Last December, while trying to process a suppressed memory that had resurfaced and undoubtedly influenced my entire character as I developed from age 4 on, I found myself in a deep depression.
I was at the end of my physical strength to bear the sadness anymore when I decided last-minute to go to the OneThing conference in Kansas City, only to quickly discover that I am not built for conferences.
Don’t ask me to sit in a room full of thousands of people and listen to a speaker. That doesn’t work for me.
I spent the conference weekend gallivanting around Kansas City discovering quaint coffee shops and elegant theaters and dancing in the snow – until I saw that Matt Gilman (one of my favorite worship leaders) tweeted that he would be leading worship in the Prayer Room at OneThing later that day.
I booked it back to the convention center and stood in the prayer room, frustrated. I knew I needed to be there, but was still consumed by the internal battle that I fought between my sadness and the captivating character of the city outside. I wanted to continue to distract myself by submerging my senses in the beauty of the snow falling instead of sitting and waiting on the Lord.
Still, I sat and I waited. Finally, I heard, “What do you want?”
“God, I want to see YOU. I’ve seen the demonic. I’ve seen the impoverished and the oppressed, I’ve seen genocide and sex slavery and cold, barefoot gypsies living in shacks. I want to see you. Open my eyes to what you are doing, let me see the light and not the darkness. Please. Just this once.”
I wrote those words in my journal on 12/31/12, just before I lifted my eyes to a scene I will NEVER forget:
The room wasn’t even halfway full of people in the physical, but in the spiritual, I saw the angels of the Lord. I saw warrior angels, standing taller than I could ever imagine a man to stand, wearing battle armor.
The people in the room with me were somber and reverent, worshiping, some swaying slowly, a hand raised here or there. Their behavior matched the tempo of the worship music that Matt played on the stage in front.
What didn’t match the tempo was what the angels were doing.
Laughing. Jumping. Dancing. Spinning. Arms raised with a holy shout to the God who created them, too.
It was like I was looking straight into the throne room, watching as the chorus of angels sang, "holy, holy, holy" with ecstasy in their eyes.
I was so confused and so stunned that I just stood there, wide-eyed and mouth gaping.
Slowly, the room filled with people – other attendees from the conference, people coming in from outside. They filled the room back-to-front. The tempo of the music rose, and so did the enthusiasm in the believers around me until eventually the room was packed with sons and daughters dancing, and laughing, and jumping, and spinning – exuding every bit as much ecstasy as I had seen in the angels’ worship.
Angels of the Lord had prepared the way in the spiritual for us in the physical, and I had seen it.
Afterward, I couldn’t find the words to describe my experience to my friends, so we just went to lunch instead where I gazed out a window, still mesmerized by the reality of the supernatural.
God is so real.
“We need to let God be God. After all, God is the only god who is god enough to be God.” – Lacey Strum
How big is the God you're serving? Is he capable of blowing your expectations to shattered pieces and instead revealing a majesty and splendor of glory to you that would leave you stunned? Because I can assure you that He wants to impact you that way. He wants you to experience His glory displayed in love for you. He wants you to know Him not just with your head, but with every one of your senses.
Here is a brief video that I found of the experience I had in the prayer room. It almost seems tame in comparison to what it felt like to be there:
