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About 4 a.m. on the 28th of November, 1984, I had a strange and wonderful experience. In essence, I told God I loved him - and to my amazement, he answered me and told me he loved me. That was it, in a nutshell; but the experience was so shattering I don't think I'll ever be the same. I've told people it was like an extraterrestrial experience, because I had never experienced anything like it before. 'The Lord is a FACT,' I had said to my wife Carol some weeks before the experience. 'His presence is a fact. He is real and unquestionably there. That's all that matters.' 'Yes.' Carol looked at me with amusement. 'But one should feel God's existence, too.' 'No,' I insisted. 'Feeling doesn't matter. It's enough that he exists!' It was important, of course, that each day I was getting one step closer to God. I was spending more time in prayer because I knew he was listening - even if I didn't feel anything. Soon after that I was alone in London for a visit to the British Library before returning to my home in South Africa. It was the 27th of November and a British Council friend kindly put me up in his London home. He gave me a comfortable bed in a tiny room at the top of his house. I was hardly prepared for the incredible surprise in store for me. It was about four the next morning when I woke up with some asthma. I turned over and lay on my back when I became aware of a woman seated beside my bed. I ought to have jumped out of my skin, especially since she radiated a soft light! But the strange thing was I wasn't in the least bit frightened. On the contrary, there was an immense sense of peace and warmth and contentment. And, I knew her - or, I should say, it was as though my spirit recognised her. Yet I couldn't put a name to her. It didn't matter. It was enough that she was there. She was elderly, and I felt afterwards she was like an old German teacher I was very fond of as a child. But afterwards (and this is very strange, for I don't understand it) I felt she was like Corrie ten Boom: that name came to me very clearly, afterwards, yet at the time I had never read any of her books. In any case, the sense of warmth and comfort made me want to pray. I lay back and said, simply: 'God, I love you.' That was when it happened. All at once there was a flood of light from above: a sudden downpour, like an energy beam of pure power and pure love. It came straight down, like a pillar from heaven: but it was a stream of heavenly power, like electricity that surged through me, like a waterfall pouring, rushing through me. I knew it was God. It was overwhelming. I felt like a small child on the breast of its father, held ever so tightly. I was crying and sobbing helplessly, overcome with joy. Somehow it was my spirit that was crying, not my physical body. I was held in a firm grip: movement was impossible. I had closed my eyes, and now I dared to open them for a moment: the room was flooded with light! A vague human form stood by the bed. I felt fear, yet total acceptance by God: it was too much for me to stand for long. I wish I'd had the courage to surrender totally to the accepting love of God. And I felt so unworthy, so ashamed, in spite of the total acceptance by God. Perhaps that's why I cried: 'Oh, please, please let my life be worth something to you!' And yet no demand was being made on me. At that instant, very powerfully, I felt the sentences in my mind, wordlessly, like a telepathic force: 'It's all right. You don't have to justify yourself or do anything to make me love you or want you.' Then suddenly it was all over.
But as I thought, 'It's over,' and while I still felt elated from the experience, I was aware of a desk standing in the room. It was a visual impression, of course, but the physical reality of the desk was uncanny and lucid. It was a modern desk, tall and narrow, like a pulpit. It felt inviting. I knew then that my calling was to write - to proclaim God's word and message of love through the written word. As if to confirm this, the thought pressed into my mind: 'Feed my lambs.'
And then, finally, there was a feeling, like a chuckle, as though God were saying, 'Did you say feeling didn't matter?'
That was years ago, but I still ask, 'Did it really happen?' Of course, I know it did. I've been blessed with more than biblical proof that God lives and that he loves me too! For some time after the experience I had an overwhelming sense of love for everyone that I never had before.
Since then I've read Corrie ten Boom's Tramp for the Lord. She describes a similar experience of the Lord's presence - when she was healed in hospital. In a sense, I was healed, too. God goes to the sinners and failures, and I was failing badly.
(Extract from Have Anything You Really Really Want by Charles Muller. Further information at Diadem Books ) |
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