I mentioned in lesson 12 that one of the things that can help us move into direct encounters with God is by drawing inspiration from other's experiences and testimonies. When you read people's testimonies, I strongly encourage you to approach them as "invitations" from the Lord, so of a "you can have this too."
In that light, I am going to close this series by sharing some of my own personal testimonies of direct encounters with the Lord. My goal in sharing them is not to try and impress you by my experiences; but to stretch your imagination and expectations towards having similar encounters with Him of your own.
Let me start by sharing a testimony that was a very special encounter with God, but not a supernatural one. He met me through natural things, by manipulating circumstances and speaking to me in His "still small voice." I want to share this one first to emphasize that we can have amazing encounters with God that are not overtly supernatural in nature.
The second testimony I will share is a combination of God working through circumstances and also through a direct supernatural encounter. I include this so you can see how He often meets us through a combination of both the natural and the divine.
I will share a third testimony in the next lesson of this series that is an example of encountering God while receiving ministry. I hope you will be blessed and inspird by all three tstimonies.
A Non-Supernatural Encounter With God (June 13, 2008)
The Lord has sent me to Florida on a "personal retreat." He paid my way (airfare, hotel, car rental, food, etc) by supplying the money to pray for these things as unsolicited contributions that came to exactly the cost of the trip. His signature was all over the trip, and He did many amazing thing for me on it. I had several angelic visits and the Lord Himself showed up personally in My hotel room a few times. But the portion of my experience that I want to share here is ways that God met me without a direct supernatural element.
The Lord gave me the most restful sleep and I woke up feeling incredibly refreshed. I began meditating on the vision He'd given me the day before, about being "engaged" to the Lord. Then God spoke to me in that still small voice He often uses, and told me that today was going to be a special time with Jesus. That sounded like really good news to me. I thanked the Holy Spirit for the awesome day that I had yesterday, then I asked Jesus what He would like to do today.
He said, "Teresa, I know you'd love a cup of coffee, so get dressed and go downstairs to the dining room and get one." I loved His suggestion, and I took Him up on it. I had brought portable ipod speakers with me so I could listen to worship music without wearing earphones. The ipod was playing when I left the room and I decided not to turn it off, since I would only be gone for a short while.
As I got back to the room and was unlocking my door, the Lord spoke to me. He said, "Teresa, I want you to pay special attention to the music as you come in, it is a message from Me."
I opened the door and walked in, and as I walked in, a song by Brian and Jenn Johnson was playing. This is what I heard:
I will draw you and Me together forever
in loving kindness, in faithfulness and grace
no longer your master, but your husband I will be.
You have ravished My heart with one glance of your eyes
How fair is your love, My promised, My bride.
That was God's message to me, and it touched me deeply. I just about melted when I heard that. God seemed to be romancing me so much, and it was incredible to be on the receiving end of this. I told the Lord that I felt like this trip was a honeymoon trip with Him.
He replied, "Don't be so quick to skip the wedding part, because that will be incredibly special. Think of this as an engagement trip instead of as a honeymoon."
[Before anyone gets offended, let me clarify that the Lord was not being exclusive with Me. This intimate relationship with God is for everyone in the body of Christ, I was not singled out as anyone special. God was just showing me what that intimacy (that He wants with each of us) looks like.]
I had a time of worship and intimacy with God. Then I went back downstairs for another cup of coffee, and I watched a little bit of the news that was playing on the dining room television.
As I was leaving the dining room, I noticed a florist delivering a lovely vase of flowers to the front desk. I thought to myself "Those are for me." I knew they really weren't for me, but I would have liked to get something like that. In fact, I had almost bought flowers for myself when I went grocery shopping at Publix the day before, because I love cut flowers. But I decided not to. My husband thinks they are a waste of money because they die so quickly, so I seldom get them, except on Valentine's day or occasionally on my birthday. I knew my husband would not send me flowers, so I knew those were not for me. But a thought ran through my mind: "Wouldn't it be neat if God sent me some flowers?"
[The Lord had done that once before, years ago, when I still worked as a programmer in San Francisco's financial district. I was busily working when He told me to leave my desk "right now" to go outside of the building. I obeyed Him, and as soon as I got outside of the door, some lady walked up to me and gave me this amazingly beautiful bouquet of flowers. I had come to think of those flowers as "flowers from Jesus." And now, as I walked through the hotel lobby and saw the florist, I thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be neat if Jesus gave me flowers again?"
I did not really expect Him to do that, but I thought it would be neat if He did.
Shortly after I got back to my room, the telephone rang. It was the front desk. They were calling to tell me that there were flowers for me in the lobby. They wanted to know if it would be ok to bring them up to my room.
I could not believe it--those flowers really were for me! Jesus had sent me flowers again. I felt so blessed.
When the flowers arrived, they were more gorgeous than they'd looked from the quick glance I saw in the lobby. They were a very large arrangement in a glass vase. There were several orchids and exotic flowers; they looked lovely and smelled wonderful. I put them on the stand next to the computer desk and I got a great deal of pleasure from them for the rest of my stay there.
The flowers came with a card, so I read it. They were from my friend Becky, explaining that an emergency came up and they would not be able to come to Florida to join me. It was sweet of her to send me flowers-- something I would not have expected. But then the Lord spoke to me and said, "I used Becky as the vehicle through which I worked, but those flowers are from Me. I knew you would love them, so I gave them to you."
Encountering God In The Natural And In The Supernatural (Jun 13, 2004)
I went to church on the Sunday morning just before I was to leave for a five-week ministry trip to Africa. It is our custom at church to have the congregation lay hands on me and pray for me just before I leave for a missions trip. So at the start of the service they prayed for me.
Rodney, our pastor announced when I would leave and where I would be going. Then he asked me to come up front so they could pray for me. Rodney invited those who would like to lay hands on me to come to the front and do so. Everyone began praying more or less at the same time. It was hard to listen to all the prayers at the same time, so I just went into receive mode and invited the Lord to be in control. I could hear parts of various prayers as the Lord called my attention to them and just about all my major concerns were covered. I was blessed.
About half way through the prayer time, the worship team began to play one of my favorite songs. I told the Lord that I was a bit disappointed that it came on when I could not fully enjoy it and worship along with it because I was busy receiving prayer. The Lord told me to think of it differently--He arranged to have one of my favorite songs played while they prayed for me because He wanted to bless me. Wow, what a different perspective! God is so neat!
The prayer and the song ended about the same time. I went back to my seat and joined in the corporate worship. I was really enjoying myself during this worship as they seemed to be doing a lot of songs that really resonated with my spirit. Somewhere around the third or fourth song, this idea hit me and I prayed in response to it, "Lord Jesus, I had all those people pray for me and it was wonderful. But would You consider coming to personally pray for me as well?"
I don't think I really expected Him to answer that prayer. But half way through the song, I was taken into a brief vision where Jesus came and stood in front of me and stretched His hand towards me as if He were about to pray for me. I was not sure what to expect Him to pray for me. Maybe He would ask for ministry opportunities for me and for unsaved people to hear and respond to the Gospel. Or maybe He would ask for protection for me, or for the financial and material needs of the trip to be met, traveling mercies, protection over my family while I was away, etc. But He did not pray any of those things.
This is the prayer He prayed:
"Father, let her do My will."
Wow! I felt the power of that prayer even as He spoke the words. There was a sudden realization in My spirit of what that prayer meant. It was almost as if God explained it to me in a fraction of a second. In order for me to do His will, I had to understand His will clearly, moment by moment and situation by situation. So He was praying that I have a complete understanding of His will for the trip and that I hear His voice clearly all throughout the trip, no matter how tired I am and no matter what situation I find myself in. Also, to do His will, I needed a heart after His heart and a will to obey Him...things I personally pray for on a daily basis. And finally, to do His will, I needed the authority and power and anointing for whatever He wants to do at any instant. He was praying that I be fully equipped for whatever He wants to do, that I have any anointing I need and the empowerment to do whatever He wants to do. That vision was short, but it had been amazing!
"Thank you, Lord," I whispered silently. "That is such a neat prayer!"
"Teresa," He responded, "Do you think My prayers get answered?"
I had to laugh as joy flooded through me. Of course His prayers get answered! The Father would never say no to Jesus. I realized that He was not just praying for me, He was promising to answer that prayer. He was making it possible for me to do His will on this trip. No demon or force of Hell or opposition of man can prevent His will from being done on this trip if only I am willing to obey Him and do what He is doing. Any anointing I need will be supplied. Any supernatural empowerment I need to do this trip will be provided when I need it. Any wisdom or discernment I needed to do His will would be supplied when I need it. He was promising me that I would be fully equipped to do His will on this trip. Wow!
It was not long before His sweetness and His presence enveloped me and I was lost in His goodness. I wanted to stay there all day but the worship time ended and it came time for the sermon. We had a special guest speaker who I had been looking forward to hearing: Rodney's father. Service was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed what he had to share. At the end of the service, Rodney's father prayed an impartation prayer over us as a congregation. One of the things he mentioned was that God had given him the nations. Something inside of me clicked when he said that and I just knew I had to go to him for individual prayer after service was over.
I went up to him the first chance I had. I shared how God has also promised me the nations and asked him to pray into that. His prayer was wonderful and blessed me tremendously. I won't share the whole prayer with you, but I want to share how he started the prayer, since it fit in so closely with what Jesus had done in the vision only an hour before. He started the prayer with "Lord, let her do Your will as she goes overseas to serve You..."
I believe that prayer is going to become the main prayer of my life and cry of My heart: "Lord Jesus, let me do Your will!" Amen.
December 28, 1995
I was at a church service at Harvest Rock church in Pasadena. At the end of the service they asked everyone who was hungry for more of God to come up to the front, and their prayer teams would be happy to pray for them.
I had just been prayed for and could really feel the Lord's presence all over me. I felt so passionately in love with Jesus and so grateful for all the wonderful things He has been doing in my life. I found myself wanting to somehow bless Jesus back. I wanted to give Him a present to say "thank you" for all that He has been doing for me. It was a puzzling question for me. What could I possibly bring to Jesus that He did not already own? He owns all of my possessions. How about my obedience? No, I've already pledged that to Him, so He already owns it. What about my worship? Well, He is SO worthy of all worship, so I would only be giving Him His due.
So what do you bring the One who already literally "has everything"?
As I lay there, my mind drifted back to something that I believe the Lord had recently shown me during a time of prayer and meditation. He had shown me how the members of the Trinity bless each other and are in fellowship with each other. I am sure that the words I choose to describe what He showed me are inadequate, but it was something to the effect of "Sometimes Jesus and the Holy Spirit conspire together to bless the Father. Sometimes the Father and Jesus team up together to bless the Holy Spirit and sometimes the Father and the Holy Spirit plot together to bless Jesus. They never do it behind the Other's back, for each member of the Trinity is all-knowing, but they do team up to bless each other. And they do succeed in blessing each other.
(I know that some of you will not agree with this "theology", and that is OK.) But while I was laying there I was strongly reminded of what I believe the Lord had shown to me. I found myself asking the Holy Spirit if I were allowed to conspire together with Him to bless Jesus. I told Him that I would like very much to bring Jesus a gift that really pleased Him. I asked the Holy Spirit to please help me find a gift suitable to bring to Jesus just then.
Suddenly, I was remembering when I was a little girl. It was mother's day and I did not have any presents to give my mother, because I did not have any money to purchase anything. So I went into the yard and picked some flowers for her. Now technically, I was not giving her anything that she did not already own. But I remembered her vivid delight when I gave them to her. Suddenly flowers seemed a fitting present to bring to my King. Yes, I would like to bring Him a lovely bouquet of flowers. But where does one find flowers when one is laying flat on one's back on a hardwood gym floor?
Then the Holy Spirit spoke to me in that still-small voice. He said, "I will pick some weeds from the garden of your heart and turn them into flowers. Then you may do with them as you please."
Could that really have been the Lord's voice? No, it was probably my imagination. After all, picking weeds from one's heart sounds like inner healing and the Lord was not doing an inner healing type of thing with me just then. He was doing more of a love an intimacy type of thing.
I lay there for a while, lost in His goodness. I could feel His sweet presence around me, it seemed to saturate every part of my being. I was so passionately in love with Him and so grateful to be His. I mentioned to the Lord what I thought I heard and told Him that if that really was His voice and His plan, that was fine with me, but I kinda concluded that I'd heard wrong.
Well, eventually the sense of the Lord's presence diminished and I was able to get up. I could still sense His presence lightly on me. (I was staying with some friends and wanted to check in with them in case they needed to go home). Doug came over the instant I sat up and helped me up. He said that they were not in a hurry and that it would be fine to get some more prayer if I wanted to. (Of course, I wanted to!)
I stood there and closed my eyes and just worshiped In the back of my mind I kinda hoped someone from the ministry team would come and pray for me. But the Lord's presence on me increased so drastically that I began to think that He was by-passing prayer and simply falling on me as though I'd already been prayed for. I became really lost in His presence and was having trouble standing up. I could feel myself swaying and it occurred to me that I might fall. I realized that a hardwood gym floor is probably not a good thing to land on. But then I was reminded of His goodness. If He did choose to take me down without a catcher, He would assure that I was not injured. I stopped thinking about the possibility of falling and concentrated on Him instead.
His nearness was so wonderful. I found myself wishing that I could be in His manifest presence 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Then I started to get a mental image of it being normative for all Christians, not just me, to walk in this type of intimacy with Him day in and day out, as we went about doing the Father's business. I saw myself walking and standing and functioning very effectively, but still bathed with an all prevailing sense of His presence on me. 'Yes, Lord,' I prayed, 'please make it become normal for all of us to walk in the level of intimacy with You that You desire for us!'
Suddenly I heard a woman's voice praying softly in tongues and felt a light touch on my back. I cracked open my eyes to see an oriental gal, probably in her twenties, standing in front of me. I caught sight of a pink ministry team tag on her chest and then closed my eyes again. I had a strong sense that the Lord had hand-picked this team to come and pray for me. At first her prayers were the general sort that we all pray when the Lord is not showing us anything else, like "fill her Lord" and "come minister to Your daughter".
Then the catcher started praying. At first I was surprised then I realized that the catcher was also am ministry team member. But the catcher's prayers were sharp and specific and matched exactly the recent cries of my heart to the Lord. She would pray things like "Lord, she wants to discern Your voice and be assured that it is really You she is hearing. Lord she wants to move in Your power and Your authority and to be used by You to do Your kingdom business..." I found myself praying "Yes, Lord! Yes, Lord!" as she echoed the prayers of my heart. For quite a while both women repeated back my recent prayer closet prayers to the Lord.
There were several short prophesies interspersed with these prayers, all of which were recent words the Lord had spoken over me and in the correct order. By now the Lord really had my attention and I knew that He was orchestrating this ministry time. His presence came on me so strongly that I started shaking and I think my arms were making chopping motions. I was aware of these manifestations, but they were not very important to me at all. What was important was the Lord's presence and how He was prophetically repeating back to me the prayers I had been praying before Him.
"See, Teresa," the Lord spoke to me, "I do hear your prayers. And I am demonstrating this to you right now."
A few moments later, one of the ministry team women launched into a short prophesy that started "Know that I hear your prayers. I am pleased with You..."
Yes, I knew He heard my prayers. I found myself breaking into silent prayer during the prophesy. As He said "I am pleased with you", I found myself praying along "Yes, Lord, I want to please You with all of my being!" I realized that I was praying future tense, like it was something that had not occurred yet. But the Lord was speaking present tense, indicating that He was already pleased. Somehow this jarred my being. How could sinful imperfect me possibly be pleasing to God?
The prophesy went on and the Lord was addressing my inability to receive what He was saying to me. He was not angry with me about it, but He was correctly pointed out that I have trouble believing that I could possibly be pleasing to Him.
The Holy Spirit really bore witness to my spirit about this prophesy. He would speak something quietly to me and then the a few seconds later use the ministry team person to prophesy the same thing to me. He would keep speaking to my heart the same thing that she prophesied but just ahead of when she would say it. I was so overwhelmed by His goodness to me and awed at His love for me. It really began to sink into my spirit that He really was pleased with me.
The prophesy ended, but the Lord kept speaking to me. He told me that He was not some ogre, impossible to please. Rather, He has given us guidelines in His word of how to please Him and then He really is pleased when we follow His guidelines. I was so overcome by this revelation that I tuned out what they were praying for me. Imagine that--God really is pleased with us when we really do concentrate ourselves to loving Him with all of our heart and all of our soul and all of our spirit. "Yes," He seemed to be saying, "When My children give Me the Lordship in their lives, I start changing them so that even the desires of their hearts are pleasing to Me. I will work this good work in all who seriously ask Me to and I have worked this good work in you."
About then I became aware of the oriental lady praying, "Lord, make this real to her. Allow her to believe in her heart what You are speaking to her right now."
I was overwhelmed with a sense of awe at who He was and of how He was capable of orchestrating this type of ministry to me. Then I became even more overwhelmed at His great love for me that He would desire to orchestrate this type of ministry to me. Suddenly the box that I kept God in got a little bigger and He became a big enough God to be pleasable--that it was possible for His children, sinful nature and all, to literally cause Him pleasure as we endeavored to follow the guidelines He laid down in His word. Of course, it is not possible to keep everything He laid down in His word because of our sinful nature. But as we endeavor to make Him Lord of all and to enter into intimacy with Him, He is pleased. We can literally please God. I can literally please God! Wow!
Then I became aware of the people praying for me again. They started praying that God would heal any rejection that was left in me and pull out and heal the darts of condemnation that others had thrown into me. They asked Him to heal those wounds so that it would not hinder me in the ministry He has called me to. Immediately I started thinking, "Oh, this does not apply to me. God has already healed me of rejection and condemnation from others is not an issue..."
"Teresa," the Lord said, "Are you not willing to receive from My hand what I have for you? Don't let your pride get in the way of the good thing I want to do in you."
Ouch. I felt reproved. God was right. Clearly He was orchestrating this ministry time. He had already confirmed to me that He had to be involved in this. Who was I to pick and choose what I would or would not receive from Him? I told Him that I was sorry that that I would receive from Him whatever He had for me.
Instantly, I felt God smile and I felt His warmth and His healing penetrating every part of my being. He started showing me how the condemnation of others was frequently their disapproval to me when I did not live up to their expectations and offered me freedom from their expectations. He offered to replace the expectations of others with His own expectations instead. He started showing me how this effected my ministry--such as a timidness to do deliverance because of fear that one of my pastors (who is not fond of deliverance) would disapprove. He brought back to my memory some times when I'd been misunderstood and wrongly condemned that were very painful memories for me. He showed me how some of those experiences effect my behavior today. But He poured so much of His love and His presence into each memory that it stopped being so painful.
"Teresa," He said, "I am pulling weeds from your heart right now."
I was startled.
"Remember," He continued, "that earlier this evening I told you that I was going to do this. Now I am doing it."
Suddenly I was in vision. I was still on the gym floor receiving prayer and shaking under His power. But I was also standing with Him in the garden of my heart. An invisible hand was plucking up some weeds from the garden floor by the roots. It handed those weeds to me.
I stood there with my hand outstretched, holding the weeds. They were limp and ugly and the roots hung down. The top part of the weeds slouched over my hand and hung limply near the roots. There was absolutely nothing desirable or attractive about them. Then Jesus came and stood in front of me. He stretched out His hand over the weeds. Suddenly they were transformed into a lovely bouquet of flowers, suitable to give to a king.
I remembered my passionate desire from earlier that evening to give Jesus a gift. I remembered laying on the gym floor wondering where I would be able to find flowers to give to Jesus. I remembered the Holy Spirit whispering to me that He was going to pull some weeds from the garden of my heart and turn them into beautiful flowers. I could smell the sweet fragrance of the bouquet and knew it would be acceptable to the Lord. I remembered the Lord telling me that after He'd transformed the weeds into flowers, they'd be mine to do with whatever I wanted. So now I had my flowers to give to Jesus and there was Jesus right before me, ready to receive them from my hand....
You'll never guess what I did next.
As I handed the flowers to Him, I was again lost in a sense of His love and goodness. Much later I became aware that the oriental lady was sitting on the floor next to me, still praying for me. I was surprised and delighted that she had stayed with me so long.
The Lord spoke to me once more and said, "Teresa, just as you brought a present to me, I had a present for you this evening. She " (indicating the ministry team lady) "is my present to you." Suddenly, I was overcome with an intense desire to be His present to others as I ministered back at my own church. I was strongly reminded of Romans 12:10 "Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves." I began to see how this is possible if we are first rooted securely in His love for us. Then I just lay back and enjoyed His presence some more...
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