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Tiffany Ann Lewis:
"Knowing God" - A Love Story
I recently had the privilege of ministering at a women's conference which had the title and goal of: Just To Know Him. The last night of the conference was one of the most amazing nights of worship, in a corporate setting, I have ever experienced. As the Lord was knocking at the door in the Spirit asking to come in and sup with us, a prophetic song came forth. He said that in the same way that we long for Him He longs for us. As much as we desire more of Him, He desires more of us. As we long to lay our head on His breast, He longs to lay His head on ours. As we long to know Him, He longs to know us.
The experience left me longing for the Lord even days after I had returned home. Unfortunately, the process of catching up after being away was stealing any serious time for me to be alone with Him. However, as He revealed at the meeting, my longing is His longing. Therefore, He used a different method of communion and came to visit me in my sleep.
The Dream - a Love Story
The dream was a love story that was so remarkable that I struggle to find words adequate to convey it to you. Simply said, I was the direct object of the Beloved's affection and attention and He was the direct object of mine. We were constantly gazing into one another's eyes; we couldn't bear to be apart.
Throughout the dream the scenes changed dramatically from the home, to the office, to the market place, and even to the mountains. These quick changes symbolized not just the different seasons of life to me but even the different seasons of the day. Though life was moving on at an incredible pace and the scenes were changing quickly, one thing stayed consistent...we couldn't take our eyes off of each other. We would try to part and move on with the tasks at hand, but the heartache was agonizing and we quickly ran to the embrace once again.
I heard Song of Solomon 4:9 in my ear: "You have ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; you have ravished my heart with one look of your eyes..." To say that my heart was ravished would be a tremendous understatement. It makes sense; after all, my Beloved is the Lord Yahshua (Jesus), my glorious knight in shining armor who rides on a white horse wearing a robe dipped in blood. But that's not what the Lord wanted me to see. He wanted me to see the look in HIS eye and see that HIS heart was ravished by me.
In Hebrew, the phrase "ravished my heart" is just one word: heart. However here, "heart" is in a form which means to encourage, making the heart beat faster (Strong's #3823 in the piel form). Think about that for a moment. When the Creator of the universe looks into your eyes, it encourages Him and makes His heart beat faster!
Round and round the dream went as if we were dancing through life (symbolic of the changing scenes) when suddenly the dream changed dramatically and tremendous fear invaded my heart. An enemy came onto the scene threatening to kill, rob, and destroy me. With the fierceness of His namesake, the Lion of Judah sprang into action shielding me from the attack. As the two fought over me, deep wounds were appearing on my Beloved as "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities..." (Isaiah 53:5a).
I screamed and tried to pull Him away, begging Him to stop so we could run away and be safe. In the midst of the battle, He turned to me fiercely yet tenderly and I saw the vehement flame of love burning in His eyes (see Song of Solomon 8:6). In that breathtaking moment, I understood John 15:13 as never before because I experienced the look in His eye: "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends." Selah.
Intimacy Means "Into Me See"
They say that the eye is the window of the soul. While that phrase is not expressly found in the Bible, the concept is; "The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light" (Matthew 6:22 NASB). Throughout the Bible the eye is defined not only as the physical organ providing sight, but it is also used as the spiritual source of sight and perception. The Hebrew word for eye is 'ayin (pronounced ah-yin; Strong's #5869).
'Ayin is also the name of the 17th letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The 'ayin has the ancient pictograph of an eye, thus the sages say the Hebrew letter 'ayin represents sight and insight. Are you still with me? I hope so because there is a reason I gave you that quick crash course on Hebrew that is related to knowing Him. Let me explain.
As I mentioned at the beginning, the Lord sang prophetically to us that just as we want to know Him – He wants to know us. The Apostle Paul confessed, "...I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ" (Philippians 3:8). What does it mean to "know" the only true God, to know Him and the power of His resurrection?
The Hebrew word meaning "know" which is equivalent to that found in Philippians is yada' (pronounced ya-dah'; Strong's #3045). Yada' means: to know, to perceive, to recognize, to be acquainted with, and to know intimately; for example, "...Adam knew [yada'] Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain..." (Genesis 4:1). I'm sure some warning bells just went off, therefore, please allow me to use the well-coined phrase, Intimacy means "into me see."
A key component to knowing God is allowing Him to know you.
The Lord Doesn't Want Us to Hide from Him but Rather to Hide In Him
Humanity was created to walk naked and unashamed before its Creator. Therefore, since God uses the natural to reveal the spiritual, I believe that part of knowing God and becoming intimately acquainted with God requires a type of spiritual nakedness. Part of knowing God is allowing Him to know you and not hiding your feelings and your failings from Him. We read in Genesis that after Adam and his wife ate the forbidden fruit their eyes were opened, so they made coverings for themselves out of fig leaves in order to hide their nakedness. In the cool of the day God came walking in the garden. Being afraid they hid themselves from their Creator. That's what sin does in our life: It brings us shame and fear, causing us to hide from God.
God called out and said, "Where are you?" (Genesis 3:9b). Did God not know where Adam was? He is omniscient. He is the LORD God of knowledge (El de'ot Adonai). He knows all persons and things. He knows the hearts of men – all that they say, all they think, and all they do – yet He called out asking, "Where are you?" They needed to come out of hiding so that God could divinely provide for them what they needed, a blood covering of skin.
The Bible is eternal, and its every word applies to every individual, under all conditions, at all times. Thus this is God's perpetual call to everyone everywhere in the world, calling to us all to come out and be clothed with Christ. The Lord doesn't want us to hide from Him but rather to hide IN Him.
It may be hard to say to the Lord that you feel forsaken, disappointed, or even angry because of the circumstance that you are in now. It may be even harder to tell Him about some jealousy, hatred, or habit that you have. You may be afraid He will reject you, so you keep it bottled up inside. The problem is when we hide our heart, we hide it from Him. The Lord is not asking that we be perfect, He's just asking us to open up to Him. As we do, He will give us hope when we are hopeless. He will strengthen us when we are weak, He will deliver us from our strongholds, and He will heal us when we are hurt.
For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. 1 Corinthians 13:12
The Lord is Knocking at the Door of Your Heart – Will You Open the Door and Know God? “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.” Revelation 3:20
In closing, let's take a look at the Hebrew letters of the word for "know" – yada'. Because all Hebrew letters have pictographs they paint a spiritual picture which I believe will bring this revelation to another level of understanding. Yada' is created with the yud, the dalet, and the 'ayin. The yud is a picture of a hand and represents power. The dalet is a door representing an opening or portal. The 'ayin, as we already learned, is an eye representing physical as well as intellectual sight and experience. By looking at the pictographs we can see that knowing or knowledge (yada) paints a beautiful picture of a hand (yud) opening the door (dalet) to an eye-to-eye ('ayin) encounter receiving spiritual enlightenment through the experience.
The Lord is knocking at the door of your heart, in the Spirit, and wants to know you as you desire to know Him. It all begins when we put our hand to the door. Will you open the door and know God? Amen and Amen.
Tiffany Ann Lewis Dancing with the Flame of the Lord Ministries
