a vision: in the father’s heart
Draw me away! We will run after you. The king has brought me into his chambers. Song of Solomon 1:4
In My Father’s house (heart) are many mansions (rooms); if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. John 14:2-3
One evening as I sat alone in my dining room, I was suddenly in a vision. I stood just inside a huge room with rounded walls and a high ceiling, like a giant cave. The walls were different shades of red, and candlelight or lamplight flickered and bounced off the walls.
The room was empty, but as I looked across it, I saw one person at the far end. It was Jesus, wearing a long white robe. He didn’t see me, but as He walked back and forth, I could tell He was waiting for someone. He was very purposeful and busy as He waited, and I realized He seemed to be doing the work of a priest, as if going from the altar of incense to the table of showbread, etc., as in the tabernacle.
I wondered why Jesus was here all alone, and I felt a little indignant. Where was everyone, and didn’t they realize Jesus was here? How could no one care enough to be with Him? Then the vision was over.
Afterward, I kept wondering why Jesus was alone, and who He was waiting for. Most of all, I wanted to go back to that room where He was. I ached to be there.
Over the next few months I began to understand the vision, little by little. I realized I had been standing inside the heart of God. It was the chambers of His heart, and it was the chambers of the King, Jesus. He was there making intercession from within the very heart of the Father. I was the one Jesus was waiting for, and the room was empty because it was the place He had prepared for me.
But if He had prepared it for me, I needed to go there again!
For two years I didn’t tell anyone about it, but kept it in my heart. In November last year, a few months after my dream about Jesus and seeking to learn to love like Him, I began to think about the vision. It was like it came out of hibernation, and I thought about it constantly for several days.
I realized the vision was an invitation to a lifestyle. He was asking me to come and stand with Him in the Father’s heart and join in His intercession. I felt the room was going to be filled with people whose lives were changed and brought into His heart by His and my intercession. This began my journey to know His heart and be joined with Him in His work.
I realized I don’t have to wait for a vision; I can know His heart daily in a way that is more real than a vision. In the vision, I was only an observer—Jesus did not look at me or seem to know I was there. I was just looking in, but He is calling me to enter His heart daily by faith, and partner with Him in experiencing and fulfilling the heart cry of the Father.
I had never known that the Father’s “house” Jesus spoke of could be translated as “heart”. I never heard that verse spoken of in any way other than a place for us in heaven, yet I felt He was saying this was the place He had prepared for me.
But recently I found this excerpt written by Chaim Bentorah, a Hebrew teacher whose writings I love:
Jesus said in John 14:2: “In my father’s house are many dwelling places. I go to prepare a place for you.” Jesus spoke in the Old Galilean dialect of Aramaic. The Aramaic Bible, Peshitta, uses the word bt which we render as house, yet, like the Hebrew, bt could also be used to express the idea of the place of the heart which is identical to the Hebrew word bayith (house) which is the word used in Psalms 127. Jesus may very well have said: “In my Father’s heart are many rooms.” Only He can build that place in His heart for us. If we try to build that place with all our ministries and monuments to ourselves, our labors are all wasted.
Jesus has prepared a place for each of us to meet with Him, be close to Him, and fulfill our life’s purpose. His heart is a place of intimacy, and it also reverberates with the Father’s heartbeat, which moves us to work arm in arm with Him. He will show each of us our place in His heart if we seek Him for it.
