God hasn't finished what He is doing in me yet, so this is (in a sense) a partial report, but let me share what He has done so far.

I had returned from Mozambique on Sunday afternoon, and still sick from Malaria. I caught some type of cold during the 33 hour trip home from Mozambique, and the last landing (with the bad cold) gave me an ear infection. So I was one sick puppy. Other than a doctor's visit and lab work on Tuesday, I was bedridden all week. I had tried to get up on Wednesday, but ended up back in bed after only an hour. I tried it again on Thursday and had the same results. I spent most of my time sleeping (except when I had to wake up to take medication) and averaged about 18 hours a day of sleep.

When Friday morning rolled around, I told myself that I was going to the Heidi Baker meeting even if they had to carry me in on a stretcher. I was feeling very desperate for a touch from God. I am not sure what happened to me spiritually in Mozambique, but somewhere around the middle of the trip, I started loosing my sense of intimacy with God. I think the heat, the physical hardships, the Malaria, the constant noise and distractions began to wear me down and I stopped spending that intimacy time with God in prayer. When I got back to the States, I tried to pray and regain the ground with God, but I was just "too sick" to concentrate.

So by Friday morning, I felt very purposeful about going to Heidi's meeting. I remembered how God had touched me at her meeting in October (which was about 6 months ago). That meeting had stirred such a passion and hunger for God so that I felt I literally did not want to live if I could not have His presence and His nearness. Gradually over the next several months, that hunger and intimacy had faded. In general, I still had a good relationship with God, but I missed that tangible nearness of His presence. But at this moment, my relationship with God felt distant and I did not like that at all. I wanted to get back into that close intimate place with God and I was determined to go to Heidi's meeting at my church this night because I was convinced I would have an encounter with God there.

Friday I was able to get out of bed and stay out of bed all day! It was a major progress for me. It was my first day up. I had talked to a friend from church, Pat, and she told me we were supposed to be there early to get a seat. I told her I might not be able to get there early because of the doctor's appt, so I asked her to save a seat for me, preferably near the front.

I did manage to get to church about 20 minutes before the "doors" were to open. I "snuck" into the sanctuary through the kitchen since I was still too sick to stand outside in the cold for half an hour. When I got in there, I saw the entire front row was "reserved" for the speakers, the pastors, the worship team (who needed easy access to/from the platform, some people who were videotaping the service and a few seats for a handicapped friend of the church and her family. There were also some seats in the second and third rows near the aisles saved for Ushers. Also, there were already bibles and sweaters on several of the chairs.

I was about to look for an available seat (maybe 4 or so rows back) when two of the deacons (friends of mine) came up to hug me and welcome me home from Mozambique. Then they pointed to a chair on the second row, one seat away from the aisle that said "Reserved for Teresa Seputis" and had a lovely red rose on it. I felt so special and so loved when I saw that.. it was such a blessing. I later learned that my friend Pat had made the sign for me.

I had a delightful time before service greeting friends from church who I'd not seen for a month and sharing briefly about the missions trip as well as catching up on what had been happening back home. I also got to meet a few people from the GodSpeak lists who had come to hear Heidi speak. Some of them had driven for four hours to be there... wow.

When the worship began, it started with triumphant and joyful praise. It was such a welcome sound after having spent a few weeks of Mozambiquean style worship -- mostly drums with a type of worship dance that looks just like line dancing at a "western bar" and the words being in Portuguese. Something in my Spirit stirred at the familiar worship music I just had to worship. After a song or two, I wanted to kneel before God, but it was logistically impossible to do so in the 2nd row, because the chairs from the front row were too close. Heidi and Rolland came in. She ended up sitting in the chair directly in front of me. She wasted very little time before she was kneeling before God with her head resting against the seat of her chair. I told God that I wished I could kneel before Him like that and He asked me what was stopping me. I said there was no room. So He suggested I move to where there was room. Right about then, many of the youth came up front to dance. So I moved up front as well, and found a spot where I could get on my knees before the Lord. His presence was tangibly in the room (it often is during our worship) and it felt so good to be back in His presence.

Worship went on for about an hour or so. It started with praise and celebration songs and it moved into worship and intimacy songs. I was a "goner" about 1/3 of the way through the worship. It was so good to be back in God's presence. I ended up on my face before Him. It felt "so right" to be there before Him. As the worship continued, something inside of me began to stir and I found myself crying out "Oh God! Oh God!" and calling out to Him and praying out loud things like "Come Lord!" Others seemed to have the same hunger stirred in them and were crying out to God in a similar way.

Mostly I was unaware of the others around me, but at one point I did open my eyes and looked around. Many of the youth were kneeling and others were on their face before God. There was a young lady of maybe 20 or 22 on my right who I did not know, and God's presence was visibly on her. She was kneeling and her head was bowed and she was shaking lightly under God's anointing. The beauty of the Lord rested on her. Jason was on my right, and the Holy Spirit was all over him as well. He was crying out to God for more. Another wave of the Lord's presence washed over me and there was a burning in My spirit I could not help but cry out loudly for more of Him. I closed my eyes and focused all of my attention back on the Lord.

This prayer started in me that has been reverberating through my being constantly since then. I began to cry out to God to stir my passion and my hunger for Him until I got to the point where I was so hungry for Him that it would utterly destroy me if I could not have more of Him. I wanted Him to consume my being. I wanted to be closer to Him. I wanted to be hungrier for Him, to have the persistence to push in until I was in that place of His presence, to have a consistency that nothing could distract me from. I wanted to go where He had taken me at the meeting six months ago -- only this time I wanted to stay there forever. I wanted to move to a higher level of experiencing His presence in my daily walk.

I have to confess that I did not have the powerful encounter with God's presence like I had the last time. Still I could sense His nearness and I so wanted more of Him. I wanted Him to stir a hunger in me that would propel me to the next level in my day to day walk with Him. I wanted to know "Heidi's secret" since she seemed to live there regularly. I wanted God to change me so that I would enter into and live in His presence to a much greater degree that I currently did. I wanted more of Him!

Heidi got up to speak. I had been kneeling in the front and got caught unawares when she got up. I had an excellent seat on the second row, and it was even an unobstructed seat since it was behind Heidi and she was up speaking. But there was no way to get from my position on the floor to the seat without causing somewhat of a disruption and walking directly in front of Heidi (who was standing very near the front row). Several of the youth were sitting on the floor, so I decided I would just stay put near them instead of distracting people by going back to my seat.

Heidi started by leading us in worship and then giving us a prophetic word that God wanted to break our hearts so that He could enlarge our hearts and give us His compassion for the lost and His compassion for our neighbors. While Heidi was sharing this, God spoke to me and said, "You asked Me what her secret is -- this is it -- she has allowed Me to break her heart and enlarge it and fill her with My love and My compassion."

As you can imagine, that got my attention!

At first Heidi ushered us into God's presence. This was sort of a repeat of what happened when she spoke in Fremont six months ago, and I anticipated a similar experience with God. But after a short while, she stopped ushering us into God's presence. She began to teach/preach. She spoke from Luke 10:25-37. She spent a lot of time emphasizing "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind' and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

Heidi is actually a very good speaker. I had never heard her speak before in English, (she spoke in Portuguese the two times I saw her preach in Mozambique). She had preached at the Church service on my last Thursday night in Mozambique, and we had an interpreter who translated small portions of the sermon for us. The main gist of it had been that Jesus is calling us (each Christian) to do five things: go to the nations, preach the good news, heal the sick, cast out demons and raise the dead.

Tonight she preached on being filled with Christ's love for people ... on what it looked like to love your neighbor. She pointed out that sometimes the poor are not very nice to you when you try to love them ... they may be mean to you, they may rob you, they may even beat you up or try to kill you. She pointed out that unless we are changed to be filled with Christ's compassion, we won't be able to keep on loving them when the going gets tough. She talked about how we get filled with Christ's compassion.. by coming before God and allowing Him to break our hearts and by worshipping Him and spending time in His presence.

As she talked, I began to see tonight's teaching as part two of what she had been preaching on the previous Thursday in Mozambique. I began to realize how far I fell short in the "compassion of God" and loving the lost category. My heart was convicted, and rightfully so. I began to truly desire for God to break my heart and to give me His compassion for others.

The sermon went on a long time. I think she preached for somewhere close to two hours. I was physically uncomfortable sitting on the floor that long, but I was still captivated by what she shared. I began to see how I needed to have God's love and compassion for the lost in order to do the things Jesus had commissioned us to do: to heal the sick, to preach the good news, to cast out demons.

I had a short flashback to the demonized girl who I'd prayed for at the dump and realized that the compassion had been missing.. I felt sorry for her in her condition and I wanted to see her free, but I did not truly love her with God's love. I had been wondering why I could not get that demon out. Now I began to see why.. my root motivation was not the love of Christ towards the people who I ministered to. I "loved" them in one sense, but it was a limited love born out of human compassion and not the love of Christ that passes all limitations. I saw how short I fell in the love/compassion department. And I wanted God to fix me.

To tell you the truth, I wanted the sermon to be over before it was over because I could hardly wait for the ministry time to begin. I was convinced. I did not want more teaching or instruction, I wanted God to come and change my heart, to transform it and to awaken His compassion within me.

Heidi finally gave the "altar call" for people to allow God to break our hearts and then enlarge them with His compassion. The whole block of four youth that I was sitting with went forward by crawling the short distance to the altar. So I went with them. I somehow ended on the very right edge of the altar. Others were still coming up from further back in the room and kneeling in the space behind us. On one level, I was aware of them, but on another level, I wanted God so much I did not care about anything else. I was praying silently, "Oh God, change my heart -- enlarge it -- give me Your love and Your compassion and then increase my hunger and my passion for You." The intensity on me began to increase. This truly was the cry of my heart.

Then Heidi began praying a very similar prayer over the microphone, over all of us. I was in total agreement with her prayer. I was not thinking about anyone laying hands on me, I was not looking for it. But as Heidi continued her corporate prayer over us, she laid her hands on my head -- and the prayer seemed to personalize for me. As she was praying "Lord, break my heart! Lord give me your compassion and enlarge my heart" I was praying it to. She was saying the words, but it so echoed the cry of my heart that it felt like I was saying them. After a while she moved on and laid hands on someone else. It did not matter to me whether or not anyone was laying hands on me, I had this hunger and passion for more of God and more of His compassion. I found myself confessing to God how I fell short in the area of loving others. I asked Him to "fix me." I also pleaded with Him to give me a greater hunger and fervency for Him.

I expected to have some sort of piercing emotional pain as He broke my heart. But it was more of a strong longing, or recognizing my need and of knowing I was helpless to change myself -- that I was fully dependent on Him to change me. After a while, God began to speak to me. He began to remind me of when I'd been left behind at the boceria (the dump) in Mozambique. When the Iris truck finally came along I crawled inside of it and refused to get out. They told me that there was another person they wanted me to go to their house and pray for, but I refused to go. I wanted to stay in the truck so I would not be left behind again. I did not care about that person or their need, I only cared about my need. God brought that experience vividly to my memory and then He said this to me. "Teresa, if you had moved in My love, you would not have cared about yourself but you would have gone to minister to her. And I would have worked a miraculous healing -- that last prayer house was your divine appointment but you missed it because you cared more about yourself than about those I sent you to."

I was pierced to the heart. I knew He was speaking truth. I did not like what He was showing me about myself.. but it was truth. I repented before Him and I asked Him to change me and to give me His love for those He sent me to. I realized that I had a long way to go before I moved in His love.

God showed me a picture of a seed being planted. He told me that the change, the enlarging of my heart, the infilling of His compassion would be a process. But the seed has been planted and the harvest will come forth in due season. The seed will grow within me as He expands my compassion for the lost. I am in a process of learning to love with His love. I don't know how long He will take to get me through this process, but I am a very willing participant.

I spent about 45 minutes or so with God. At first we concentrated on "enlarging my heart" but after a while, God seemed content with what He had shown me and the focus went back to me asking God to increase my passion and fervency and hunger for more of Him. I wanted him to cause me to desire Him so much that I would be "completely destroyed" if I could not have more of Him. I wanted a hunger that would cause me to press in and press through until He met me -- and I did not want to be satisfied with anything less than His tangible presence on a daily basis. I knew that if He would give me that type of desire, He would also be faithful to fulfill it. So I cried out to Him to increase My desire for Him so that every fiber of my being cried out for His presence.

"Teresa, what if I make you wait a long time before I fill it?" He asked.

I had assumed that if He gave me the increased hunger for Him, He would fulfill it right away. I did not like the question so I tried to ignore it. But God was not to be ignored.

"Lord, make every fiber of my being so hungry for You that I will be unable to survive if You don't meet me."

"Teresa," the Lord repeated, "what if I give you this desire and then I make you wait a long time before I fulfill it? Do you still want this desire?"

"What do You mean by a long time, Lord?" I felt caution raising up within me. "Do You mean a week?"

"Sometimes it might be a week. But sometimes it might be even longer. Like a month or two months."

I tried to imagine wanting God's presence so bad it felt like I'd literally die without it -- for two whole months. The prospect was not attractive. It sounded like torture.

"Lord, am I asking You for a wrong thing when I ask You to increase my desire and my hunger for Your presence?"

"No, Teresa, you are not asking for a bad thing. That is a very good thing you are asking for. But what will you do if I give you that desire and then make you wait a long time to fulfill it. Do you still want it? Do you really want to be hungry for Me?"

I knew my answer should have been an instant yes, but the idea of waiting two months with that type of fervent burning within me sounded incredibly unattractive. "Would I always have to wait a long time?"

"There will be times when I will meet you quickly. But it would not be "hunger" if I always met you instantly. If you want hunger, you will find that there will be times that you will have to wait for the thing you desire, so that your desire increases and your yearning increases."

He paused while He let that sink in. It was not what I was bargaining on. My idea was for God to make me hungry for Him for 5 or 10 minutes, and then have Him meet me. Then the next day the hunger would be back and He would meet me again .. and on and on. I did not like the idea of God making me want Him so bad I could not stand it, and then making me wait a long time for His tangible presence to meet me. I did not like the idea at all -- but it seemed disrespectful to tell that to Him.

Hey, what I am thinking? Of course He knew I did not like that idea -- He knows all things.

"God, You know I hate the idea of waiting for months..."

"It will never be more than two months often it will be much, much less. Do you want to 'want Me' that badly now that you understand I might not meet you instantly?"

This may sound silly to you, but that was a hard question for me. I finally came up with this compromise: "Lord if You feel it is a good thing for me to ask You to increase my hunger and my yearning for You, then please do it." That was sort of a 'Lord, make me willing to be willing' type of prayer. But it was the best I could muster up with the idea of having that type of intense longing for Him for up to two months before He met me.

I wish I could say that the Lord met me at that point, but He did not. He did seem to be stirring a fervent desire to have an encounter with His very presence -- I got the desire and I had a vague sense of His nearness and of His pleasure. But I did not get the tangible presence of God surrounding me like He did at Heidi's meeting six months ago. I finally decided that God was probably doing what He had "threatened" to do, stirring my desire and not fulfilling it immediately. I decided that was not such a bad thing, because He had promised He would never make me wait more than two months.

I found my prayer changing. "Lord, please remove the things from me that prevent me from entering into intimacy with You. Please rework My character to make me a person who can live more readily in Your presence."

That prayer God did not take a long time to answer. I will get to that shortly.

For the moment I just had a sense of His sweetness and I began to worship Him again. After a while I had a mental picture of me moving through the altar area praying for people. I opened my eyes and the first person I had seen myself praying for was precisely in the spot she had been in my mental picture. So I decided this was probably God telling me that He wanted me to pray for people. So I looked around and spotted Rodney, our senior pastor. He was praying for someone near me without touching them. Heidi was praying for someone on the other side of the room. So I used gestures to ask Rodney if it was ok to pray for people at the altar. He nodded his permission. So I moved to the first person I had "seen myself" praying for in that mental picture and began to pray. The Lord seemed to increase on her as I prayed for her. Then I moved around the room as the spirit led. I noticed the prayers were all very similar. I prayed that God would increase the person's passion for Him, that He would give them His compassion for the lost and that He'd empower them with His anointing to meet their needs. Then I would pray that God would fill them with more of His presence and more of His anointing.

After a while, I did not feel led to pray for anyone else. Heidi was on the floor holding hands with a lady who appeared to be a friend of hers and both of them were a bit drunk in the spirit.

I thought to myself, "I did not get to meet her in Mozambique, so I should meet her here." So I sort of hung around where she was and waited for her to sit up. Then I went over to her and introduced myself. I mentioned that I'd gotten back from Mozambique a few days before she arrived. She said that she recognized me from Mozambique, but we'd never had a chance to talk. She also recognized the Capulana (Mozabiquean skirt) I was wearing -- it was the one Heidi had given to me when she prayed briefly for me (in a church service) shortly before I left Mozambique. We small talked for a few minutes and then I told her that I had gotten left behind when she sent me to do home visitations at the dump. She apologized and then told me that I was never in any danger, because her people at the dump would have taken care of me and seen that I somehow got back to the compound. But she was sorry that I had felt so frightened.

I told her that it was not such a bad thing, because God had spoken to me through it. I shared what He had shown me about not loving the person who they wanted me to go pray for and caring more about my own needs when I climbed in the truck and stayed there until they finally went back to the missions compound. I told her that I don't have the compassion yet, but I am in the process of learning how to have it. She began to instruct me for a little while on how to open my heart to allow God's compassion to build within me.

She also shared with me her first experience at the dump. She said that the first time that she went there, they tried to kill her. They took broken bottles and tried to cut her throat with them. She did not finish the story of how God rescued her from that. She just said, "Sometimes they are not very nice when you love them, but don't let that discourage you." (I don't know why I didn't ask her what happened.. how she got away alive.. but if I talk to her again in the future, I am eager to hear the rest of that story.)

It was midnight when I left the service. I don't know how it got to be so late -- it sure did not seem like that much time had passed. I drove home and went to bed. I found myself still crying out to God to increase my hunger for Him as I drifted off to sleep. When I awoke in the morning, I was still crying out to Him to increase my yearning for more of His presence.

His response was a bit of a surprise to me. He began to rebuke me for some attitudes I had formed. He told me that I had become spiritually sufficient -- less dependent on Him. He showed me how my intimacy with Him had been slipping for the past eight weeks. First I was so busy getting ready for Mozambique -- there were so many things to take care of before I could leave. I had sort of gone through a bit of a dry spell when I was so busy. Then I had a brief refresh with intimacy with Him the first 3 or 4 days of my trip. But even that was short-lived as I encountered difficult situations and frustrations in Mozambique. It was true that I was still serving Him, but I was not being His "close friend". It was like I was so busy serving Him that I was not spending any time with Him. He did not like that.

I apologized.

Then He said that I was in danger of becoming lukewarm if I did not change my attitudes with Him. At first I was shocked. I consider myself as having a very intimate and close relationship with God. Yes, it was true that I'd had a few bad weeks spiritually where God seemed rather distant, but I still loved Him with all of my heart and fully intended to serve Him with all of my being. How could God tell me that I was in danger of becoming lukewarm?

I realized that I had two options here. I could try to defend myself and argue with God about this. Or I could look for a solution to the problem. So I asked Him what the solution was.

Suddenly I had a hazy memory of what He'd said to the church at Laodicea -- something about not knowing I was poor and naked and buying gold from Him. I tried to remember what was involved in buying the gold, but for some reason my mind was fuzzy on those verses. So I decided to look them up in Revelation. I found it in Rev 3:17-19. It said, "You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent."

I was still a bit shocked that God was telling me I was "wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked." I thought of myself as relatively spiritually mature and relatively close to God. This hurt. At first I did not realize why He was rebuking me. But I began to see that it was true.. I had been falling away in my intimacy with God the past eight weeks. I kept telling myself that I was "ok" spiritually and just going through a dry time. After all, I still saw His power and anointing on my life and ministry. He still spoke to me and gave me real kingdom work to do with Him.

Then something snapped and it all fell into perspective. I realized that I had asked God to show me what was keeping me from going into deeper levels of intimacy with Him -- to the "next level". And I had been unsuccessfully puzzling for a long time about why I did not see more of His power and anointing in my life. Now I realized what had happened. I had reached a certain plateau and "became satisfied." I had inadvertently become self sufficient, confident in the anointings I'd been walking in. My personal devotions and intimacy with God had been slipping, bit by bit. It was like I was in a business relationship with Him instead of in an intimate love-relationship with Him. I was cooling down and I was in danger of one day becoming lukewarm if I did not change course.

I could not believe how blind I had been. It was like I was bumping up against a stone wall... I could not get to the "next level" in my intimacy with God, in moving in my "anointing" or in seeing more of His power in my life. I had been calling out to God and asking Him to show me what was wrong, what the hold-up was. But I was so blind that I was not willing to see what He was trying to show me.. that my love was growing a bit cold as I was caught up in "doing" for Him instead of in loving Him.

So I began to ask God for the "gold refined in the fire" -- which was the character refinement through difficult or trying situations. He explained that was part of what He had been trying to do for me in Mozambique, part of why that trip had been so challenging. And I began to ask Him for "salve" for my eyes so I could begin to see the blind spots that were holding me back. And I began to ask Him for "white clothes" to wear -- though I am not sure precisely what that means yet. I think it has something to do with increased holiness and I will have to look at my life to see (and correct) where I have been unconsciously allowing any areas of compromise to creep in.

It's odd -- but once I received His rebuke, it did not feel so bad any more. Rather, it was more like constructive suggestions to get me past that hump that I had been bumping up against so much lately and wondering how to get past it. It would not surprise me if He has more to show me. We all have blind spots, and it's been a while since I've inspected mine with the Lord. But I feel like He is actively removing the barriers that keep me from moving to the next level of intimacy with Him and living in His presence and being motivated by His love and compassion. So He is indeed answering my prayer. And I find that fervent desire for His nearness increasing. I hope He won't really make me wait two months to fill that yearning for Him and bring me more into His presence.

I am going to end my account of the Heidi Baker meeting here, but I believe there is much more that God is doing in me as a result of this meeting. Perhaps I will be sharing more in the near future...