A Practical Guide to "Abiding" in His Presence

We all get so busy doing. Life seems to throw a million things at us at once. It’s so easy to become tired and burnt out and weary in well doing. Soaking is the antidote to that. It is an opportunity to abide in the presence of God. When I soak, I position myself before God to abide in Him. Soaking is purposefully making space to be together with the Lord and to receive from Him. No matter how busy your life is, no matter what else you have going on, it’s never a waste of time.

The Circle of Our Lives

Jesus told us that the first commandment is to love the Lord with all your heart and to love others as you love yourself (see Matthew 22:37-39). There are three areas of love—love the Lord, love yourself and love other people. It is much like a circle, at first we just come before Him and let Jesus pour out His love for us, then we get filled and learn to love ourselves as He loves us. From there we are able to pour out our love back to Him. But then we realize the lost are really lost and begin to turn our attention to loving and gathering the lost. His love that has transformed our hearts burdens us to see that same freedom come to those around us. This emphasis is constantly moving one to the other, not dwelling in one place. Like the circle with a rotating emphasis Me - Him - Them.

We need to be filled up with God’s love and presence so that we can love Him and love others. That’s our whole purpose. If you’re not filled up, then you can’t give anything away, and if you don’t give anything away, that’s not healthy either. You become like stagnant water. There must be a constant flow of love in our lives.

The first thing that we’re called to is to love God, but we can’t do that well if we’re weary or burnt out. So we need to make time to love Him and to connect with Him. Ideally, we need all three things happening at once—pouring out our love on God, receiving love for ourselves, and giving love to others. I think it’s a balance that we’ll always be trying to figure out. In some seasons, you’ll be more focused on loving God. Sometimes you’ll have a season where when God is healing you and you’re focused on learning to love yourself, and some seasons will be all about giving love away.

Soaking helps keep us in balance with loving God, others, and ourselves. I’m going to break down these three areas. They’re all very connected, so you’ll see that there is lots of overlap.

The first thing that we’re called to is to love God, but we can’t do that well if we’re weary or burnt out. So we need to make time to love Him and to connect with Him.

Time for Him

Soaking is positioning yourself before God, just to be together with Him intimately. God is love and He wants us to be lovers of him and others. Intercession and prayer are so important and valuable, but there must always be time to experience His love for you and to give Him your love with no expectations or agendas. When I begin soaking, I always start with adoration. I take time to tell Him how much I love Him and to pour out my worship.

It’s making time for a love affair between you and your Savior, listening to his still small voice, and being immersed in the beautiful presence of the Holy Spirit. A love affair doesn’t happen quickly; it takes time. A couple that is falling in love, spend hours chatting about nothing, getting to know each other’s hearts intimately. When I have a date with my husband, John, I want to spend time with him, face to face. I know he doesn’t want to hear me come with a list of things to talk about: “Well, honey, I know you want to spend time with me, but I want to talk about these other things, about my aunt, my friend, the grocery list….” That’s not connecting, is it? When we spend time together, I want to know what’s on his heart and how he’s doing.

It’s the same with Jesus. When you come to soak, don’t come with a shopping list of your needs. Instead, come to tell Him that you love Him, that you want to go deeper with Him. His heart’s desire is to love you back and to go deep with you too. As you spend time in His presence, you’ll begin to see how real He is. You’ll see that He wants to have a wonderful relationship with you, that intimacy is His heart’s desire. Jesus paid the highest price for you so that you might draw close to Him.

As we love on Him, we get filled up with his love and we begin to love Jesus back. Receiving His love for us helps us love Him more. Each time you soak it will be different. Sometimes He’ll flood you with His unconditional love and acceptance. Sometimes He’ll heal a wound in your life. Sometimes you’ll feel the heavy weighty presence of God so much that you can’t move. It’s all valuable and it’s always worth making time for.

If we as a church don’t learn to be intimate with Him now, what is it going to be like when we get to heaven as His bride? I would think that’s going to be slightly awkward! I think we’re going to regret that we didn’t embrace that intimacy here on earth.

Jesus paid the highest price for you so that you might draw close to Him.

Receiving for Myself

When we pour out our love on Him, we receive His love for us and it transforms us. The Father’s love heals our wounds and our past hurts. Many of us grow up believing that God is distant, critical, and angry, but as we get to know him, our ideas about who He is and how He loves us change. We learn that He is kind, gentle, loving, and good. Have you ever looked in the mirror and said, “I am so loved by Jesus. I am worthy. My Daddy God loves me.” The first time you do it, it might be hard to look yourself in the eyes and believe it. The truth stops at your head and doesn’t make its way to your heart. But as you soak, the truth of His love will sink in deep to your inner being.

Many years ago, when my dad had just died, I was laying in my chair at home, feeling sorry for myself. I cried out, “Oh God, I really need a dad!” and just sat there. I didn’t feel like anything happened. About a week later I was at our Catch The Fire School of Ministry in Toronto, where John and I were ministering and I decided to lie down and soak after our session that morning.

Around that time, I had been reading Daniel 7:9-14, which talks about the Father, the Ancient of Days, being seated on the throne and the Son of Man, who is Jesus, being glorified in his presence. As I soaked, I had a full-on vision. In the vision, Jesus came up to me. His eyes were sparkling and twinkling. He took me and we started dancing. We were swirling round and round so fast that I couldn’t see what was around me. As we slowed down I realized the floor was so shiny, I thought we were going to fall! I couldn’t figure out where we were until I realized that we were on the sea of glass in heaven. In the distance, I saw the throne of God, like the throne I had read about in Daniel. It was smoking and I saw the emerald rainbow. Someone came off the throne towards us but I lost sight of Him as we danced. Then all of a sudden there was this big hand on Jesus’ shoulder. It was Father God standing there. He said, “Jesus, can I dance with my daughter?” That just broke me up, I was in floods of tears. It spoke so deeply to my heart that the Father would stop what He’s doing and would want to dance with His daughter. It drew my heart to Him.

As you soak, the truth of his love will sink in deep to your inner being.

Somebody could have told me that the Father really loved me, that he really cared and wanted to be with me, but a picture is worth a thousand words. I realized that my heavenly Daddy really, really loved me and wanted to be with me. As a child, my understanding had always been that God the Father was scary. That you had to toe the line so that you don’t get punished. So as an adult, I’d taken that understanding and I’d read the Old Testament looking for the God of punishment and anger, not with the eyes of love, looking for love. That vision rewrote the truth on my heart that God is a Father who wants relationship with his people. It was a healing experience for me, especially as I was grieving the loss of my dad.

It’s so important to make time for the Lord to heal your wounds. I urge you to prioritize the healing of your heart. Make inner healing a lifestyle. King David said in Psalm 139:23-24, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” This has to be a regular process for all of us. We must all let the Lord search our hearts for any unforgiveness, bitterness, pride, and pain that can so easily go unchecked. If you want to be successful in life, to cast out demons, raise the dead, to do all the wonderful things you know that Jesus has called you to and you do not deal with the issues of the heart, it will get you into difficulty. You must choose forgiveness so that the devil will not gain legal rights into your life and try to make you fall from grace and bring reproach upon Jesus. As they say, “hurting people hurt people.” It’s so important to break the cycle of hurt and pain by allowing the Lord to dealing with your own issues.

I’ve spent many seasons of my life forgiving my mother and working through issues that I had as a result of our relationship. At one point, I became so frustrated and asked God, “Why don’t you just set me free from my mother issues? I know you can.” He revealed to me that if He did it instantly I would become prideful, human beings tend to become full of pride and without mercy to others who are struggling with their problems. God heals us in a way that we can manage. It does take time, but it’s worthwhile. He keeps us leaning on Him, sometimes walking with a limp, so that we always depend on Him for our needs.

As you soak, sometimes He will fill you with His love and you will respond with the heart of a lover. Other times He will go back and heal a deep wound. Then other times He will empower you for the ministry He has for you. Your whole life will change when you realize that the Lord absolutely loves you.

The Holy Spirit has moved so powerfully since 1994 and we have experienced the love of the Lord, his joy, and his presence. I believe that the next wave of him moving is going to be a holiness wave. We must all deal with our ‘stuff’ on a daily basis so that we walk with integrity. The Holy Spirit is a kind messenger. He is giving us all the opportunity to make wise decisions, to choose forgiveness, and to leave behind our sinful ways at this time. I urge you to let Jesus ‘dig in the garden of your heart now’, and to let Him lead you on the process of sanctification and transformation. Choose inner healing daily.

Your whole life will change when you realize that the Lord absolutely loves you.

John and I had a friend from England named Terry. When He walked into a room you’d smell English roses very strongly. He wrote out a prophetic word and gave it to me and the paper smelled the same! It was supernaturally covered in oil, so I had to store it in a Ziploc bag. The prophetic word said, “The next wave of my spirit will be birthed out of intimacy. Intimacy can only be found in that secret place where you and I can be as one. Out of this intimacy will come the release of life, power, and fire to enable you to see and feel my glory start to cover the earth. You must find that place, that secret place, that relationship with me.” Terry carried that beautiful fragrance of roses with him wherever he went. It was the fragrance of intimacy. After he went to be with Jesus, I found the prophetic word that I’d stored away and the oil was still there, but the smell had gone.

The fragrance that Terry carried was a representation of the beauty of intimacy with the Father. It drew me, and I know many others, into loving Jesus more. We each need to have the fragrance of intimacy in our own lives. It may not be a physical smell, but the intimacy that you have with the Lord will always ooze out and bless those around you.

Filled to Pour Out

If you’re not filled with God’s presence, your efforts to love and serve other people will become striving, controlling, and manipulative. When you are filled to overflowing with God’s presence and when you’re being transformed from the inside out, you’ll have a better ability to love the people around you. I want to be so filled with his love that I radiate it to everyone I meet.

As you spend time in God’s presence, you’ll get his heart and see that the lost are really lost. Your perception changes. All of a sudden, you’ll find yourself talking to someone at the grocery store when you notice that they are walking with a limp, or you sense that the Holy Spirit is prompting you to ask if their family is okay. You’ll find opportunities to pray for people right there. Perhaps, as you soak, the Holy Spirit will put someone on your heart and you’ll keep thinking about that person that you haven’t thought about in a long time. Write their name down and phone them. When that’s happened to me, it’s turned out that a family member has been in the hospital, or they’re going through some kind of major struggle. The Holy Spirit knows what everyone is going through and wants to put people on your heart to love them and pray for them.

Get yourself in tune with him and everything else will flow from that place of intimacy and relationship. It’s not about striving to do good works, like a servant who says, “Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.” That servant knows that if they don’t obey, there will be punishment. Instead, it’s about doing the things He’s asked of you from a perspective that you love Him so much. You’re working for Him with a focus of pleasing the One you love.

As you spend time in God’s presence, you’ll get his heart and see that the lost are really lost. Your perception changes.

Jesus Taught the Disciples About Relationship with the Father

Jesus so completely loved the Father. He was always talking to the disciples about the Father. They were constantly asking him questions about what to do, how to live, how to pray and how to love God. In Matthew 6, Jesus taught them the Lord’s prayer, about how to talk to their heavenly Father. The beginning of the prayer, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” is in the imperative tense. Saying, “Your kingdom come,” is less like a request than a command or a declaration. Jesus taught the disciples that prayer is agreeing with what the Father wants, that it is a relational thing. As they hear what he wants, they pray it out. The Father wants us to pray in the same way that Jesus showed the disciples, where we can come boldly before him, like little children, asking him what he wants and declaring it back to him.

Jesus also showed the disciples what a relationship with the Father looks like when they messed up. Peter denied Jesus three times, and I’m sure he thought, “I’ve blown it so badly that I’m never going to make it. I’m going back to fishing.” After Jesus was resurrected, he stood with Peter, eating the fish, and commissioned him three times. He restored Peter’s hope and showed him trust and love. Jesus only did what he saw the Father doing and said what he heard the Father saying. Every time Jesus related to the disciples, it was a clear representation of how the Father wants to relate to them, and to us, too. Every time we mess up, the Father is willing to restore us just as Jesus restored Peter.

What Does a Healthy Relationship Look Like?

When we soak, we are spending time intimately building a relationship with God. In a healthy relationship with God, we’re always depending on him. We need to be open for correction from him along the way, regularly asking, “Do I need to make an adjustment somewhere? Is there something in my heart that I need to deal with?” It’s so important to always be on the side of, “I don’t have it all together,” so that we don’t get prideful in our own abilities and become independent from him.

Every time we mess up, the Father is willing to restore us just as Jesus restored Peter.

The Lord will bring course corrections along the way. Perhaps he’ll tell you that it’s time to get more inner healing, or to forgive someone. I’ve had times and seasons where when sometimes I’ve focused on Jesus, sometimes with the Holy Spirit, and other times intentionally spending time on the Father’s knee, close to him. I recently realized I needed a season in the Father’s house, to spend time with my Heavenly Dad and remember how big he is, how wonderful He is and how much He really loves me. I knew I needed to go deeper in knowing Daddy’s great love. Jesus said to his disciples, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9, NIV). As you are loving Jesus and building intimacy with him, he will take you deeper into the Father.

Activation

What is the focus of your time with God? Is it mostly for yourself? Or is it all about being filled up so you can to pour out to others? Have you spent time lately just loving on him, for his sake? Tell him today:

Tell him today, “Jesus, I just want to tell you I love you. Lord, I want to go deeper with you. Jesus, thank you for everything! Thank you for my breath, thank you for my house, thank you for my family. Lord, I just love you and I just want to spend time with you.”

Then ask him:

What’s on your heart for our relationship? How can I go deeper with you?”

Read John 21. Put yourself in Peter’s shoes and imagine how much shame he must have felt after denying Jesus right before his death. Now imagine how much love he must have felt as Jesus rebuilt trust with him. That is the love and compassion that the Father wants to show you when you mess up. Ask God to reveal that love to your heart today.

Carol Arnott