Journey to His Heart: Adventure to New Depths in Your Walk with God

By Becca Gunyon MCC

Interrupting her thoughts, He asked again, “Will you trust Me.”

She considered; trust is not a feeling, but a choice. Her feelings were embedded deep into her being. She felt unsure—yet His presence and the peace He brings, she wanted that much more than the negative swirl or constant spiral. “Yes,” she finally murmured, “Ok, yes, I will choose to trust You.”

Hand in hand, they entered the cave.

Will you join me in the Journey to His Heart?

There you will find oceans of Love, waterfalls of His essence, green pastures of Rest, perfect Peaceableness in the storm, and Companionship in the desert…

“Journey to His Heart is a beautiful exploration of what it looks like to seek the Lord each day in all circumstances. For those that desire to go deeper in fellowship with God, this is a must read.”

~Suzy Gray, Director Media Engagement North Point Ministries

While a ‘picture may paint a 1,000 words,’ the words Becca uses paint pictures along with a basket of emotions. Journey to the Heart of God helps personalize the word of God for your daily life.

~Jim Owings Founder of Lord’s Way Ministries

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Feb 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9781664255685

Becca Gunyon MCC

Becca Gunyon, MCC loves moments with her family laughing, learning, sporting, serving, growing, and walking through life’s adventure together. Writing, counseling, mentoring, speaking, parent coaching are elements of ministry that she enjoys as Executive Director of The Way Counseling.

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ISBN: 978-1-6642-5567-8 (sc)

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WestBow Press rev. date: 02/10/2022

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Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from THE MESSAGE,

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Scripture quotations marked (ESV) are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible,

English Standard Version®), Copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing

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Scripture marked (NKJV) taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright

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Scripture marked (NCV) taken from the New Century Version®. Copyright

© 2005 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked Phillips are taken from The New Testament in Modern

English, copyright © 1958, 1959, 1960 J.B. Phillips and 1947, 1952, 1955, 1957 The

Macmillian Company, New York. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked TPT are from The Passion Translation®.

Copyright © 2017, 2018, 2020 by Passion & Fire Ministries, Inc. Used

by permission. All rights reserved. ThePassionTranslation.com.

Dedicated to the One Who

calls us to His Heart

Thank yous...

Thankful to my husband Dan who encourages me to write every day.

Thankful for my son Owin who helps edit my books.

Thankful for my daughter Addi who creates beauty and always speaks Jesus back to me.

Thankful to my son Eben who thanks me daily for being me.

Thankful to my son John E who flatters me with his funny compliments.

Thankful to my son Anden who asks me profound questions about God.

Thankful to all of my dear friends who previewed and shared this journey.

Thankful to my family: the Owings, Gunyons and Tuiasosopos.

Thankful to Westbow Publishing for being so wonderful to work with.

Thankful to my friend and wordsmith Lexie Fish for editing.

Thankful to all of you who pray for and walk beside me at Lord’s Way Ministries (est 2000).

CONTENTS

Preface

The Invitation to Journey

The Dungeon

The Place of Unknown

Going Deeper

Face to Face

Revealing Past and Present Weights

The Embrace

The Adventure

Illuminated Passages to His Heart

The Ocean

The Shore

Walking on Water

The Storm

The Desert

Green Pastures and Quiet Waters

Living Forgiveness

Back to the Ocean

The Valley of the Shadow of Death

The Climb

The Mountain Top

The Waterfall

Home

The Road

The Passage to the Everyday

Living in His Heart in the Everyday

Week 1: Calling Us to His Heart

Week 2: His Hands

Week 3: Throne of Grace

Week 4: He Painted the Sky for Me

Week 5: God with Us

Week 6: Life’s Changes

Week 7: His View of You

Week 8: Life’s Adventures

Week 9: Indispensable Necessity

Week 10: Lover of My Soul

Week 11: The Splinters in Life

Week 12: He Stoops

Week 13: Rejuvenated by Rest

Week 14: A Starry Night

Week 15: Broken Treasures

Week 16: Rain and Realness

Week 17: The Swirl

Week 18: God Makes a Miraculous Way

Week 19: Captured

Week 20: Living

Week 21: When Life Tackles Us

Week 22: Heart Realness

Week 23: Compassion Lenses

Week 24: Feelings vs. Blessings

Week 25: Embracing Realness

Week 26: My Mood Matters

Week 27: The Comforter

Week 28: Living

Week 29: Embrace the Life I Have Given You

Week 30: Celebrate!

Author’s Note

Works Cited

PREFACE

On the sliding table my feet slowly moved into the MRI tunnel, I closed my eyes. I felt God whisper, What are you afraid of?

I don’t know! The unknowns. I thought, Yes, I am afraid of what I don’t know.

As I thought about my fears circling around my brain: What is wrong with me? How bad is it? Why do I hurt? Why has it taken me years to get checked? My mind spiraled to the worst possible outcomes.

Then I thought about all of the other unknowns. Small or simple ones like my kids’ school schedules, college admissions, what’s coming up this season. Big ones like what does tomorrow hold for us, how will new vaccines and laws affect us? Our country… so much fighting and hatred, will there ever be peace? What will America look like for my grandkids?

Taking hold of my fears, I submitted them to God, even in that place of unknown. God, I know You are good, even when life does not feel good. Will You intervene, will You heal, will You rescue?

In this place of unknowns, I stopped resisting.

God whispered. I want to show you My heart and I want You to write about it.

And so began my Journey to the Heart of God.

Weeks later I found out the MRI was clear. I also found out that, at some point, I had broken my back, which was the cause for my abdominal pain. Walking through the unknowns helped me process thoughts I didn’t think I had the courage to do before, and led me to start writing this book.

THE INVITATION TO JOURNEY

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! (1 John 3:1 NIV)

Early on in my life, I understood the Message, yet as life happened I misunderstood. Looking back, I remember the day that I began my journey with Jesus as a young child, then, as a teen, my identity was being a good girl, doing the right thing, and pointing up to God giving Him glory. Being a Christian was who I was, yet I could never do enough or be enough for what I thought God demanded of me. I thought He was disappointed and always expecting more from me—more than I was capable of giving. I just couldn’t get there… but where was there? During these years I read my Bible and prayed often, because I knew that’s just what good Christians did. I was running on Christian fumes instead of being a Christ-like follower, all because I had life backward.

Until one day He spoke to my heart.

At that time in my life the stage was my identity; singing, speaking, and competing. My twenty-one-year-old-self found self-worth in the spotlight. Little did I know my life would forever change on a peaceful Colorado mountain at Frontier Ranch Young Life Camp after sharing my story about how God had healed my eating disorder in high school.

Later that day I sat by myself at a picnic table and God reminded me of 1 John, chapter 3 as He whispered to my heart, I love you because of who you are, not what you do. I, the God of the Universe, love you. To Me you are completely lovable!

Completely lovable? His whisper, telling me this Scripture, stopped me. Didn’t I already know this? I grew up singing, Jesus loves me, this I know, yet I was completely taken aback by this simple reminder. If I looked at my life and searched deep in my soul, I knew the truth was that I had not fully embraced and accepted His love. My heart longed for something more, yet in reality I had access to it all along. The simplicity of being lovable felt foreign to me, almost too easy. I thought I had to do more and be more for Him. Yet all the doing for Him never filled the canyon in my soul. This place so deep inside of me was starving. Starving for the unconditional, tender, powerful, healing love of Jesus. The kind of love we all long for.

On this mountain side, I realized embracing the love of Jesus is the center of Christianity. For out of His heart flows enough love, joy, and peace to fill the canyon in each soul so completely it spills out on the world around us. His love must be my foundation, my everything, the very core of who I am so I’m not spending every day striving for something I can never obtain.

After God spoke to my spirit, I began searching for what it meant to embrace His heart personally. Personalizing Scripture, God’s Words, became the echo in my mind. I understood that as He filled my heart with His whisper, I could ensure it was coming from Him by making sure what He was telling me was supported in Scripture. So, my adventure to the heart of God began.

He loves each of us deeply to the core of who we are, yet many of us are so thirsty working for Him we forget to drink from Him via the well of His unending love. Living immersed in His love is real life, it quenches the longing deep inside of us. His Spirit speaks the words of Jesus and reminds us who God is and who we are. He is always speaking His love and we can train our brain and heart to listen by becoming familiar with His Words.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. (Hebrews 13:8 NIV)

THE DUNGEON

"‘For I know the plans and thoughts that I have for you,’ says the Lord, ‘plans for peace and well-being and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.’" (Jeremiah 29:11 AMP)

After God whispered of His love to me while working on Young Life staff on the breathtaking Colorado mountain, I began to let it be the echo in my mind. With His love leading the way, He could show me the changes I needed to make in my life. Yet, this was different from the times I had been convicted and made a temporary change in guilt, or recommitted my life to Him just to fall back into bad habits. He took me by the hand to face myself, no hiding, no shame, no guilt, no pretenses, and He uncovered my imprisonment in a dungeon of darkness.

This is the first picture God sent to rescue me. While I was sitting at a lake