It's one thing to hear the Gospel. It's another thing when the Holy Spirit personally reveals Jesus to you and makes the Gospel real for the first time.
"...Did our hearts not burn within us while He (Jesus) talked to us on the road, while He opened to us the Scriptures?" Luke 24:32
I grew up in a Lutheran church. It was older--quaint--with some beautiful stain-glass windows and rows of wooden pews. Elders and choir members wore traditional robes. Every one was acting and wearing according to their "Sunday best." I was baptized there as an infant as my parents vowed to raise me up in the Lord. My family and I faithfully attended church every Sunday. During service, you could either find me at Sunday school learning Bible stories, complete with arts and crafts, or, in the rare instance you found me in the sanctuary, you might have seen me dozing off. The services followed a simple and predictable routine: Sit, rise, sing this, repeat that, sit, repeat this, rise, close. Of course, this isn't to say anything against Lutherans, or even against this style of church fellowship. They are still the body of Christ, after all! This environment exposed me to some of Christianity's foundational truths, but also incidentally exposed me to religious mindsets that were subsequently hard to dismantle, even long after I first encountered Christ.
"Oh, Taste and See (and Smell?) that the Lord is Good!"
I remember my first encounter with God vividly, and it was long before I gave Him my life. I was around the age of 6, and still attending the Lutheran church. One of the religious mindsets I possessed was that if you were going to pray a non-scripted, personal prayer, you had better make sure it was worth God's time. I believed that if it wasn't an emergency, you wouldn't get God's attention. However, at that moment, I felt as though I had an emergency. At this age, my allergies were awful, and this particular night, it affected my sleep because I couldn't breathe through my nose. That's when I cried out to God--practically begging Him to heal me--just so I could get some relief and go to sleep. This begging went well into the night. Then, I heard a still small voice. It wasn't audible. It said "Go to sleep, and I will take care of it." Feeling cheeky, I thought I would fool Him into believing that I was asleep when I wasn't, just so I could catch Him in the act. Patiently, I waited. That's when i felt a wind, and my heart jumped. It did not blow over my body. It did not blow over my entire face, but it was specifically directed at my nose, and I felt a stream blow right under my nostrils. It was as if He took the plug out and disappeared into the night. (Mind you, this is before I slept with a fan. No windows were open either). I was elated that He healed me, and He did it when I was still awake! I tried to share this story with my Sunday school friends the next day, but they didn't seem to understand. How could they understand when the idea of God speaking or God healing supernaturally today wasn't even part of the adults' theology or conversation? God certainly couldn't be that close, could He?
The Missing Piece
Many years passed since that moment, and I went on to live a very normal, passive Christian life. I moved cities, made new friends, and even attended a Baptist/Non-denominational church. I was introduced to contemporary Christian culture, and liked it much, much better. No wooden pews, pipe organs, robes, and rituals. For the first time, I wasn't sleeping. I started listening--but only a little bit. I found myself swept away in programs, games, food, and popularity contests. Worship was more lively, but I found the lyrics of many of these songs to be cheesy and childish. I had left a church that had a religion of appearances and arrived at the same church. It was a different name, but the same game. It was still missing something. I was still missing something, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I observed my friends as they went through the motions, the programs, the camps, the worship songs, the Bible-memorization competitions, and nothing about them had changed, except how much they knew about the Bible and church culture. I wondered, "Is this all there is?"
One missing piece that the Baptist church did give me was something I had never heard before: that Jesus would one day come back and walk the earth again. This struck a chord in my heart. It also caused me to fear. "What do you mean He's coming back and that every eye will see Him? He's actually going to see ME?" My mom lead me to find out more by flipping through the Bible, and especially the Book of Revelations. Believe me, I entered His Kingdom with fear and trembling. It was a terrifying thought that despite going to church since birth, I didn't know Jesus at all. If I didn't know He was coming back, what else did I not know? Somehow, I knew that merely knowing the stories about Him wasn't enough. Going to church, following the rituals and traditions, and doing what I was "supposed to do" wasn't enough. For the first time in my life, at age 12, I was convicted of the fact that God actually saw me, and that good works meant nothing because it never flowed out of relationship with Him. My righteousness justified me before man, but Christ's righteousness would justify me before the Father. I wanted the latter with all my heart.
I collapsed on the floor of my room. Tears of repentance gushed from my eyes as if a dam had broken. I told God that I believed what His Son did, and that it was for me. I asked Him to forgive me. I told Him that I desperately wanted to know who He is, and that I wanted Him in my life. I also asked Him to show me things to come, because I had so many questions about His coming. For some reason, I asked Him to show me these things in a dream. Little did I know how much this one prayer would turn my world upside down. I had found that which was missing, and that piece--that glorious Man, Jesus--changed my life forever.
Only the Beginning
I remember the next few days at school. It was beautiful and strange, the way I felt. Something in me shifted that I didn't have vocabulary for. It felt like being awakened from the dead. It felt like a new heart and new eyes. It felt like being able to see the world from the outside in instead of the inside out, and seeing it for the first time. I felt altogether new, and I knew His presence was all around me and in me. Wonder and excitement for God and the things of God enraptured my heart completely.
God had honored my request about the dreams, by the way. For the very first one, in fact, He let me meet an angel. The subsequent ones, as requested, were apocalyptic as they involved His coming. I also saw other angels, I began hearing God speak to me, and eventually, I saw Jesus. As I got these dreams, I would interpret them with the Word, hoping that what I was seeing in my dreams would be explained in its pages, despite having not read it yet. It wasn't the case that I read something in the Word and then had a dream about it, but that I would first have a dream about it, which caused me to go on a treasure hunt in the Word until I found the verse/passage that the dream pertained to. That's how I started really learning the Bible--not through Sunday school or memorization, but through experience. The very Author of the Bible started teaching it to me Himself, and to this day, I'm still learning from Him.
Of course, these dreams and learning experiences haven't come without any interference. One of the biggest surprises I've had after giving my life to Christ was the demonic backlash and harassment that ensued. Not only did I find out that God wasn't a big man with a white beard sitting in the heavens somewhere, but I found out that Satan wasn't just some red beast with horns, hooves, and a pitchfork. I found out that we have a very real enemy roaming this earth, and he's not going to let you leave his kingdom without a fight. Spiritual warfare is something I've also learned, and am still learning about, from experience. Thankfully, the Word is full of people who experienced similar circumstances, so even if the church didn't know anything or didn't believe, I knew Jesus, the disciples, Daniel, Elijah, and others could help me navigate this strange and supernatural world happening around me, and assuring me that victory over the darkness had already been secured by Jesus's death and resurrection. Once I started seeing and dealing with demons, the Gospel took on another layer of importance.
On this journey, I've also met someone that the the western church doesn't know much about, doesn't care about, doesn't believe in, or doesn't want in their buildings, because He makes people "uncomfortable." He turns man's religious agenda on its head by bringing God's will on earth, and His name is Holy Spirit. I've learned so much about this Person of the Trinity, despite never hearing about Him growing up. He marked me for God's kingdom, He performs all the miracles, He prays through me, and Jesus Himself baptized me with His Spirit. He dwells with me in and in me, just like He did while Jesus was on earth. Discovering and knowing this Person has also added another layer to my understanding and fascination of the Gospel, and I cannot wait to talk about Him more in future posts.
Conclusion
No, God may not have had to rescue me from a life of crime, drugs, prostitution, worshiping idols, addiction, or anything else overtly destructive or blasphemous. But He did rescue me from religion that says "Wash your own sins, then He might consider you," or values knowledge and man's tradition over fellowship with God, just because it's familiar and feels safer. Religion put me at arm's length from Him and made me think any real relationship with God was reserved for elders. Jesus unashamedly stepped into my mess, washed me in the blood of His suffering, and pulled me in close. Religion said "He's not like that anymore." His Word declares that Jesus is "the same yesterday, today, and forever" (Hebrews 13:8).
Now, I know Him, and He knows me.
He loved me first, and now I get to spend the rest of my life loving Him in return.
For this, I am eternally grateful.
The Secret Girl