One thing I love about God is that He is obsessed with pursuing me until ALL of my heart is His. The same is true of all God’s children – He wants to lavish His love on them and reveal the intimate depths of His love for them; however, in order to do that He has to uproot whatever has captured their hearts in His place (aka idols). For me, this digging process started slowly and has been gradual: Holy Spirit will reveal big things in my heart, then in response to God’s kindness and mercy, I repent and turn from them. However, as I continue to walk with my Father day by day, He continues to show me just how deeply the roots of certain problems and sins run in my heart. Thankfully my Father is a patient gardener, and He keeps working on my heart, plowing away until I have a complete heart of flesh in place of my former heart of stone.

During my DTS at YWAM Kauai God helped me to keep track of some of my “heart check appointments” and trace how God has been digging deeper and deeper into my heart to uproot falsely planted beliefs.

September 13, 2016
During lecture in Week 1, we learned about the importance of discipleship (making Jesus your Lord first, then your Savior – a key foundational Truth for any believer).

If you know me personally, you know that I am a very studious person. I was a straight A student in high school and college, graduating high school as co-valedictorian and college as Magna Cum Laude. I love learning, so I really enjoyed lecture at YWAM. What I didn’t realize, however, was that I was placing my identity in who I was as a student and carrying a performance-based mentality. What this means is I felt like if I wasn’t the best student, I wasn’t good enough. If I didn’t have all the right answers, I wasn’t worthy. If my performance did not impress, I was no longer Tiffany. Little did I know, God was shortly going to break this news to me through the conviction of the Holy Spirit.

“What does holiness mean?” the teacher asked our class one night during lecture.

My mind immediately started racing as I blurted out every answer of every word I associated with holiness: “Righteousness!” “Consecration!” “Purity!” Much to my chagrin, every answer I offered was wrong. The teacher responded with a quick and definite “No” after every single one of my suggestions. I was appalled that my answers weren’t the one he was looking for. Due to wounded pride, my face burned and I responded in instant anger: anger towards myself for being wrong and anger towards him for telling me I was wrong.

On the walk home from class that night, I isolated myself and yelled internally at God: “I know I’m not supposed to be mad! Why am I so angry about being wrong? Ugh!”

When I got back to our base, I sat on the couch with my journal and vented to God. At first I told Him that I was angry because I disagreed with teachers “who blatantly tell students their answers are wrong. That ruins self-esteem and confidence.” Of course, I was only pointing the finger at the teacher to get the focus of wrongdoing off myself; he was completely justified in telling his students that their answers weren’t correct, but my pride at first prevented me from admitting this.

After I wrote that down, God gently said, “Okay, let’s get to the root of the problem.” After I yielded to my Abba and invited Him to heal me, He showed me a few things I didn’t know were in my heart:

• Fear of rejection
• Pride
• Anxiety
• Jealousy

My comforting Father let me know that my identity is not in how much knowledge I possess, and I need more humility because I don’t like being wrong.

By taking a step back and listening to what my God had to say, I learned that pride tells me I just won’t answer voluntarily in class anymore. For fear of rejection. For anger and disappointment at being wrong. For having higher expectations for myself. For thinking the anxiety was gone. For being jealous when someone else gets the answer right. For not being the best or the smartest or most favorite. Listening to this pride would have been the same as listening to the voice of the enemy and letting him limit how much the Lord encountered me through lecture.

So this was the first step in learning to recognize the enemy’s voice and distinguish it from my Father’s voice. Satan wanted me to sulk and reject my teacher’s instruction because it brought up pain in my heart. God wanted me to use this moment to learn that there is a lot in my heart He yearns to free me from.

In my journal, I said this to God: “I know I won’t ever be Your favorite. It makes me wonder if I’ll ever be anyone’s favorite. Selfish, I know. But…I want to be Your best friend. I want to soak You in and take in all You have to offer and just make You proud. Wanting to impress You sounds incorrect, but I just want to please You and bless Your heart. I don’t want to be a failure in Your eyes. Cleanse me and make me like You. Don’t leave me like I am. I need You, Father. Let the meditation of my heart and my thoughts be pleasing in Your sight, oh Lord. My vision is too introspective. My eyes need to be on You and Your glory.”

Whether I believed it or not, God clearly heard this prayer of mine and was quick to let me know the next week during lecture…

September 21, 2016
The following week our guest speaker Christian Fox taught on hearing God’s voice (my favorite topic). Throughout the week he shared prophetic words from God for our class.

*Prophetic words are basically whatever God is trying to speak to you at that moment. They could be about what God has brought you through, what He’s doing in you now, or what He has for you in the future.

It’s beautiful to consider how God persistently speaks to His children, even sometimes through strangers. Christian Fox didn’t know any of us at all, but it was clear that he knew our heavenly Daddy. Before coming to our base, he asked God to give him a message for each person on my team. This was mine:

“The Lord sees you and He knows you, and you are fully loved and accepted by Him. Your identity can’t be found in anything other than His unconditional love and perfect view of you. I feel like God says ‘I’m proud of you’… I feel like all He saw was…pleasure, smiling, just like… when your kids do something amazing… Like, ‘Oh My gosh, that’s Mine. That’s My kid right there, you know?’ … He sees His pleasure over you. I actually heard this word: ‘sweetheart.’ As you seek His face, He’ll show you more of His love for you and His people. And I feel like… you already have it but even moreso this real, true intimacy and closeness with the Father. And then I had Psalm 27:7-9, 13 and 14.”

Of course I was sobbing by the time he was finished sharing his words. My Dad heard me. He saw me. Me knows me. Despite my pride and fear and misplaced identity, He loves me and is proud of me, regardless of my performance. His love for me cannot be earned. 

This lesson, however, just scratched the surface. Over the course of my DTS, Abba made sure to remind me over and over again of His Truth in order to heal my heart from the strongholds placed on me, rooted in the lies of the enemy. He opened my eyes to so many specific truths, and I learned that God’s truth is the weapon with which we fight the battle against the enemy.

November 5, 2017
So here I sit, over a year later. Now I’m living in a different community in a different state and going through different challenges, but God is still teaching me the same lessons. He’s so patient, ya know? He’s a good and faithful teacher and father. I’m still learning how to fully give Him my heart, and He is still digging away at the strongholds and lies I’ve been believing all my life. His Truth conquers. His love prevails. His grace and mercy stand strong.

Oh, the overwhelming, neverending, reckless love of God
Oh, it chases me down, fights ’til I’m found, leaves the 99
I couldn’t earn it, I don’t deserve it, still You give Yourself away