On The Learning Path

It is a little-known secret that I pray in the shower.

For one, God doesn’t care where you come to him so long as you do, and for me, one of those places is in the shower. I feel like there are lots of metaphors to be found there, one of which is that the water washes you clean just as the Blood of the Lamb has.

But anyway, I was praying while putting shampoo in my hair a few days ago, and I asked him, “Lord, what’s up with the fundraising stuff?”

I missed the first deadline for $3,500 on July 15th and was given an extension for August 1st to have $5,000 in full.

I asked him, “What do I do?” And I listened- really listened.

And He said, very simply, “Pray about it!”

So I said, “Well, okay, I’ve prayed over the letters I’ve sent out so far, and over my tithes to the church, and for the right words to give to the church when I asked them for support.”

And He said, “That’s not quite what I mean.”

So I asked again. “I’ve done all of these things. I’ve sent out letters and asked people, and I’ve prayed for a return from all of those things.”

And in one bold, striking movement, He said, “You have asked all these other people, but you haven’t asked Me yet!”

It was a good thing I didn’t have any soap on my hands at that moment, because they came up to cover my face in an attempt to hide my shame to that.

God sees everything, even in the shower, so hiding from Him didn’t last long.

After that was an odd sense of emotions. How idiotic of me to try and embark on a journey without asking Him to help me first! I laughed and I cried at the same time and I’m not really sure what to call that emotion, but I felt it in full.

A way that God communicates with me, I feel I should add at this point, is by feelings. He will put certain feelings inside my chest as an indication of what He thinks of something. I have experienced this many times and I will freely admit that I’ve not always done what He feels I should do. He is very talkative- I just have to learn all the ways He decides to communicate!

So there I was, putting conditioner in my hair, and I said, “Fine, let me rectify that. Lord, will you donate to my trip?”

The Lord is my biggest donor, and my biggest fan! I learned that, too, during this adventure, but I’ll admit that it was kind-of-not-the-best prayer I’ve ever prayed, and the feeling He gave me didn’t go away until I told my family about what had happened later that same night, and I asked Him again in the company of witnesses.

That was Friday, and today is Sunday, and Sunday is Go To Church Day.

I must say that I really do like my church, because the people there are so on fire for the Lord and it’s easy to see. I go to Charis Christian Center in Colorado Springs. My pastor, Lawson Perdue, is so good at rallying people for the Lord and it’s wonderful to watch and be a part of.

After services, there is a time to go to the front and receive prayer for anything and everything. I felt the Lord putting the idea in my head to go ask the pastor himself for prayer about the $5,000 I need by August 1st.

So up I went, and I knew I was supposed to go because I felt at peace, and only the smallest hint of nervousness that left the moment I reached the front.

As I write this, I realize that the Lord is endlessly faithful, because I’d asked Him on Wednesday to give me words to speak to the church, and He provided them for me once more!

I went up to Pastor Lawson and asked both him and his wife and fellow pastor Barbara, “Would you believe with me for $5,000 by August 1st?” (The Lord’s words, not mine. I don’t think I could’ve come up with that on my own!)

I explained to them a little about this trip and that my first deadline had been missed and that this was my second chance. They readily agreed to pray for me and agree with me and laid hands on me.

Lawson began to pray, “Lord, we come into agreement with this Daughter of Faith…”

And that was all I heard before I breathed in and was completely, utterly overtaken by the power and love of the Holy Spirit, and I fell.

I could sense the Holy Spirit literally there between the two pastors, hovering like a bright ball of light with all the qualities of fire. If I could draw I’d show you what I saw; that was the Holy Spirit, and I’m sure it was the same thing that Moses saw in the desert on the burning bush.

As I fell, I got the idea that it had literally barreled into me, knocking me down. And I was perfectly alright with that.

And I was literally powerless to stop it! It is so interesting that you can feel as the power of the Holy Spirit overtakes you; if I offered any resistance, it was torn to shreds within seconds. The energy of the physical body is overtaken as the Holy Spirit fills you.

First my legs went, and then my arms and suddenly all at one I could feel myself falling. I was caught, of course- Pastor Lawson has such a penchant for bringing the Holy Spirit with him wherever he goes that the ushers of the church have taken to standing behind whomever he is praying for in order to catch them. It is the most amazing thing! I desire to be like that someday, to have the Holy Spirit as a constant companion with me at all times like that.

I don’t know how long I stayed down, nor how I was moved out of the way. I retained consciousness- I could feel everything happening to me, of course, but I was so focused on the overwhelming power of God that I didn’t pay much attention to anything besides Him at all. I think that when this happens to someone, you literally can’t think of anything else at all, because God In His Full Power is just Right There and it’s impossible to have your mind stray in the full presence of the Lord.

What did it feel like?

It’s hard to put into words. It was like being in the middle of a great swirling storm with all of that energy and attention focused on you like lightning, but knowing that you are so completely safe and loved because that is the Lord with you, every part of Him is in you and around you and so all-encompassingly with you. This description does not do justice to anything I experienced! What I felt is nearly indescribable.

The Lord didn’t really say anything while I was resting in the Spirit. I think it was just a time for me to understand that He was with me, that He has heard me ask Him to provide for this trip. It was just- a touch, like He’d put his finger on me or something. So amazingly powerful, but I get the sense that it was only supposed to be a touch, it was only supposed to be a taste of what God is really really like.

Afterwards, I told Him, “I do not know you at all!”

Yes, I have a relationship with Him, and we regularly talk, but it’s not the same thing as what I saw and felt and experienced today. I have a surface level relationship with Him, I’m now realizing, because those feelings, what I experienced, was so deep that I probably could never actually begin to get into the bottom of it.

God is so complex, layered, so deep that I don’t think I’ll ever get to explore the whole of Him until I am with Him in Heaven.

But it was meant to be that way, I think, because just that tiny little touch from His hand on my life has already inspired in me a passion to get to know Him more, and I think that’s what He was trying to accomplish. There is more to Him than I ever imagined, and I got a look at that great, deep chasm of love that He has and the infiniteness of who He is.

On the whole, I have been learning so many things about the Lord in the past few weeks that I think I have a lot of blog post topics to write about now!

One thing He has said to me that I cherish, and that I am excited to share with you, is this:

“Having a relationship with you is more exciting than putting the stars in the sky.”

Pretty cool, right? God of the universe, maker of the stars themselves, thinks that talking with me, being with me! is more exciting than putting the stars to hang in the night sky (which I imagine was a pretty exciting thing to do)! He told me that, just straight up!

Isn’t that just amazing? God is so good, wonderfully amazing and just so incredibly merciful that I am more excited than ever to go and share Him with the world. I wish all of you reading this could experience everything that I’m feeling right now. And I hope that He works His way in your life, because let me tell you, it is so worth it.