, like those whom Amy ministers to in NY, to boast and honor lately. How long will they remain nameless? The only comfort I find in this is knowing that the Lord knows even the numbers on their head. But there must be something in us encountering these people, and obeying Him in this way, that the Lord saw was necessary as part of his redemptive plan for the world.

Lord, I only ask that you teach me, once again, to see with your heart. I do not want to see more familiar strangers whom I know you've moved my heart to love, yet I only stand, or drive by, in a distance. You are not a God of distance.

In this year and a half, I fear that I have watched my heart grown more lukewarm. For reasons that I have swept away or built walls to keep out.

Does my heart still know You well?

Perfect love drives out fear.

---
John 14

15 “If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be[c] in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21 Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”

22 Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?”

23 Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

25 “All this I have spoken while still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

28 “You heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. 29 I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe. 30 I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold over me,31 but he comes so that the world may learn that I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded me.

“Come now; let us leave.