Sid Roth

Sid: Before I started this interview I told Misty Edwards she provokes me to jealousy because I am, well my wife’s not here so I can say it.  I am proud when I get an hour’s worth of praying in tongues and worship in every day.  Misty the people out at IHOP that’s your lifestyle that’s your oxygen.  Tell me what your average day consists of in reference to prayer and worship.

Misty: Oh, well my average day inference to prayer and worship would be I usually lead one prayer meeting a day so that’s about a two hour period of time where I’m you know at the keyboard leading in worship and prayer.  Then I have another two hour block where I am in the prayer room with my Bible opened just praying in the Spirit; praying around the Psalms or whatever passage the Lord has going down my prayer list.  So about four hours a day I aim to be in the prayer room. I’m not saying all that’s you know deeply connected but at least my heart’s in front of the fire.

Sid: But you know I got saved at thirty; I didn’t as the Bible says I didn’t know my left hand from my right hand spiritually until I was 30 years of age. But at 5 you became a believer and the thing that intrigues me so much is that you had a strong sense of eternity. You knew life was short; how does a 5 year old even fathom those thoughts?

Misty: Oh, I mean I remember from being… some of my earliest memories are just sitting on my swings set trying to grasp forever.  You know I would be like “Forever, forever, forever, forever, mom how long is forever?”  And just that feeling of we’re never going to end and yet everybody dies.  You know my great grandmother passed away when I was very young and so I just had this awakening of that…we were all going to die and I just had a real sense of the fragility of life and the speed of which it was going.  Which I mean it just propelled me…

Sid: But how does a 5 year old have that sense?  But let me tell you my story, when I was about 5 my parents participated in athletics their sport of choice was poker.  And they were playing poker all night long.  And I’m a 5 year old sitting in the bed and the thought popped in my head “What happens when you die?”  I mean I don’t know where it came from, now I know it came from God and I pondered it and my conclusion was as a 5 year old “You cease to exist.” But your conclusion was right.

Misty: Well, I had godly parents for one thing and so when I asked my Mom “How long is forever and what happens when we die?”  She did give me an answer that satisfied me. I was very young when I came to know the Lord although I still had a sense of still  searching even after I’d said the sinners prayer, I still had a sense of “But why am I here?” I knew where I was going when I died but I couldn’t figure out why I existed, you know what was the purpose on this side of time.  See I think that that cry is in the heart of every 5, 6, 7 year old that’s the age where those thoughts and those longings are awakened in the human heart.

Sid: Okay, age 19 you go out to Kansas City to Bible School. Mike Bickel’s has a class on Song of Solomon.

Misty: Yes.

Sid: That had a major impact on you, explain.

Misty: It had a major impact of me, I was raised in a very loving family with a focus on holiness and character.  I felt the love of God on and off throughout my life, but in this Song of Solomon class Mike was really touching on the longings of the human heart, you know the longing for greatness, the longing for purpose, the longing for destiny, the longing for beauty to be enjoyed.  You know the basic longings of all humans in every culture that we have. He says that “In God we find the answers to these longings that He is the fountain of desire.”  And through the Song of Solomon and through the bridal paradigm as Mike calls it knowing Jesus as a Bride Groom with burning desire instead of just a master with a checklist totally changed my paradigm of God.  And my desire to respond to Him in the same kind of wholeheartedness that He was pursuing me and it radically changed my view of God which changed my worldview, which changed the view of myself.  I mean it transformed me radically.

Sid: Now with all of that prayer and all of those studies and all of the things that a 19 year old is involved in in life, you still managed to sneak away to the laundry room to get away so that you could seek God.

Misty: Yeah, and at that time you know I was working at a daycare center, I was a preschool teacher, this was a year before the House of Prayer had started; I was in Bible school but that class had awakened such a hunger in my heart. And I was saying “God if this is real,” like I’m kind of the kind of person that doesn’t get convinced easily. And so I like the feeling of hearing what Mike was saying but I kept saying “Is this real I have to know for myself.” So I would take the notes, I would take my Bible that little Song Solomon commentary and go into my little dirty apartment laundry mat and just say look at the stars and go “If You are there God and You hear me is this real; do You really feel this way about human beings, are you watching me right now?” And so it was almost a desperate cry at the same time of feeling His presence, it was a funny mixture of desperation and presence at the same time.

Sid: Now you wrote a song called “Doves Eyes.” Tell me about that.

Misty: Yeah.

Sid: Tell me about that.

Misty: “Doves Eyes” is out of the book of Song of Solomon.  The Bridegroom He says to the Shulamite that you have dove’s eyes.”  And what I believe that speaks of is a single vision, that you have focus; that you can’t…a dove cannot turn their eyes in either direction their fixed.  And so when the Bridegroom says to us “You have Dove’s Eyes.” He’s saying I see in you the sincerity to be mine even in our weakness.  You know I certainly have failed many, many times over the last fourteen years since I was 19.  I’ve failed many many times, but at the core of me He says “You have dove’s eyes.”  He say “I know you want me, I know your pursuing me just keep coming if you don’t quit you’ll win.”  And so to hear Him say that over my heart gives me courage when I do fail to run to Him instead of away from Him.

Sid: Let’s hear “Dove’s Eyes.” Excerpt: Misty Edwards sings (“Dove’s Eyes”)

Sid: Misty what’s going on inside of you, what’s exploding when you sing that song to God?

Misty: When I sing that song to God I hear Him singing that song to me.  When He looks at me and says “You do have dove’s eyes.”  And I feel so distracted and I have so many things going on in my life and my own failure, my own sin keeps me from going to the degree that I want to go in wholeheartedness.   But when He whispers to my heart “I see the sincerity of your heart I know that you love Me, keep coming to Me.”  It is the power that has kept me from quitting over the last decade in my life.  It is the power that motivates me knowing that He sees the sincerity of my heart, it’s revolutionary.

Sid: Although it’s revolutionary I have this question for you.  What keeps you powered to be so hungry for God after all these years?  Doesn’t it become routine to you?

Misty: Yeah, that’s a great question and it’s a question I asked myself often there are times especially in a culture of prayer where it can become very routine you know it becomes like a machine.  We know how to make it work and so I have to be really honest with myself and honest before God, and whenever I feel like my heart is getting cold and I’m just going through the motions I hear that verse in Revelation “That you have a name that your alive but you left your first love.”  And I’ve heard that a few times the Spirit has whispered that to my heart over the years. And I come to Him with repentance and I say “Lord, you wanted my heart from the beginning you didn’t want just me to show up in a prayer room every day that’s not even the point; the point is you want my heart. So I think it’s perpetual returning at the heart level connecting with the Holy Spirit.  And keeping that as my primary vision; my primary dream to go deep in His word and to go deep in the Spirit when I realign my mind and my heart over and over again.  I find that I have to sign back up you know regularly though.

Sid: You know when people hear you sing it’s literally the hunger for God the hunger for the presence of God it’s in your spiritual DNA and it comes out…