It was an incredible feeling. If you’re an artist, I’ll bet you can relate. I think it’s close to how a musician feels when she hits the note she’s practiced a million times or the feeling you get when you have paint all over your arms and clothes but an amazing painting to show for it. It’s when you’ve practiced the line for months and then finally make it to opening night. I had that feeling, the feeling of finally seeing a part of a dream click into place.

I had to tell somebody.

I opened my phone and then immediately clicked it shut. It was 6 a.m. None of my friends would answer her phone at 6 a.m. They were probably hitting the snooze button, as I would normally be doing. My parents live in a different time zone. They weren’t awake, either.

My heart was about to burst. I was so excited and eager to tell somebody, and nobody was even awake.

And maybe that was the point.

I think Someone else wanted to see my heart that morning. In fact, I think God loves to hear us pour out our dreams, desires and creative outbursts right in His presence.

And so I did something kind of bizarre.

Unpacking a Messy Heart
I took all those scrap pieces of paper, notes and even my clunky laptop and put them on the floor. I turned on one of my favorite praise songs (“Captivated” by Vicki Beeching). And then I prayed over all those thousands of words, and the words not written yet and the dreams in my heart.

I praised God for an unexpected breath of inspiration that blew across my imagination the night before. I thanked Him for morning sunlight, for new beginnings, new ideas and first lines.

I told Him if the words never went farther than my room, I wanted Him to have all the glory for what I’d written.

And then I read the whole thing out loud, just for Him. It’s not as though He didn’t already know what it said, but something about doing that felt right. Something about giving that part of my heart to Him first made me feel really close to Him.

He saw the unrefined and unfixed. He saw what I’d done before I could polish it up and make it sound better. As I was reading, I realized that is exactly how He sees my life, too. He wants to help me sort through this messy life and come out with something beautiful.

He wants to heal, to hold, to encourage, to inspire me in my deepest pit of insecurity and doubt. He wants to meet with me as I am, where I am. That kind of transparency is liberating.

God gives us incredible people we can turn to for advice. We have the mother lode of books. But in all that advice-seeking, soul-searching and secret-sharing, I’ve learned that first sharing my heart with Him changes my whole perspective.

The Letter
In Isaiah 37, Hezekiah receives a threatening letter from Assyria. King Sennacherib—doesn’t he just sound sinister?—was ready to crush Hezekiah’s people. I think I probably would’ve cried first, then called all my friends and advisors together, and then tried to make a list of what to do. And then probably run. But none of those were Hezekiah’s response. He turned to God first.

He didn’t turn on his favorite television host or Google war tactics. He didn’t call his counselor or his best friend. He “spread [the letter] out before the LORD” (verse 14) and sought God’s direction first. He was confident God would evidence himself in the situation.

And I have a feeling that something about seeing that letter there on the floor and then praying to a God so much bigger than any army gave Hezekiah the courage to do what he had to do. We serve a God bigger than our fear and heartache and more beautiful than our deepest dreams. No matter the situation, He’s able to guide us through it.

Time and Presence
This year, whether you’re faced with good news or bad, spread it out before the Lord. Literally write it down and take it to Him in prayer. In all our busyness, God offers us two incredible gifts we can have any time we want: His time and presence. Don’t waste those gifts. Pour out your whole heart in His presence. Get to know Him through His Word. He wants us to engage Him with every part of our heart.

Paint, write, sing, dance, play basketball, baby-sit and love outrageously to the glory of God. Spill your heart out to Him first. When you’re just aching to tell somebody what’s going on with you, go for it. He’s ready to listen.