So this is something that happened on Wednesday that completely changed my life so that my relationship with God hasn't been the same since.
For a while I have been feeling pretty distant from Jesus, I have just had a hard time connecting or feeling anything. I just couldn't feel close to Him, the main problem was that for all the love I was reading about in the Bible I just wasn't seeing it or feeling it. I was reading in Psalms 103 that He heals all my disease but I wasn't receiving or seeing healing. So I was feeling dry and wanted to get the joy and the love back.
God must have really planned to hit me with something big that day. The whole day little seemingly random events and changes in plans all lead up to a point in the evening with me being in an upper room of someone's house, at some way out, under-the-radar, Christian shabba-fest known in Sheffield as the 316. Now I'm from a Pentecostal background but this was just shake, rattle and roll the whole way, some people were jumping, some where shouting, some were speaking in tongues and some where just laid-out facedown on the ground, sucking rug, arms out, soaking in the Spirit.
Now I'm not at all against that stuff, on the contrary, it is all in scripture, but I just wasn't in the place for it (to tell you the truth I felt jealous of the passion and the freedom that these people seemed to have), so instead I decided stay sitting and just pray by myself and not to allow my place of spiritual dryness to allow for negative thought towards what was going on around me:
For a while I have been feeling pretty distant from Jesus, I have just had a hard time connecting or feeling anything. I just couldn't feel close to Him, the main problem was that for all the love I was reading about in the Bible I just wasn't seeing it or feeling it. I was reading in Psalms 103 that He heals all my disease but I wasn't receiving or seeing healing. So I was feeling dry and wanted to get the joy and the love back.
God must have really planned to hit me with something big that day. The whole day little seemingly random events and changes in plans all lead up to a point in the evening with me being in an upper room of someone's house, at some way out, under-the-radar, Christian shabba-fest known in Sheffield as the 316. Now I'm from a Pentecostal background but this was just shake, rattle and roll the whole way, some people were jumping, some where shouting, some were speaking in tongues and some where just laid-out facedown on the ground, sucking rug, arms out, soaking in the Spirit.
Now I'm not at all against that stuff, on the contrary, it is all in scripture, but I just wasn't in the place for it (to tell you the truth I felt jealous of the passion and the freedom that these people seemed to have), so instead I decided stay sitting and just pray by myself and not to allow my place of spiritual dryness to allow for negative thought towards what was going on around me:
“Perhaps, my dear brother, while they prayed together
You sat and considered, but prayed not at all:
Would you find a blessing, then pray without ceasing,
Obey the advice that was given by Paul.
For if you should reason at any such season,
No wonder if Satan should tell in your ear,
That preachers and people are only a rabble,
And this is no place for reflection and prayer.”
You sat and considered, but prayed not at all:
Would you find a blessing, then pray without ceasing,
Obey the advice that was given by Paul.
For if you should reason at any such season,
No wonder if Satan should tell in your ear,
That preachers and people are only a rabble,
And this is no place for reflection and prayer.”
[a dialogue song between a “Shouting” Methodist and a “Formalist,” most likely either a Presbyterian or a Congregationalist, 1848]
Not long into this praise session the guy leading came over and asked to pray with me. I agreed (perhaps a little reluctantly) and so we got to it. At first it was a normal prayer for blessings , "fill him up Lord" overflowing cups and green pastures and etc, but soon he started to have a word of knowledge about me. He suddenly prayed for God to comfort me for the loss of a significant person in my life. Straight away I thought of my mom. I made no response but remained still but somehow he knew that it was a word from God and that he had hit on something, he looked straight at me and asked: I'm right aren't I?
I nodded: yeah. yeah you are
Is it a family member?
I nodded
Is it your mom?...
I have never cried about my past or my family, I just removed it to the recesses of my mind but as soon as he said that I just welled. I had to bite my tongue so hard to stop myself crying. I felt almost angry that something I spent so much time repressing had just been surfaced so quickly by a guy I don't know. When he finished praying I went outside to get some space. Two other people came up to me with similar messages that were pretty spot on. I didn't know what to do with all this, it was like it was just too much! I just wanted people to leave me alone and for God to stop giving people words of knowledge about me. Then I just heard God's voice gently say "go to Simon's house". This night had been so mental so far I had no problem getting out at all and going to Simon's, finally I would get to talk to a reasonable person who had their head screwed on. So, it was past 11pm and made my way to Simon's.
When I told Simon about everything that had happened, he didn't know what to say (other than "....flip"). We sat and talked for a while but there seemed to be no answer to everything that had happened that night. Then Simon started looking at a piece of paper he had stuck on his wall: read this.
I stood and walked over and began to read the words that were printed there. I remember it took the longest time to read, it felt like forever. Every word on the paper fell like a hammer on my heart an sunk deeper than I ever knew. Half way through reading it tears just started to stream down my face but still I held it back. When I finished reading I just collapsed to the floor and broke down. I became so overcome with the love of God that I just couldn't hold it in. Never in my life had I felt the love of God for me so personally, I felt as though it had been missing my whole life and then suddenly a dam inside me broke and a tidal wave of God's love for me just rushed in and overwhelmed me. Since that night, which was 6 days ago now, I have seen life differently and my relationship with God is just so much richer, so much closer, so much more loving and so much more enduring.
This is what was written on the paper: A message of a Father's Love I pray that God touches your heart through it as he did mine.
I nodded: yeah. yeah you are
Is it a family member?
I nodded
Is it your mom?...
I have never cried about my past or my family, I just removed it to the recesses of my mind but as soon as he said that I just welled. I had to bite my tongue so hard to stop myself crying. I felt almost angry that something I spent so much time repressing had just been surfaced so quickly by a guy I don't know. When he finished praying I went outside to get some space. Two other people came up to me with similar messages that were pretty spot on. I didn't know what to do with all this, it was like it was just too much! I just wanted people to leave me alone and for God to stop giving people words of knowledge about me. Then I just heard God's voice gently say "go to Simon's house". This night had been so mental so far I had no problem getting out at all and going to Simon's, finally I would get to talk to a reasonable person who had their head screwed on. So, it was past 11pm and made my way to Simon's.
When I told Simon about everything that had happened, he didn't know what to say (other than "....flip"). We sat and talked for a while but there seemed to be no answer to everything that had happened that night. Then Simon started looking at a piece of paper he had stuck on his wall: read this.
I stood and walked over and began to read the words that were printed there. I remember it took the longest time to read, it felt like forever. Every word on the paper fell like a hammer on my heart an sunk deeper than I ever knew. Half way through reading it tears just started to stream down my face but still I held it back. When I finished reading I just collapsed to the floor and broke down. I became so overcome with the love of God that I just couldn't hold it in. Never in my life had I felt the love of God for me so personally, I felt as though it had been missing my whole life and then suddenly a dam inside me broke and a tidal wave of God's love for me just rushed in and overwhelmed me. Since that night, which was 6 days ago now, I have seen life differently and my relationship with God is just so much richer, so much closer, so much more loving and so much more enduring.
This is what was written on the paper: A message of a Father's Love I pray that God touches your heart through it as he did mine.
No comments:
Post a Comment