TAPPING INTO THE SPIRIT
Come near to God, and He will come near to you. (James
4:8)
About 4 a.m. on the 28th of November, 1984, I had a strange and
wonderful experience. In essence, I told God I loved him - and
to my amazement, he answered me and told me he loved me.
That was it, in a nutshell; but the experience was so shattering
I don't think I'll ever be the same. I've told people it was
like an extraterrestrial experience, because I had never
experienced anything like it before.
'The Lord is a FACT,' I had said to my wife Carol some weeks
before the experience. 'His presence is a fact. He is real and
unquestionably there. That's all that matters.'
'Yes.' Carol looked at me with amusement. 'But one should feel
God's existence, too.'
'No,' I insisted. 'Feeling doesn't matter. It's enough that he
exists!'
It was important, of course, that each day I was getting one
step closer to God. I was spending more time in prayer because I
knew he was listening - even if I didn't feel anything.
Soon after that I was alone in London for a visit to the British
Library before returning to my home in South Africa. It was the
27th of November and a British Council friend kindly put me up
in his London home. He gave me a comfortable bed in a tiny room
at the top of his house. I was hardly prepared for the
incredible surprise in store for me.
It was about four the next morning when I woke up with some
asthma. I turned over and lay on my back when I became aware of
a woman seated beside my bed. I ought to have jumped out of my
skin, especially since she radiated a soft light! But the
strange thing was I wasn't in the least bit frightened. On the
contrary, there was an immense sense of peace and warmth and
contentment. And, I knew her - or, I should say, it was
as though my spirit recognised her. Yet I couldn't put a name to
her. It didn't matter. It was enough that she was there. She was
elderly, and I felt afterwards she was like an old German
teacher I was very fond of as a child. But afterwards (and this
is very strange, for I don't understand it) I felt she was like
Corrie ten Boom: that name came to me very clearly, afterwards,
yet at the time I had never read any of her books. In any case,
the sense of warmth and comfort made me want to pray. I lay back
and said, simply: 'God, I love you.'
That was when it happened. All at once there was a flood of
light from above: a sudden downpour, like an energy beam of pure
power and pure love. It came straight down, like a pillar from
heaven: but it was a stream of heavenly power, like electricity
that surged through me, like a waterfall pouring, rushing
through me. I knew it was God. It was overwhelming. I felt like
a small child on the breast of its father, held ever so tightly.
I was crying and sobbing helplessly, overcome with joy. Somehow
it was my spirit that was crying, not my physical body. I was
held in a firm grip: movement was impossible. I had closed my
eyes, and now I dared to open them for a moment: the room was
flooded with light! A vague human form stood by the bed. I felt
fear, yet total acceptance by God: it was too much for me to
stand for long. I wish I'd had the courage to surrender totally
to the accepting love of God. And I felt so unworthy, so
ashamed, in spite of the total acceptance by God. Perhaps that's
why I cried: 'Oh, please, please let my life be worth something
to you!' And yet no demand was being made on me. At that
instant, very powerfully, I felt the sentences in my mind,
wordlessly, like a telepathic force: 'It's all right. You don't
have to justify yourself or do anything to make me love you or
want you.' Then suddenly it was all over.
But as I thought, 'It's over,' and while I still felt elated
from the experience, I was aware of a desk standing in the room.
It was a visual impression, of course, but the physical reality
of the desk was uncanny and lucid. It was a modern desk, tall
and narrow, like a pulpit. It felt inviting. I knew then that my
calling was to write - to proclaim God's word and message of
love through the written word. As if to confirm this, the
thought pressed into my mind: 'Feed my lambs.' And then,
finally, there was a feeling, like a chuckle, as though God were
saying, 'Did you say feeling didn't matter?' That was years ago,
but I still ask, 'Did it really happen?' Of course, I know it
did. I've been blessed with more than biblical proof that God
lives and that he loves me too! For some time after the
experience I had an overwhelming sense of love for everyone that
I never had before. Since then I've read Corrie ten Boom's
Tramp for the Lord. She describes a similar experience of
the Lord's presence - when she was healed in hospital. In a
sense, I was healed, too. God goes to the sinners and failures,
and I was failing badly. (Extract from Have Anything You Really
Really Want by Charles Muller. Further information at Diadem Books )