They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but what is a thousand words worth? If it is worth less than a picture and a picture never does it justice one can ask what the point of it all is — to capture an experience? Because as relational beings we long to be understood, we yearn to explain the objective and subjective experiences we may encounter. And even if such an unexplainable experience could be explained completely accurately justice could still never be served because experiential knowledge is always more powerful than head knowledge. Thus the only way someone would ever be fully able to understand is to experience the experience themselves, exactly as it was intended; specifically for them. God’s intention is that we know divine love by experiencing it. Many Christians today who not only go to church perhaps out of social obligation but who actively seek God in scripture, in fellowship, and in prayer may say that they ‘know’ God. But I dare us to ask ourselves to what extent do we really know Him? Do we know Him, or do we just know of Him? Going to church doesn’t make us Christian anymore than sitting in a garage make us a car. Head knowledge verses experimental knowledge, the latter is always more accurate.
In the last couple of months I have pictured my faith in layers. Signing up for the World Race I believed in God, I knew He existed and I knew the feeling He must have put in my heart to be and do something more. At training camp I experienced God is a new way, I was prophesied over. Someone I had never seen before came up to me in the middle of my distraught and told me God told them to tell me something I had been questioning in my head at that very moment. My faith added a new layer. I came home in tears explaining to my mom that now I knew God was real. Month one I felt God for the first time more intimately, and he gave me words that I could give to others, a perception and intuition that I never used before. Another layer. Month two, I suffered for Christ. I recalled and relived old painful memories He was asking me to explore, I fought with the enemy in my head, and my mind was a battlefield. And if you had read my last blog you knew I experienced the enemy in a new way, I had felt him physically when I learned I had unclean spirits in my life. But experiencing the enemy added another new layer of faith. Last month, I faced the good fight. I grew so much closer to God, I heard Him, I listened to Him, I was obedient to Him, I fell in love with Him. Oh it is amazing to know Him. And again during debrief I felt Him in another new way I had been waiting for.
I felt the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit. I had thought I had felt the Spirit before, but not like this. I remember questioning if it could be real when I saw people fall down with the Spirit, when they shook, when they called out, when they cried, or laughed, or did something strange. What where they feeling? Were they crazy or was it something more? I will never be able to explain it to anyone accurately. I always prayed for it all, to feel the Spirit, to speak in tongues, to prophesize, I wanted that deeper realization, but before that moment I wasn’t ready for it, my faith had to grow and that night I was ready. Our squad mentor, Hope, is a woman who is wise and has a beautiful and close relationship with our Father, and that night she heard Him say to go over and pray for me. I was worshiping and was already feeling the Spirit running through me, my eyes were flickering and I was signing to my God with music. As she came over and laid her hands on me my body felt a shock. My eyes started flickering harder, my neck rolled my head back, I felt a power in me I never felt before. Then I started to shake uncontrollably, I was beginning to fall, I was breathing heavy. I bent forward without control, I was crying, and I started to cry out, to make a noise I never knew I could make. Gravity kept pulling me down and I was on my knees, my hands shook hysterically and my body started to fall asleep, I fell like I had fainted, half there and half somewhere else. No part of it was bad. My hands and arms tingled like pins and needles, like they had fallen asleep, and the sensation stayed with me for a while until I brought myself up again. Everyone went on worshiping, the room dark, the band loud, and I continued to worship and give thanks to a God who gave me a gift that night.
Since that moment, something has changed. Another layer of faith has been added. When I pray and talk to our Father, I feel the Spirit. My eyes flicker and I feel His physical presence, and I feel closer to Him. Depending on what and who I am praying for, I feel more. The other week a middle aged Colombian woman came up to our two missionary teams and asked for prayer. When we asked her what she needed prayer for, she wouldn’t say, only that she was in need. About nine of us surrounded her and started to pray, first with an opener who then passed the torch. When I started to pray out loud to the group, something changed. I felt the Holy Spirits power, my body started to shake, my hands tingly, my eyes flickering, I couldn’t catch my breath and I started crying, but I felt powerful; His power. When we were all done and the prayer was closed, I immediately went up to our translator in our group and told her to say a few words to the woman for me. The Lord spoke through me to tell her that the Holy Spirit was with her, and that she would walk out of this darkness she was in. I didn’t know any more than that, remembering she didn’t tell us what she needed prayer for. But those words resonated with her as her eyes filled up with tears as she grabbed a hold of me in a 5 minute embrace and cried into my arms. After she left me with tender gratitude.
I had always thought I knew God. Actually that’s a lie, I knew I knew of Him, I knew small parts of Him. I prayed, I read, I fellowshipped but I always knew there could be more, and there still is. I have just began to add the beginning layers of my faith, but there is always more to learn, more to know, more to experience and I know God will take me there because I am willing. How much do you know of God, and how much do you know Him? I dare you to ask for faith that could move mountains, I dare you to go to those hard placed He is asking you to go, to sacrifice, to obey and to love those who don’t deserve it. I dare you to speak of His name at work, at school, and to your friends. I dare you to begin a journey with Him that He is calling you to. I dare you to believe and to experience, I dare you to be willing. Once you do, I dare you to admit that there’s no turning back, because once you start experiencing the Father, there will be nothing more fulfilling.
I dare you to know Him.
