Tuesday, July 17, 2007

The Joy of the Lord

Last Friday night I was in prayer and worship with my friends Josh, Lacie, Stacy, and Ross who had been the preacher at Fan The Flame. I had started the evening at the Seppala's barn in Hockinson in a time of soaking prayer. On my drive there I had prayed to God something like, "Lord, I have had small tastes of your Presence, of your joy, but tonight I want to be overwhelmed, let me be drunk in your Presence." I got the feeling even up at the barn that the evening would be different. I felt God's Presence strongly and I felt deep and powerful joy in his Presence. We drove down to Ross' house in Vancouver and we began a time of worship and soaking. I was sitting on a couch with my eyes closed, singing a song of praise to God. I don't want to claim a "vision" in what happened next. It's hard to tell where the imagination ends and where the supernatural vision begins. Whatever it was, I believe that God was in it and I believe that He communicated truth to me in it...

I saw myself in heaven. I was prostrate, on my face in worship, in the presence of God. I knew that this was the proper posture. It was all very serious. But then something happened. Jesus came up to me and He touched my outstretched hand. I looked up at Him and he was laughing joyfully. I mean, seriously, out-of-control joyfully. He was even dancing around. He looked at me and what I felt he communicated was, "Reality is this good. It is so good that I can't do anything but be overwhelmed by joy." Another aspect of it was that the way He looked at me, it was almost like it was our secret, this joy. It was so intimate, so friendly. Another thing I remember is that He showed me His hand. It was nail scarred. I had the feeling that He was showing me that He had bought me and that His scars showed that all that seriousness had been taken care of. Now was the time to rejoice. I began to laugh. I was just sitting there on that couch, praise music playing, just laughing for like five minutes. I kept thinking about the way He looked at me and the way He laughed. I've had that image of Jesus in my mind since Friday. I am very thankful to Him for it.

2 comments:

Ed said...

You know who that reminds me of? Sunday from Chesterton's "The Man Who Was Thursday." Ever read it?

Matt said...

Of course I remember Sunday from the Man Who Was Thursday... it's one of my all-time favorite books. I may have to re-read it though to see why the post reminded you of him. I always like an excuse to re-read some Chesterton though!