The best way I know to share about Journey into the Deep is to start at the beginning…

The origin of this ministry began when some folks were praying for me and the Lord gave me a vision. 

I was standing on the shore of the ocean.  In front of me was a small rowboat that I knew was for me.  I got in, grabbed the oars and started paddling.  There was excitement mixed with a bit of fear as the vastness and depths were in front of me and the shoreline kept drifting further and further away from my sight. 

The next thing I knew, the vision shifted and I was in the fight of my life.  It was night and I was caught in a raging storm.  Thunder, rain, lightning and 40 foot waves surrounded me as I was trying in complete futility to row in the storm.  I was getting destroyed and thought I was done for. 

Just at that moment, the vision shifted again and I was in the sunshine in perfectly calm seas in waters of tremendous depths.  I somehow had survived the storm, and I knew that I was in the presence of the Heavenly Father.  Here’s the thing…I knew He was there…I knew He was speaking…but I couldn’t perceive any of it because I was so exhausted.  I laid in my rowboat like a dead man.  

All of a sudden, the vision began again…it was the same boat and the same shore, but there was one amazing and unexpected difference…Jesus himself was in the boat and He was doing the rowing.  I remember just laughing and enjoying our time together.  Then He looks at me and says, “I have to go now, but I’m going to give you My Spirit to help you.  In an instant, He was gone and I was rowing.  This time there was a change.  There was zero fear and there felt like crazy electricity running thru my arms.  I was rowing way faster than the first time and felt no fatigue.  I then came up to the same storm as in the first part of the vision.  I rowed thru the storm like it was nothing. 

I then came the the same calm seas in the depths and the presence of the Father was amazing.  This time though, I wasn’t exhausted.  I remember just soaking in the presence of the Lord.  And then the Father spoke very clearly and told me that I had to go back.  I looked behind me and saw the same storm, but this time I saw many boats being tossed back and forth by the wind and the waves.  I began to row back into the storm, but at this point, it felt like lightning was running thru my veins.  

I remember pulling up to a yacht and tossed them a rope.  I then rowed both of us over to a cruise ship and the yacht tossed them a line.  Sooner or later we had 7 or 8 ships of various sizes behind the rowboat.  I then rowed all of the boats into the presence of the Heavenly Father and left them there.  I turned back around to go get some more.  I realized that after people spent time in the presence of the Father, they were returning to the storm to haul others into the presence of the Lord as well.

As the the Vision concluded I heard the Father say…”cast off into the deep, Jonathan, cast off into the deep”…

The one thing that I’ve seen in my travels and doing missions work all over the world, is that the Father longs to be known.  So many times we get consumed with the “work” of missions and Christianity that we lose or never know the “heart” of what we’re doing.  

This is the heartbeat of Journey into the Deep…Knowing Him…

In all that we do, whether going on a short term discipleship or missions trip or doing a longer term internship, we are going to continually seek to know the heart of the Father.

That is where love is.  That is where life is.  That is where joy is.  That is where deliverance is.  That is where freedom is…