From early on, I sensed God moving me here and there from time to time, though everything was fairly subtle compared to my experience in High School. After that experience, I continued to have periodic stirrings in my soul, especially in worship, but never stopped wrestling with the challenge he posed to me.
Three years of silence was frustrating. When the word "love" came up in a worship song, I would stop singing. It was a strangling disability. At one point, during my junior year of college, after recalling the phrase "We love him because he first loved us," I demanded that God prove his love for me. I devoted myself to an hour of prayer a day, hoping for some kind of breakthrough.
At the same time, I was just starting to date Laurie, though we hadn't been seeing each other long enough to define our relationship. In February of 1995 she came down from Sacramento to LA to visit me for a weekend. On a Friday night, while I was at a rehearsal, she made dinner for us transforming my college bachelor kitchen in a romantic dining area complete with Italian food and candles. After we ate, we decided to drive up into the mountains to pray together.
Okay, I admit it, it was a move, like telling a nice Christian girl that you want to be a youth pastor. We all know that girls want to marry youth pastors (spiritual leader, good with kids, fun) What's not to like? Anyway, we found one of those movie spots with the lights of the city far below, and parked. Then we talked for a few hours before we finally decided to pray. I took her hand. Isn't that what people do when they pray? Yeah. Nice move.
We prayed back and forth for a couple of hours. As usual, I prayed about the love question, among other things. Then, about three in the morning, we stopped and just sat in that post-prayer silence where no one wants to be unspiritual and speak first.
It was God who spoke first. It all came in a moment, like before, but could be summarized into something like this: "My love is romantic. Your life is like a meal, and all of its phases are like progressive courses. The food, settings, and candles are like the people, places, and events that you experience. They are there to draw you to myself, the person sitting across the table. Then, when all of the food is eaten and the candles have died, it will be just you and me."
With the message came a powerful sensation. It was so strong that I began to tremble and I felt that if it became more intense, it would kill me. It was a love that made every other love (romantic, paternal, platonic) feel limited and small. It changed me. To this day, I will never doubt how he feels, not just about me, but about humanity. Despite any evidence to the contrary, I cannot doubt his benevolent intentions.
Just as I was about to say something to Laurie, she blurts out, "John, God is romantic!" He told her the same thing in the same moment. Isn't that just like him?
Since that day, I am not easily intimidated. I used to be very skittish, especially when it came to demonic situations or dark alleys at night. No longer. I am confident in his ability beyond mine, allowing me to smile or even laugh when situations seem desperate. I am not afraid. I feel solid inside. I really do. But it has nothing to do with my own abilities. I'm not that great.
But who cares? He is.
3 comments:
John,
I can see that this blog is going to get more and more interesting! Seriously, I can't wait for the book.
Now, speaking to God's voice (pun not intentionally intended, but left in).
I had one friend in college who heard and/or saw Jesus. From that experience he converted and was a very radical believer.
I've never experienced that.
I remember several experiences in junior high and high school (usually in a church service or camp setting) where I felt very clearly that God was speaking to me. Several of these instances were times of recommitment to Jesus. (Several times I felt like I hadn't done it "right", so I kept trying to make sure that my salvation had "stuck" somehow).
I'd have to say that only recently in the last several years have I truly began to understand God's grace and mercy. To understand that God really does love me and it's not just because I'm doing the right Christian things and praying enough and reading my Bible enough. He love me because He chooses to.
Having my own children has also made me more aware of his love for his children. I do NOT feel that I am great father. I feel quite flawed, but I try to love my children to the best of my ability. If I can feel such intense love for my children, as a selfish, flawed man, how much greater is God's love for his children that He gave his only son? (And I have to tell you, THAT is very difficult for me to understand because I can't ever see myself able to do anything even remotely like that. How is giving your son over to be killed loving? I know...the greater good. Still. Hard, hard concept).
Forgive me if I sound preachy. To be honest, a majority of the time I feel nothing. I hear nothing.
I read the Bible in hopes of learning more. I try and connect with people because I know that God works through relationships. I want to be available...but I know I fall so short. Darn legalist that I am!
One of our pastors frequently refers to himself as a "recovering legalist". I think I am also one of those.
God, speak to me, a recovering legalist. Give me ears to hear. Forgive me for trying to do so much.
Thanks for the post, John.
I'm done with my ramble from the fringe.
Peace,
Steve
Do you know how weird it was for me to be preparing that dinner? I am in the APU mods (on campus housing, I know no one. These people you know (including your roommate) are walking passed the windows, peeping in, wondering who the heck is in there, borrowing candles from the girls next door, for, who did you say that was again? The guy who has never had a girlfriend? Wait, he STILL doesn't have a girlfriend, right? Who IS this chick! That's another story...
Anyway, here is one of those, "did God set that up, or, did He use the situation?" The "romantic dinner" was spontaneous, on my part. And VERY risky, mind you, because we weren't even technically dating! (Did we ever date?) But obviously, the way that dinner was made and fancied up would make a much better picture than if we had driven through Taco Bell that night. Hm...
When we drove up to the mountain later on, I was only anticipating it as a good time of prayer. Oh yeah, nice move, by the way, Frank, but since we had no no "defining the relationship" to that point, I wasn't thinking ANYTHING was a move! :) He had asked me to go down to L.A. sometime so that we could pray for the college, and for some other things, so I think I was gearing up for that.
We sat there for awhile, yeah, the view WAS like a movie scene...city nightscape... talking about both of our individual lives, the issues we were dealing with. I DO remember you telling me to hold your hand when we were just about to pray. Now THAT is when I realized a "move"!
We prayed for a couple hours, probably for all of the things that were on our minds. Eventually, everything just went silent. There were no more words. I had been praying with my eyes open, watching the city lights far below. I don't even know why I said it because I don't remember what led up to that thought but, I just said out of the blue, "God is so romantic." Apparantly, that was for you.
We were done praying and just kind of sat there, not really knowing what to say about what just happened. Everything suddenly turned sort of, electric. All of these thoughts started coming together as we understood things about God that we hadn't before. We felt them. We sat there awhile.
Eventually we decided to start driving back down the mountain. The sun would be coming up soon.
I remember driving in the dark, then seeing a rabbit run across the road. We were BOTH so on a "high" that it seemed as if everything around us was just SO amazing. Driving down, down, down...
All of a sudden panic ATTACKED me out of nowhere. I saw two differnet colored, transparant faces VERY clearly in my head. I blurted out, "John, I'm scared!" He screeched to the side of the road (a turn-out just happened to be right where the car needed to stop) and I launched into his arms, huddled. He started praying out loud. Something very negative was all around the car and determined to do something, maybe stop what we had experienced before we made it to the bottom of the mountain? We were both shaking. Eventually, the shaking calmed and the air settled a little. Neither of us were demonologists, not out looking for things to cast out, but whatever the heck that was, certainly wasn't from God's Kingdom. Yikes.
Both of us thought it was a little ironic, having "just come down from the mountain", THE typical cliche', and got immediately sideswiped.
The next couple days were surreal, probably a little mixture of not having slept for a long while, and also the remnants of "the mountain." That was definately one of the big God experiences, for me, too.
But the neat thing is, the experience was for YOUR love "quest" with God. It was all set up. You can see it. But He let me be involved, part of the picture. He let me in on it! I lived in Sacramento,and we were just friends at that point. Why did I get to fly all the way to Los Angeles to be in on YOUR answer to prayer about love?
Well, a couple days later, (long story so I'll try to stick to my point.) we just all of a sudden knew that we would marry each other. We married at the end of the summer. WEIRD.
So, your 3 year quest had ended. You and God became very clear in the Love between you, and then, He told you that earthly romance represents what it is like with God and humans (Christ and the Church), right? So, after never having had a girlfriend even, you have a wife? I think that is just down right amazing.
In September of last year, I started meeting with a spiritual director. And don’t worry; I had the same reaction that you probably did when you read that sentence, "What the heck is that?"
I had been going to counseling for about 2 months at that time, and the woman I had been meeting with picked up on the fact that I was longing to hear from God, but not having much success in my own prayer time, and I had absolutely NO desire to go to church. So she told me about Karen, and a little bit about what she did as a spiritual director. I was so desperate; I decided anything was worth a try.
This was what I was referring to in my earlier comment about needing to‘re-learn’ how to hear God’s voice. I had no idea what I was going to experience in those sessions with Karen, at first. I thought she was going to counsel me, or give me advice, or SOMETHING. But that really wasn’t how it worked. She taught me a prayer practice called Visio Divina, which means “Divine seeing.” And the gist of it is that you have to learn how to rest in God so that you can be able to hear Him. And resting is a promise given to us. (Again reference Hebrews 4)
The really interesting thing to me was when she explained how everyone’s experience was different and unique to them. Sometimes it would be the words of a song that would get stuck in someone’s head, or a scripture, or a thought, or a physical feeling, or an image, etc… So as I practiced this type of prayer with her, I began journaling my experiences, what was being revealed to me. It was life changing.
I am 2 months behind on my journaling! I have about 3 entries that are waiting to be written, and I need to get them down on paper so the experiences don’t lose their significance. But I wanted to share a more recent one, which I have not written about before today.
I had told Karen that I was relishing in the love that I had been experiencing. Not only in being able to feel God’s love for me in a new way, but also in my relationships with my friends and family. And so she had asked if I wanted to pray about it, to see if God had something to say about all that.
I was on the sofa across the room from the window in her office, and the setting sun was shining through and landing right where I was seated. As I sat there with my eyes closed, I was enjoying the warmth of the sun on my face, and I began to think about Love as warmth. And all of a sudden, I began to “see” the light from the window as the Holy Spirit, it began to move towards me and filled me. So then, I was not only bright because the light was shining on me, but it was shining from me.
The light and warmth from the light was Love. And I realized if I was warm and loved from within; there would be no need for a jacket or sweater or for someone else to make me ‘feel’ loved. And if someone else was in need of love, I didn’t have to ‘take off’ something to give it to them… I had an endless supply coming from within me, because it was coming from God.
It made me realize why what I had been experiencing as of late was so different from before. How I was able to just enjoy my relationships, but not expecting them to fulfill a void or a longing for love in me any longer. Believe me, I know that this is not a new concept, but it was ‘new’ in the picture, in the revelation and in the experience of it. There were times in my life where I ‘thought’ I was giving out of God’s love in me, but in reality I had been shedding my “clothing” piece by piece until I had ended up naked and cold.
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