Face buried in my hands, I was feeling broken, torn open to
the core … but it was good. The setting was a much-awaited youth conference for
which I’d saved money and attended during my junior year of high school.
Thoughts about that season of my youth conjure memories of grappling for
meaning in life and an all-out search for God.
But at that moment, I was wrecked -- but in a good way. Have you ever felt internally exposed and loved
all at the same time? Though prior to the event, I’d surrendered as much of my
dreams and aspirations to align myself to what I perceived to be God’s will,
I’d never felt so unworthy, so convicted about who I was in my heart, so sorry
for oversights with people, or oddly, so purely loved all at the same time.
Jonathan Martin, a pastor, summarized the experience well
with this quote: "To encounter God is to discover both how small we are
and how beloved we are, and we are not prepared either to be so insignificant
or so desperately loved. Both revelations are unnerving."
Now, with more years of life under my belt, I’m often amazed
at how that event, etched vividly enough to recall, has become a reference
point -- a “true north” experience about my relationship to God and other
people, and understanding my existence. Awe-inducing reverence of a holy God
was the result. It marked me enough to know that I was sick and sinful in HIS
presence, but He was LOVE with no limits, so powerful that, though I never
wanted to leave the presence I was feeling, it was potent enough to consume me.
This divine appointment
humbled me, purified me, empowered me to love in deeper measure, and
helped me to see my own selfishness and self-centered sinfulness in the “good
works” of my “sacrificial” offerings to God.
At the time of the experience, I was confident of no greater joy or
contentment on earth. In confession, since then, there have been seasons where
I’ve failed and not maintained my sensitivity to God’s inner voice and desired
to go my own way. And, LIFE within me has died. But I always have that
experience of reference where God tangibly showed up. He continues to from time to time, and it
brings about renewal in my sensitivity to Him again.
Have you had an experience like this? If so, what you sensed
at the specific encounter and the change in your life that followed couldn’t
happen without divine assistance. Is it
all God, or are you and I involved in such a happenstance? For me, it was
certainly a season marked by a deep search for God and sense of fulfillment and
meaning in my own journey. But for others -- they’d say it just happened. This
I know: we all NEED a God encounter. As a Christian, I believe I encounter God
through the person and divinity of Jesus. It is a God-encounter that changed me
internally, purified my motives, and set my desires on a course to please God
more than boss, friend, or even a spouse.
How do you have a God encounter? I think the encounters come
in all shapes, sizes, and any way that God chooses, but it seems to start with
a desire. It probably involves another person who makes you desire Him more in
your life. And if there is no desire, I
guess we need to turn to God and ask for the hunger. “God give us a desire and
people around us that will inspire us to know You.”
Jeremiah 29: 13 NIV, “You will seek me and find me when you
seek me with all your heart.”
Isaiah 6: 5 NIV, "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am
ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean
lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."
