A while back, I revealed something I thought would benefit people. I mentioned one of the reasons I believe in Jesus Christ. It was something I had kept to myself, except for few times when I mentioned it to people close to me. I used to think it was a waste of time to tell people about it, but that was before the Internet. It may be a waste of time to tell people one-on-one, but if I put it here, it might reach someone who will get something out of it.
Again, as I have said before, the best reason to believe me is that I don't profit by telling the story. If a TV preacher tells a story about a supernatural experience, you know he's getting paid to do it. I don't receive a thing for my trouble.
I'm thinking about this, because I happened to flip to a religious channel tonight, and I saw a guy interviewing people, asking if they had seen or otherwise sensed God. They all said no, and even though he appeared to be some sort of clergyman, he said he hadn't, either. I thought that was a little weird, since so many people say they have physically sensed God's presence. It occurred to me that maybe I had a duty to talk about the things that had happened to me. If such experiences are rarer than I once thought, maybe people who have them are supposed to tell other people about them.
Last time, I told about an incident that took place while I was driving. I was on my way from Milwaukee to Kentucky, in the dead of winter. And I had a terrible feeling of dread come over me. I was positive I was going to die that day, and I had no explanation. My life was okay. I hadn't suffered any emotional trauma. But I still felt that way, and I couldn't shake it. I pulled over and prayed, and suddenly, I felt a warm, loving presence in the car with me. It was just to my right. It was full of peace and reassurance and love, and these attributes seemed to have a pressure that drove them against me like a hug. It wasn't visible, but it occupied an identifiable space on the seat next to me. After it showed up, I was okay. And I was sure it was a visitation from Jesus.
I have had that same experience on at least one other occasion. It was in the mid-Eighties. I was becoming more religious. Unfortunately, I didn't have the best role models or teachers I could have asked for. But I was improving, compared to what I had been in the past.
One night I was lying in bed, fully awake, about to drift off to sleep. And I felt the strangest sensation. I can describe it in a way that will help you to understand it, to some degree. Imagine you're wearing a blindfold. You can't see any light at all. And someone across the room from you trains a spotlight on you. If they moved the spotlight so the beam played over your body, you'd feel the beam as it moved over you. Where the beam struck, you would feel warmth, and the rest of you would be cooler. I felt something like that, in that dark room. I felt a warm beam playing over my body, but it wasn't a beam of light, and it wasn't physical warmth. It was emotional and spiritual warmth. And of course, powerful love. The same thing I felt when I had the experience in the car, except that instead of a more or less ball-shaped presence, it seemed more like a beam, coming from above.
This will sound crazy, but it's absolutely true. Everywhere this beam touched me, I felt happy and secure. The crazy part is that when it hit my legs, for example, my legs felt warm and safe and content, and the rest of me felt less so. The same applied to my arms and my chest and the rest of me. You may not believe you can feel emotions in your legs or your arms, while the rest of you feels something different, but you can. You can probably have one toe that is happier than the rest of your body.
I didn't know what I was supposed to do. If it happened now, I think I'd get out of bed and worship, to be on the safe side and show respect. But that didn't occur to me. And I had had a few other supernatural experiences, so I didn't get all that excited. Besides, the nature of the beam was such that it was impossible to be disturbed by it.
I was sure this was a manifestation of Jesus. Just as I was sure the first time, in the car. I don't know why I was sure, but I was. I expressed my gratitude and so on, but beyond that, I didn't know what to do. And I fell asleep, believe it or not.
People tend to think that if they see or hear or feel something miraculous, they'll run up and down the street proclaiming it, but the truth is, you may take such things calmly. I think most people convince themselves their supernatural experiences didn't happen, so they won't have to react to them. That's the easiest thing. I didn't do that, but I was calm enough to sleep.
As soon as I drifted into that funny state between sleep and waking, I woke up, and I found myself flat on my back. My arms were extended in front of me, with the palms up. They were just there; I have no memory of raising them or of turning onto my back. And I heard a sound like arcs of electricity pouring into a pair of electrodes. And I felt a buzzy sort of sensation in my palms, as if some kind of energy was pouring into them, from a place beyond the ceiling. I didn't see anything. I just felt it. And my arms stayed up for a little while, and then the sound and the sensation disappeared, and that was the end of it.
I would love to tell you that when I got up the next morning, I ran around the neighborhood using my magical palms to heal people of cancer, but nothing like that happened. I never did figure out the significance of the event. But it happened; that's a fact.
Sometimes I think it was the baptism of the Holy Spirit. There was another event in my life which I had taken for the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but maybe the encounter with the beam was the real thing. I don't know. I don't know if I'll ever know, during this life.
I don't know why I was the person it happened to. It didn't happen because I'm a wonderful guy who deserves such gifts; I can swear to that. I didn't earn it. Do me a favor and don't even suggest it happened because I'm a good person. I know better than that. And no one I have told about it has ever become a Christian as a result. In fact, at least one person has completely forgotten it, as though I had never mentioned it.
I sometimes wish things like that would happen to everyone. But then I remember the parable of Lazarus and Abraham. And I remember the Hebrews following Moses, unwilling to trust God even after they saw Him in a whirlwind and saw the Red Sea stand up in vertical walls so they could pass. People believe what they want to believe. If Jesus came down to earth in person and took people by the shoulders and ordered them to believe, most people would say he was a fraud or decide it had never happened or assume they had hallucinated. That's the truth. That's no exaggeration. If you're alive when He returns, you will see people try to explain Him away. Our ability to believe what we want is one of the great mysteries of human nature. Even though the things I reveal here happened to me, and I'm positive they happened, sometimes I have to remind myself I didn't imagine them. And I've spent a lot of time living as though they had not happened. I never pretended they hadn't, but I didn't act the way a person of faith should.
I'll tell you another strange thing about my experience in the car. You may remember that I've been reading Brother Andrew's books about evangelizing Muslims. I also took a look at some online testimonies, including Youtube videos. If Brother Andrew and a whole slew of Muslim converts are to be believed, many Muslims are coming to Jesus because of visions and dreams. The other day I watched a video which was supposedly about a true story. A young Muslim man had had an experience very much like what happened to me in the car, only his experience was more vivid.
He said he was lying in bed, awake, and he felt something pin him down, and he saw a figure approach him. And it somehow communicated the knowledge that it was going to kill him. Although he was a Muslim, he had been learning about Christianity from his brother, and he began wondering if Jesus could save him. And when that thought entered his mind, he was released and the figure left. But he was delivered, just as I was, from something that had convinced him he was about to die. Later that night, he sensed the presence of Jesus in the room, and he felt a sensation he described as "aggressive peace." Much like what I felt that day in the car.
The parallels are remarkable. I realize this guy could be a complete charlatan. In the past, I've been burned because I believed other people's stories of supernatural experiences were as true as my own, so I don't assume anything. But it sure sounds like he and I got a dose of the same thing. I wish everyone could feel it. It's really something, being exposed directly to God's true personality. You would not believe how much He loves us. I know life is full of suffering, but I felt that love, physically, as surely as I feel the keys I'm using to type this entry.
Here's the video:
One message I have derived from my reading and study is that I have to quit being so obnoxious to Muslims. It's fair to say they've shown great cruelty and bloodthirstiness and ruthlessness, but I shouldn't insult and antagonize them gratuitously, just to express my anger and frustration. I criticize Ann Coulter for being so nasty to liberals she prevents them from hearing the conservative message. Well, if everyone is as nasty to Muslims as I have been, there is no hope we'll ever succeed in acquainting very many of them with Jesus. And Jesus is the only force that can change them. It's fine to send the military to hold them back by force, but I remember what Paul said: "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." That's from the book of Ephesians, chapter 6, verse 12. While we have to resist evil with physical strength, the truth is, human beings are not the primary enemy, and any earthly effort that is not supported by spiritual effort is wasteful and likely to fail. I'm not saying God will turn all the Muslims into Christians, and there will be peace on earth and free cupcakes for everybody. But things would be better than they are now, and countless people could be turned into friends and saved from destruction. It really happens.
I think I've said this before: I wonder if we pray for Muslims as much as we pray for cheaper gas.
The world is like a Japanese bunraku play, in which black-garbed puppeteers stand on a stage and manipulate dolls that represent characters. We see the people in the world, and we see their actions. But the dark forces that drive them are more obscure, as they desire to be. And often we attack the puppets and ignore the puppeteers. That is what I've been doing.
I did not make my stories up to get attention. I will never earn a dime from them. They will not help my writing career. I'm telling the truth. I almost hate to ask people to believe, because we have all believed so many things, only to find out we've been lied to. I hate to ask anyone to try one more time. But I hope someone out there will consider the possibility that I'm not lying and will be inspired to pray that God will help him or her find her way. I can't defend God or tell you why life isn't easier. I can't explain the fact that you can't have Him the way you want Him. I'm not a preacher. I do not have the answers. But I can promise you that He exists and that He cares, and that sometimes He takes dramatic steps to prove Himself to people. If the deal seems unfair to you, try to have faith that God knows better than you do. You better take what's offered and be teachable and make the most of it, because if God is really God, there is no Door Number Two.
