Unless the Lord

Reflections on the Asbury Outpouring (Part 4)

This essay is the fourth of a series reflecting on the Asbury Outpouring. You can read Part 1 here, Part 2 here, and Part 3 here.

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Unless the LORD builds the house, the builders labor in vain.
-Psalm 127:1

In the summer of 2023, I had the rare opportunity to visit my parents overseas. The pastor of their local church asked me in advance to share about the Outpouring, which I was happy to do, but he also asked me to speak about a particular topic that jarred me when I first heard it: contentment in singleness.

I was bothered by how nonchalantly the pastor seemed to treat such an intimate subject—as though I was happily single and eager to share about this feature of my life with anyone who should ask. And yet, God did in fact speak into my experience of singleness at the Outpouring in a significant way, so I had many things to say about the subject. In the end, despite some hesitation, I understood that God was likely behind the request, and I did as the pastor asked.

One of the great disappointments that I was grappling with in the month leading up to the Outpouring was the continued struggle I was experiencing in my ambitions to build a house—to begin a career, start a family, and plant my roots deep. I had applied to numerous jobs and been turned down repeatedly, experienced only failure in my relationship efforts, and found myself beginning another degree which meant, in effect, a continuation of the transient lifestyle that I so disliked about college.

That month, I heard God direct me to the book of Haggai as he had in seasons prior but with different implications. “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?”¹ When I read this verse, the invitation hit a nerve. I understood that God was asking me, a homesick third-culture kid to surrender up my desires for a house and instead direct my efforts toward building up the Lord’s house—the church. I did what I could to obey.

On the night of February 10^th, the third day of the Outpouring, I stood up in front of a packed Hughes Auditorium and shared a word that had been burning in my heart all afternoon. I spoke about the story of the Samaritan woman in John 4 and her relentless discontent. Many significant male figures in the Old Testament met their brides at wells. The Samaritan woman had led a faithless life. Dissatisfied with her five husbands, she was currently living with a man who was not her husband. Although there is much that is not clear about her story, by all appearances her desperate pursuit for satisfaction in a life partner led to her public humiliation—which was why she was out drawing water in the middle of the day. In this story, Jesus, the true bridegroom, makes his appeal to the faithless bride that she should ask him for living water and find ultimate satisfaction.

I extended a simple invitation to those gathered in the auditorium: that those whose desires seemed insatiable should come to Jesus and ask for this same living water. Reflecting on my testimony later, a friend told me that the message I shared was not only contained in the words I spoke but in the passion behind them—zeal for your house will consume me.² Indeed, in that moment I felt the zealous love of God pulsing through my body. I was burdened for those gathered who had looked for fulfillment in all the wrong places. It is clear to me now that I was making an appeal to Christ’s bride to return to her first love.

I worshipped late into the night, which is why, when I awoke early the next morning in prayer, unable to fall back to sleep, I was perplexed. After lying in bed for a while, I relented and headed back to Hughes. The issues which I had set aside prior to the Outpouring concerning my personal desires for a home had come back up and I was determined to finally address these and bring them to the altar.

When I arrived there, I began to pray. I prayed directly about the issues that I had set aside in the last month. But as I knelt there fervently petitioning God about my needs and desires for a home, a distinctive prayer emerged that I began repeating again and again. I prayed:

“Build your home in me so that I might build a home for you.”

There was something brilliant about this prayer that I quickly recognized as coming from the Holy Spirit, for it contained both my desire for a house and my newfound love for the church. I asked that God would fill me with his Holy Spirit, so that I would in turn be able to establish a household of my own and participate in his work to build up the church. I was amazed that God should give me such a prayer. Prior to that moment, I had always struggled with the seeming conflation of my desires for a family and Christ’s call to love his church. In this prayer, my desires were fused into one unified petition—as though my house and his church might be birthed by the same Spirit.

I went back to my apartment later that morning and tried to fall asleep. When I failed, I got up, a little frustrated, and made my way back to Hughes Auditorium to continue in prayer. As I was walking over, I complained in my spirit to God about my restlessness. But then, as I was ascending the stairs up to the auditorium, I heard the Lord reply, ‘It’s just like my wedding day.’

This statement astonished me. Of course, on my wedding day I would be surprised if I could sleep—such would be my excitement. But here God was speaking to me about his own anticipation for his wedding day, when he will be united with his bride, the church. I entered Hughes laughing and went directly to the altar to continue praying the prayer he had given me that morning.

Later in the afternoon, I returned to my apartment to try to nap again. I was still for half an hour but couldn’t sleep. Eventually, I got up, feeling agitated. “Why can’t I sleep?” I asked God. At once, I heard a verse that was only familiar enough for me to recognize as Scripture:

“I will not enter my house

or go to my bed,

I will allow no sleep to my eyes

or slumber to my eyelids,

till I find a place for the Lord,

a dwelling for the Mighty One of Jacob.”³

When I found and read these words of David, I was amazed. Indeed, I would not rest, I resolved, until God had established his home in me and through me. It became my chief ambition to see these words fulfilled—to be filled with his Spirit so that I could help to awaken the church to the beauty and love of Christ, her true bridegroom, and see God’s house established on the earth.

When I shared my Outpouring testimony with the youth in my parents’ church, I made a statement that their pastor might not have appreciated, at least not initially: Jesus was not content in singleness, and neither should we be. He was longing for his bride, the church.

Just as Adam and Eve embodied God’s ideal for marriage prior to the Fall, so Jesus, the new Adam, embodied God’s ideal for singleness prior to the New Creation. Jesus was not exempt from the statement that, “It is not good for man to be alone.”⁴ Indeed, Jesus knew the depths of our discontent. I believe that it was this very discontent that provoked his zeal. No singular woman was suitable to be his wife. Jesus was God in the flesh, blameless and pure, and all of humanity was intended to be his bride. But we spurned his love, turned our backs on him in our sin, and adulterated ourselves to other gods. Even so, in his love he pursues us regardless. He meets each of us at our own respective wells to present himself as the faithful bridegroom, determined to offer us water that will quench our thirst forever. It was for this reason that he “gave himself up for her (the church) to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.”⁵ In this way, he anticipated the day when his love should be reciprocated and consummated, at the wedding of the Lamb.

Until that day, let zeal for his house consume us. Those of us who are single should not feel guilty about our discontentment. It is a gift given to remind us of our ultimate satisfaction promised in Christ at the final wedding. Furthermore, it should compel our prayers. Those who are married should remember that their marriage serves as a picture of a greater marriage and not allow their temporary satisfaction in marriage to keep them from drinking the water which only Christ can provide.

At the Outpouring, God identified with my desire for a home and used it to teach me about his love for the church. Indeed, when people have asked me for key takeaways from the Outpouring, I say this: Jesus loves his church. But he doesn’t just love her. His love is desperate, zealous, passionate. That is the only kind of love that could lead him to the cross. As friends of the bridegroom, we should lean into his discontent and never fail to ask for the same kind of love.

1. Haggai 1:4

2. Psalm 69:9, John 2:17

3. Psalm 132:1-5

4. Genesis 2:18

5. Ephesians 5:25-27