Promise me I won't crash when you make me cry on my drive home, Jesus.

When you've just endured the hardest week spiritually in the past year and a half, sometimes all it takes is a good cry in the car to wash away all of the tension suspending between you and God. 

Sometimes it takes one other person to confirm the spiritual warfare in the air, all hinging on the implications of having 7,000 people coming to a Christian concert.  A Christian concert where you are one of 50 prayer warriors.  A Christian concert that the devil would just love to plague will all sorts of hindrances to the Gospel of peace.

Sometimes it takes meeting inspiring people.  People like men in their twenties... the most joyful, kind men you have ever met... men who have taken the Franciscan vows of poverty, chastity and obedience... men who spend time in community with each other, donning their traditional habits, radically devoted to God and serving the poor.  Or people like middle aged men who have taken the Nazarite vow... separating themselves as holy, and publicly declaring it through their long locks.

Sometimes it takes watching nearly half a stadium stand up to either recommit their lives to Christ, or do so for the first time.  Sometimes it takes those chills, the shaking hands, the butterflies.

Sometimes it takes a flood of people approaching you to stand beside them in prayer and intercede on their behalf.  Sometimes you need to be completely overwhelmed and incompetent in serving so many needs in prayer.  Most of the time that's when God is the strongest.

Sometimes it takes having a glimpse of heaven... seeing thousands of people lift their hands, dance and shout in worship... all ages, all genders, all races.  Sometimes you need that out of body experience, where you lose grips with reality for a moment and ask yourself how you have been living.

Then when you sit down in your car after being on your feet ministering in prayer for seven hours you let the weariness hit you.  You let the doubts and the conversations that have run you around in circles all week fade away.  You let the pouring rain and the perfect song minister to you.  And you cry.  And you feel like you again.  

And you let God say to you "Where can [you] go from [my] Spirit?  Where can [you] flee from [my] presence?  If [you] go up to the heavens, [I am] there; if [you] make [your] bed in the depths, [I am] there" (Psalm 139:7-8, NIV, pronouns changed).

This is definitely not the end of the journey, the end of the questioning, or the end of the seeking for answers.  It is a renewal of God's patience over your life.  A renewal of the promise that He is always there, no matter how far away you feel.  A renewal of his love that catches every tear and rocks you to sleep whispering "I love you... I love you.... I love you"... just like the perfect, tender father that he is.

And you are assured that He is victorious.  And you can finally rest.  And you are still.  And you know that He is God.