Encountering God

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. (If you want all the details of that story, you can read them on the GodSpeak web page at www.godspeak.net/walk/walk_6.html).] 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.