I remember a night a few years before Heart Cry was conceived, when Roger taught that getting closer to God really meant deeper obedience and submission. It sounded very profound and right to me, but how? What did deeper obedience look like?

I desperately wanted to get closer to God, but in spite of being a Christian most of my life, I felt like I had hit a brick wall and I didn't know what to do. In fact, I had come to a place of deep personal crisis, and in spite of all my biblical knowledge and commitment, I could not overcome the sin that had overtaken me. It was a scary and bleak place, and I was losing hope of pulling back out, let alone ever having the relationship with God that I had desired.

Even as I was sinking, I was privileged to sit under the teachings on the heart as God was forming them within Roger. There was great pain within me, and I did not even know where to start. I could not feel the love of God, and without that, I could not let go of my vice.

Ever slowly through prayer, counsel and teaching, the truths that I could not change my heart of my own accord began to sink in. Traditional Christianity had taught me that change needed to come from me and I just needed to buck up and obey. But I couldn't, and shame had me paralyzed. However, as I came to understand the scriptures that described different heart conditions, and more importantly the ones speaking to relinquishing our hearts to God and His responsibility in changing them from stone to flesh, a new strength began to grow within me. I slowly began to let go of self-efforts and instead began to trust in His love for me to accomplish the healing I could not make happen. It was five months from that time that I was delivered fully from the darkness that had haunted me most of my life, and once the dam broke free, the beautiful truths of the heart burst forth in glorious color. I know that sounds rather dramatic, but that is how it felt after having spent a lifetime of crippled Christianity.

In the wake of my deliverance, I still had to work through recovery. There was pain and the constant temptation for unforgiveness and bitterness, and I knew that I needed to be purged daily. I had already learned some of the tools of the heart, understanding that past experiences had colored the way I viewed life, and so I was able to open my heart to God changing the thought processes that had reinforced my faulty filters. When I felt contamination and walls trying to come back up, I was able to identify brokenness or clutter or hardness, name it before the Lord, and invite Him in to deal with it. I had great reassurance in the knowledge that He looked upon the desires of my heart to be pure and to please Him more than He looked upon my failures, and in that place of confidence I found resistance to the enemy's old ploys of pulling me down into shame and self-condemnation.

It has been a long haul, but understanding how God sees my heart and deals with it has broken me free and brought me to a place where I have, for the first time in my life, walked in a strength and consistency with the Lord that I had almost despaired of ever happening. The healing has been real and lasting, though it requires me daily to continue to bring my heart before my Lord. I have come to understand that our heart before God is more important than anything else, and that when we learn to bring our hearts before Him, to open them to His work, and to keep them healthy, then all the love, intimacy and power that we desire will flow from that place. I praise Him for revealing this truth to His people!

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