HOW I MET GOD

Image by Josep Ma. Rosell via Flickr

Different people meet God at different points in their lives. I met God in a way that can only be described as unexpected. I didn’t get shot and healed like my old man; but nevertherless the incident was relatively dramatic.

I had witnessed a number of things before then; things that are perhaps enough to make most people believe. God had used my old man to heal a woman with sickle cell. There was even an incident where a woman died of an asthma attack and God raised her to life right there in front of me. The evidence of an entity, be it God or not was definitely present, but for me that was about as far as it went.

Like most Christians my relationship with God, if you can call it that, was based on going to church on Sundays and every so often during the week. Not because I wanted to; I had to, simply because that was what my parents were doing.

I didn’t really understand God. I prayed every so often; most of the time asking him for stuff that I wanted; but I never got a response. As far as I was concerned this God wherever he was wasn’t very talkative, either that or he was considerably hard of hearing. I had faith though. I mean what choice did I have? I had witnessed so many miracles that I just couldn’t deny it. You know how it is. You believe, but there’s still that corner of doubt in your mind because God just doesn’t seem to respond. What if it’s all just coincidences? Or luck maybe. Is there really some dude that sits in the sky watching my every move and getting angry each time I commit a sin? What a boring life. Why on earth would God want to spend eternity doing that? Like I said, i lacked understanding.

I hadn’t read the bible. It was a book that was far too big and way too boring. I was more interested in the stories about Samson, David and Goliath etc. Whether or not they were true, they were still fascinating to listen to.

I went to a boarding school where virtually no one believed in God. They asked me all kinds of interesting philosophical questions that I couldn’t answer, like: “Can God make a shoe that is too big for him to wear?” If he could then it meant he is not omnipotent. If he couldn’t that meant he couldn’t do everything. I became confused. I started learning about evolution, the big bang and all kinds of scientific facts that seemed to contradict everything I knew. At the time I believed the bible was the perfect word of God. I know better now though.

I decided I didn’t have time for God. What was the point? The guy doesn’t talk to me. I’m not likely to die anytime soon, so the issue of heaven and hell could be dealt with much later. For now im just going to have fun, then maybe when I’m older ill find out what this God guy was on about.

About 4 years ago an incident happened that completely caught me off guard. My girlfriend at the time was pregnant. I was at a stage in my life where the church would probably have thrown me out and labelled me as the ultimate sinner; you would be surprised that some churches actually do that. I was in a service at the time. Some guy had been invited to do a 3 day talk, and it was the usual routine of following my parents to church. This time it was different though. At the end of the service the guy asked us all to stand up and he started praying; touching people as he walked by. I had been through many services like this before, where I would watch as people convulsed on the floor and were thrown around the room by some force they considered to be God. I could never really determine if it was a lie or not. Some people are pretty good actors. It happened to my parents too though, which was what I couldn’t understand. I knew my parents weren’t lying or pretending; so was all this stuff actually real?

Like I said, I was in one of those services again. We were all standing and praying and the guy leading was walking round and touching everyone in turn. He told us to tell God that we wanted to feel his presence; and for I guess the first time in my life, I told God I wanted to feel his presence, and I meant it.

The guy came and he placed the palm of his hand on my forehead. My eyes were closed. They were closed….but they were moving; completely outside of my control. It’s like I was blinking continuously and rapidly even though my eyes were shut. I felt something moving me backwards slowly. I could feel myself losing balance, so I pushed forward to prevent myself from falling. The guy was touching me way too gently to be pushing me. I couldn’t work out what was happening.

I left the service with only one thing in my mind: “what the hell just happened?” Did I just feel God push me? How could I be sure? Maybe the guy was pushing me and I just didn’t notice; but how could I explain the blinking?

I can’t remember if I slept much that night; but the incident was definitely on my mind. The next day was a continuation of the service, so I decided to go a second time.

The guy was deep. He wasn’t talking about money and how God would bless you and all of that. This dude actually spoke sense. I waited eagerly though for the end of the service. I was hoping for a repeat of the same incident. This time I would be paying close attention to what was going on. Maybe this dude had some subtle way of pushing people without them noticing. That’s what I told myself.

He didn’t walk around touching people this time. He asked us to close our eyes and just focus on God. I didn’t have an image of God as such in my head; but I cleared my mind and consciously thought about God.

It happened again. My eyes were closed and I could feel them blinking again; almost like they were forcing themselves shut continuously, even though they were already closed.

The guy asked us all to open our eyes. Then he said, “if you felt anything, come forward”. I hesitated for a second. What if….? I didn’t allow myself to finish my thought. I went forward.

There were a few other people that came forward as well. He asked me to raise up my hands, and I obeyed lifting them slowly. My eyes were closed. They were still doing the blinking thing, but the intensity was increasing. His hand touched mine; and I quite literally received a shock that changed my life.

It was like I had just touched a naked wire. My entire body was moving of its own accord. It was like electricity was running continuously through my body. I fell to the ground letting go of the man’s hand, but on the floor I was still shaking violently. Like a fish that had just been taken out of water. This happened for about 3 minutes. Then it stopped. I was completely out of breath. It was like I had just finished a long race and I was drained of all my energy. I lay there on the floor for a couple more minutes. I suddenly became conscious that there were other people in the room. I got up, and slowly walked back to my seat, trying not to make eye contact with anyone.

On the way home in the car I just couldn’t stop talking. I couldn’t believe it. This is not “I saw” or “he said” or “she said”. I actually felt him! All of a sudden it dawned on me just how real God was. I just couldn’t comprehend it. I was afraid, but at the same time I was excited. I became a freak. I just couldn’t talk about anything else. I no longer cared about anything else. I just wanted to know about this God more. I was tripped, and I had enough motivation to last me a life time. I drove the girl I was with crazy, I just couldn’t have a normal conversation without bringing up God in some way. All of a sudden I started talking to God, and because I no longer had any doubt of his existence I was constantly on the look out for a response. It became “God showed me this”, “God told me that”; it was enough to irritate anyone.

So I decided to read the bible. They say you can understand God through the bible yeh? So I took a decision that I was going to read it on my own. None of this pastor said nonsense. I needed to find out what it said for myself. What I found out, is a whole other story.

That was 4 years ago. Since then I’ve felt God in a similar way about 15 times. In fact whenever I close my eyes and think about God my eyes keep moving on their own accord. In a way it constantly reminds me that God is with me; but there is a question that always bothers me. If something so dramatic had not happened to me, would I have gone searching for God? It’s a deep question, because when I look back with the knowledge that I have now, I can see how God was constantly trying to get my attention, but so many times I just was not prepared to listen. I was too preoccupied with life to notice. It is a fool that says in his heart that there is no God. I was a fool for the majority of my life; don’t be a fool too.

Tagged as: Existence of God, experience, God, spirituality, Truth