"I tremble in awe of You" Psalms 119:120
There have been many times I have trembled in the presence of the Lord. I have been in various church services where I have had overwhelming experiences where my body just trembles and shakes in the presence of God. I can count a few times that this has occurred recently, one was at Bethels Supernatural School of Ministry when I visited in December of last year. I experienced the might and power of the Lord like I never had before and after receiving prayer I violently shook on the ground for what seemed like an hour. God revealed his glory to me that day and it is hard for me to describe the event because it was so supernatural. If any of these sounds odd to you because you've never experienced it, that doesn't mean it hasn't and doesn't happen. God is soverign and does as He pleases, the events in Acts and other books of the bible attest to the power and might of Gods presence.
I remember other instances as a young child and teen when I fell out under the power of the Holy Spirit. Even after my salvation on January of 2010 I had experienced numerous powerful encounters with the Holy Spirit in which I trembled in the presence of the Lord. There have also been many times in my life that I have felt the Lord leading me to do something that my natural self did not want to do and I felt the presence of the Lord as my body and my heart begin to tremble. One of those experiences happened to me today.
Riding the train to Cape Town this morning on my way to the airport to pick up one of my squad mates who is returning from America, the Lord spoke to me. He told me to stand up and share His love with the entire train car. Although over the last few weeks my heart has been striving to obey God with all of my being, I chose to ignore this command. Instead I decided to put in my ear plugs and hide myself in my iPhone like mnay of us do at times. What I choose to listen to I qucikly realized would continue the prompting of the Holy Spirit, I decided to listen to Todd White speak at the Power and Love conference that I first went to in Kentucky. Needless to say I was encouraged and discouraged at the same time. Todd is someone who is truly dead to himself and will do anything the Holy Spirit asks, anything at anytime. This includes praying for people on airplanes, buses, on the streets, his waitresses, etc. It doesn't matter to Todd, Todd is truly bond servant and follower of Christ, his life is a testiment to this statement. Todd is a man that I am encouraged by because He lives his life dead to himself and because of that he is free of himself.
As Todd continued speaking about sharing Gods love and who we are created to be they Holy Spirit wouldn't relent. My heart was pounding, my chest was tight, and I was begin to tremble. God continued to ask me to get up and speak to the entire train car. Having never done this before, and having watched open air preachers before I was honestly a little nervous. What was I supposed to say? I didn't have a bible to reference with its holy pages for all to see. What was I supposed to do? God didn't hesitate, He spoke, "share my love." You see if I truly love people I'll share and express that love with them, I'll share and express the love that God has given me regardless of what they think of me. Love can be seen and felt, it doesn't have to be read, it's shared as a reflection of my life. 1 Corinthians 13 is the chapter on love and it describes love to a T. It says that love doesn't seek it's own, meaning love doesn't care what others think about them, it doesn't get hurt by their opinions or their judgement, it just loves. Have you ever seen someone in love? They don't care what people think about them, they're in love!
I've asked God to give me opportunities to be obedient in my life so why do I shun the chances He gives me and the obedience I can have to His word? With these thoughts in mind I walked over to the Desirae(a girl from my team) and handed her my bag. "Are you getting off?" she asked. "Nope, just watch this bag for me for a second." She had no clue what I was doing.
"Excuse me everyone! Can I get your attention?! I know many of you have heard open air preachers on trains before preaching about the wrath of God, I believe that is true, but I'm not here to share His wrath with you this morning, I'm here to share His love with you! You see, God loves us all, regardless of whether we are white or black, male or female, and regardless of what we've done in our lives. In the word of God it says that for God so loved the world that He sent His son to die for us, God loves us."
As I continued to speak I begin to share my testimony of how God brought me out of alcoholism and despair and brought me into His peace and into the knowledge of His love. I had nothing prepared, nothing was scripted, I just simply shared all I knew which was what God has done in my life. I invited people to challenge God to prove Himself to them, if they needed prayer or wanted to talk to me I let them know they could. And then I sat down, and the train pressed on to Cape Town. As the train stopped I was approached by two people, a minister who wondered who we were with, and a woman who had a question. She asked me how I could help her deal with someone and handed me a letter. In the letter was a statement from a man named Riyaaz, this man was a witness to a murder and gave dates and names of the murderers. Because he witnessed these events, since the date of the murder people have tried to kill him and have shot and stabbed him numerous times over the last year, he also gave dates for all of these events as well. You could tell he was desperate and had no hope. What could I do? I had no other answers than to share Gods love and hope with her, and pray for him.
I gave her the contact information for the rehabilitation center that we've worked with this month. She said the man was also on drugs and I know thats a good place for him to have a fresh start. I'm hoping and praying that God swoopes into this mans life and saves him from all that is going in. I pray God supernaturally shows up in this mans life and allows him to know that he has a Father who loves him very much. I pray he'll be freed of his addictions as well and find the true hope in life, Jesus Christ.
I share this with you all for one simple fact. I'm not a super christian by any means, I'm not a famous preacher, a talented or skilled speaker, nor do I have the experience of open air speaking, in fact this was my first time doing something like this. However the same Spirit that rose Christ from the grave lives in me and empowers me to do whatever it is that I am asked to do. All I am is striving to be someone who is laid down, someone who's given their life to this gospel, someone who denies themselves and picks up their cross and follows Jesus. All I am striving for is to live my life in obedience to whatever it is that God asks. The Holy Spirit encounters you with this question, "are you willing to obey whatever He asks of you?" Be encouraged, this blog isn't to condemn you for missing God occasionally cause I do the same. This testimony is given to empower you to do the same thing, by reading it, it stirs your heart to experience the power of God in the same way. Be blessed, I love you and so does our Father.
Myself after our train ride this morning.
