Posted on 07/14/2009 11:41:13 PM PDT by Quix
The God Chasers by Tommy Tenney Book Excerpt & Commentary
I recently finished THE SHACK by William P Young and HE LOVES ME by Wayne Jacobsen.
I found both of them deeply moving, Biblical, edifying and helpful in drawing me closer to God.
Subsequently, a Navy Friend/ Christian Bro of 30+ years read me the riot act about THE SHACK. I found his rants about “heresy” completely without substance. Turns out he had not read it. Sheesh. It is, after all, a NOVEL! And, I found it exceedingly Biblical.
Some important Biblical truths, doctrines are affirmed with a sentence and lain aside as the tale proceeds to illustrate particular aspects of our relationship with God and God’s character and priorities. However, having read it once, I can’t recall a single thing that struck me as unBiblical.
HE LOVES ME is similarly impactful. The two of them are, to me, truly in a class with Bunyan’s: Pilgrim’s Progress in terms of spiritual import and potential spiritual growth thereby facilitated.
My current volume has been one I’ve sought for some months. It was recommended by one of God’s Vagabond Prophet sorts of characters who knew that I have long sought a deeper, more intense relationship with God. Note: I added some extra paragraphing below.
WARNING regarding the following: It will be a test for many regarding their sensibilities, assumptions, biases, comfort zones, priorities, self-righteousness, smugness, attitudes, human understandings, !!!!TRADITIONS!!!!, customs, habits, idolatries, . . . The choice will be to lay all aside and choose whatever God is doing, wishes to do in each individual’s life—
Or not.
The consequences of such a choice will be far from inconsequential.
Here’s a good chunk from the first chapter:
Running hard after God—Ps 63:8
We think we know where God lives.
We think we know what He likes, and we are sure KNOW WHAT He dislikes.
We have studied God’s Word and His old love letters to the churches so much that some of us claim to know all about God. But now people like you and me around the world are beginning to hear a voice speak to them with persistent but piercing repetition in the stillness of the night:
I thought I did. At one time I thought I had achieved a good measure of success in the ministry. After all, I had preached in some of the largest churches in America. I was involved in international outreach efforts with great men of God. I went to Russia numerous times and helped start many churches there. I’ve done a lot of things for God…because I thought that was what I was supposed to do.
But on one autumn Sunday morning, something happened to change all that. It put all my ministerial accomplishments, credentials, and achievements in jeopardy. A long-time friend of mine . . . in Houston . . . had asked me to speak at his church. I somehow sensed that destiny was waiting. . . .
I am a fourth generation Spirit-filled Christian, three generations deep into ministry, but I must be honest with you: I was sick of church. I was just like most of the people we try to lure into our services every week. They won’t come because they are sick of church too. But on the other hand, though most of the people who drive by our churches, . . . may be sick of church as well, they’re also hungry for God.
. . .
Ironically, as a minister I was suffering from the same hunger pangs as the people who had never met Jesus before! I just wasn’t content to know about Jesus anymore.
. . .
It’s simply not enough to know about God. We have churches filled with people who can win Bible trivia contests but who don’t know Him. I am afraid that some of us have been side-tracked or entangled by everything from prosperity to poverty, and we’ve become such an ingrown society of the self-righteous that our desires and our wants and those of the Holy Spirit are two different matters.
If we’re not careful, we can become so interested in developing the “cult of the comfortable” with our comfortable pastor, our comfortable church building, and our comfortable circle of friends, that we forget about the thousands of discontented, wounded, and dying people who pass by our comfortable church every day! I can’t help but think that if we fail to even try to reach them with the gospel of Jesus Christ, then He sure wasted a lot of blood on Calvary. Now that makes me uncomfortable.
There had to be more. I was desperate for a God encounter (of the closest kind).
I returned home after speaking at my friend’s church in Texas. . . . the pastor called again. He said, “Tommy, we’ve been friends for years now. And I don’t know that I’ve ever asked anybody to come back for a second Sunday in a row…but would you come back here next Sunday too?” I agreed. We could tell that God was up to something. Was the pursuer now being pursued? We were about to be apprehended by that which we ourselves were chasing?
This second Sunday was even more intense. No one wanted to leave the building after the Sunday night service. “What should we do?” my pastor friend asked. “We should have a prayer meeting on Monday night,” I said, “with no other agenda. Let’s gauge the hunger of the people and see what’s happening.” Four hundred people showed up that Monday for the prayer meeting, and all we did was seek the face of God. Something was definitely going on. A minuscule crack was appearing in the brass heavens over the city of Houston. Collective hunger was crying for a corporate visitation.
I went back home and by Wednesday the pastor was on the phone again . . . He is a fellow God chaser and we were in hot pursuit. His church had fueled a flaming hunger in me. They too had been preparing for pursuit. There was a sense that we were close to “catching” Him.
That’s an interesting phrase, isn’t it? Catching Him. Really, it’s an impossible phrase. We can no more catch Him than the east can catch the west; they’re too far removed from each other. It’s like playing chase with my daughter . . . When she comes and tries to catch me . . . I really don’t have to run. I just artfully dodge . . . and she can’t even touch me, because a six-year-old can’t catch an adult. But that’s not really the purpose of the game, because a few minutes into it, she laughingly says, “Oh daddy,” and it’s at that moment that she capturesmy heart, if not my presence or body. And then I turn and she’s no longer chasing me, but I’m chasing her, and I catch her and we tumble in the grass with hugs and kisses. The pursuer becomes the pursued.
So can we catch Him? Not really, but we can catch His heart. David did. And if we catch His heart, then He turn and chases us. That’s the beauty of being a God chaser. You’re chasing the impossible, knowing it’s possible.
This body of believers in Houston had two scheduled services on Sundays. The first morning service started at 8:30, and the second one followed and began at 11.
When I returned for the third weekend, while in the hotel, I sensed a heavy anointing of some kind, a brooding of the Spirit, and I literally wept and trembled.
The following morning, we walked into the building for the 8:30 Sunday service expecting to see the usual early morning first service “sleepy” crowd with their low-key worship.
As I walked in to sit down in the front row that morning, the presence of God was already in that place so heavily that the air was “thick.” You could barely breathe.
The musicians were clearly struggling to continue their ministry; their tears got in the way. Music became more difficult to play. Finally, the presence of God hovered so strongly that they couldn’t sing or play any longer. The worship leader crumpled in sobs behind the keyboard.
If there was one good decision I made in life, it was made that day. I had never been this close to “catching” God, and I was not going to stop. So I spoke to my wife, Jeannie. “You should go continue to lead people into the presence of God as a worshiper and intercessor. She quietly moved to the front and continued to facilitate the worship and ministry to the Lord. It wasn’t anything fancy; it was just simple. That was the only appropriate response in that moment.
The atmosphere reminded me of the passage in Isaiah 6, something I’d read about, and even dared dream I might experience myself. In this passage the glory of the Lord filled the temple. I’d never understood what it meant for the glory of the Lord to fill a place. . . . God was there: of that there was no doubt. But more of Him kept coming in the place until, as in Isaiah, it literally filled the building. At times the air was so rarefied that it became almost unbreathable. Oxygen came in short gasps, seemingly. Muffled sobs broke through the room. In the midst of this, the pastor turned to me and asked me a question.
“Tommy, are you ready to take the service?” “Pastor, I’m just about half-afraid to step up there, because I sense that God is about to do something.”
Tears were streaming down my face when I said that. I wasn’t afraid that God was going to strike me down or that something bad was going to happen. I just didn’t want to interfere and grieve the precious presence that was filling up that room!
For too long we humans have only allowed the Holy Spirit to take control up to a certain point. Basically, whenever it gets outside of our comfort zone or just a little beyond our control, we pull in the reins (the Bible calls it “quenching the Spirit” in First Thessalonians 5:19). We stop at the tabernacle veil too many times.
“I feel like I should read Second Chronicles 7:14, and I have a word from the Lord,” my pastor friend said.
With profuse tears I nodded assent and said, “Go, go!”
My friend is not a man given to any kind of outward demonstration; he is essentially a man of “even” emotions. But when he got up to walk to the platform, he appeared visibly shaky. At this point I so sensed something was about to happen, that I walked all the way from the front row to the back of the room to stand by the sound booth. I knew God was going to do something; I just didn’t know where. I was on the front row and it could happen behind me or to the side of me. I was so desperate to catch Him that I got up and publicly walked back to the sound booth as the pastor walked up to the pulpit to speak, so I could see whatever happened. . . . “God I want to be able to see whatever it is You are about to do.”
My pastor friend stepped up to the clear pulpit in the center of the platform, opened the Bible and quietly read the gripping passage from Second Chronicles 7:14:
If my people, which are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
Then he closed his Bible, gripped the edges of the pulpit with trembling hands, and said, “The word of the Lord to us is to stop seeking His benefits and seek Him. We are not to seek His hands any longer, but seek His face.”
In that instant, I heard what sounded like a thunderclap echo through the building, and the pastor was literally picked up and thrown backwards about ten feet, effectively separating him from the pulpit. When he went backward, the pulpit fell forward. The beautiful flower arrangement positioned in front of it fell to the ground, but by the time the pulpit hit the ground, it was already in two pieces. It had split into two pieces almost as if lightening had hit it [it was evidently a clear, thick walled, Lucite type plastic see through pulpit]! At that instant the tangible terror of the presence of God filled that room.
I quickly stepped to the microphone from the back of the room and said, “In case you aren’t aware of it, God has just moved into this place. The pastor is fine. [It was two and a half hourse before he could even get up, though—and even then the ushers had to carry him. Only his hand trembled slightly to give proof of life.] He’s going to be fine.”
While all of this happened, the ushers quickly ran to the front to check on the pastor and to pick up the two pieces of the split pulpit. No one really paid much attention to the split pulpit; we were too occupied with the torn heavenlies.
The presence of God had hit that place like some kind of bomb. People began to weep and to wail. I said, “If you’re not where you need to be, this is a good time to get right with God.” I’ve never seen such an altar call. It was pure pandemonium. People shoved one another out of the way. They wouldn’t wait for the aisles to clear; they climbed over pews, businessmen tore their ties off, and they were literally stacked on top of one another, in the most horribly harmonious sound of repentance you ever heard. Just the thought of it still sends chills down my back.
When I gave the altar call then for the 8:30 a.m service, I had no idea that it would be but the first of seven altar calls that day.
When it was time for the 11:00 service to begin, nobody had left the building. The people were still on their faces and, even though there was hardly any musiuc being played at this point, worship was rampant and uninhibited. Grown men were ballet dancing; little children were weeping in repentance. People were on their faces, on their feet, on their knees, but mostly in His presence.
There was so much of the presence and the power of God there that people began to feel an urgent need to be baptized. I watched people walk through the doors of repentance, and one after another experienced the glory and the presence of God as He came near.
Then they wanted baptized, and I was in a quandary about what to do. The pastor was still unavailable on the floor. Prominent people walked up to me and stated, “I’ve got to be baptized. Somebody tell me what to do.” . . .
Two and a half hours had passed, and since the pastor had only managed to wiggle one finger at that point to call the elders to him, the ushers had carried him to his office. Meanwhile, all these people were asking me (or anyone else they could find) if they could be baptized. As a visiting minister at the church, I didn’t want to assume the authority to tell anyone to baptize these folks, so I sent people back to the pastor’s office to see if he would authorize the water baptisms.
I gave one altar call after another, and hundreds of people were coming forward. As more and more people came to me asking about water baptism, I noticed that no one I had sent to the pastor’s office had returned.
Finally I sent a senior assistant pastor back there and told him, “Please find out what Pastor wants to do about the water baptisms—nobody has come back to tell me yet.” The man stuck his head in the pastor’s office, and to his shock, he saw the pastor still lying before the Lord, and everyone I had sent there was sprawled on the floor too, just weeping and repenting before God. He hurried back to tell me what he had seen and added, “I’ll go ask him, but if I go in that office I may not be back either.”
I shrugged my shoulders and agreed with the associate pastor, “I guess it’s alright to baptize them.” So we began to baptize people as a physical sign of their repentance before the Lord, and we ended up baptizing people for hours.
More and more people kept pouring in, and since the people from the early service were still there, there were cars parked everywhere outside the church building. A big open-air ball field next to the building was filled with cars parked every which way.
As people drove onto the parking lot, they sensed the presence of God so strongly that some began to weep uncontrollably. They just found themselves driving up onto the parking lot or into the grass not knowing what was going on. Some started to get out of their cars and barely managed to stagger across the parking lot. Some came inside the building only to fall to the floor just inside the doors. The hard-pressed ushers had to literally pull the helpless people away from the doors and stack them up along the walls of the hallways to clear the entrance. Others managed to make it part way down the hallways, and some made it to the foyer before they fell on their faces in repentance.
Some actually made it inside the auditorium, but most of them didn’t bother to find seats. They just made for the altar. . . . it wasn’t long before they began to weep and repent. . . .there wasn’t any preaching. There wasn’t even any music part of the time. Primarily one thing happened that day: The presence of God showing up.
When that happens, the first thing you do is the same thing Isaiah did when he saw the Lord high and lifted up. He cried out from the depths of his soul:
Then said I, Woe is me! For I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts (Isaiah 6:5)
You see, the instant Isaiah the prophet, the chosen servant of God, saw the King of glory, what he used to think was clean and holy now looked like filthy rags. He was thinking, “I thought I knew God, but I didn’t know this much of God! That Sunday we seemed to come so close; we almost caught Him. Now I know it’s possible.
People just kept filling the auditorium again and again . . . We didn’t have to announce our plans for Monday evening. Everybody already knew. Frankly, there would have been a meeting whether we announced it or not. The people simply went home to get some sleep or do the things they had to do, and then they came right back for more--not for more of men and their programs, but for God and His presence.
Night after night, the pastor and I would come in and say, “What are we going to do?”
What we meant was, “I don’t know what to do. What does He want to do?”
Sometimes we’d go in and start trying to “have church,” but the crying hunger of the people would quickly draw in the presence of God and suddenly God had us!
Listen, my friend, God doesn’t care about your music, your midget steeples, and your flesh-impressive buildings. Your church carpet doesn’t impress Him—He carpets the fields. God doesn’t really care about anything you can “do” for Him; He only cares about your answer to one question: “Do you want Me?”
We have programmed our church services so tightly that we really don’t’ leave room for the Holy Spirit. Oh, we might let God speak prophetically to us a little, but we get nervous if He tries to break out of our schedules. We can’t let God out of the box too much because He can ruin everything. (That has become my prayer: “Break out of our boxes, Lord, and ruin everything that isn’t of You!”)
Let me ask you a question: How long has it been since you came to church and said, “We are going to wait on the Lord”? I think we are afraid to wait on Him because we’re afraid He won’t show up. I have a promise for you: “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength” (Is 40:31a).
Do you want to know why we’ve lived in weakness as Christians and have not had all that God wanted for us? Do you want to know why we have lived beneath our privilege and have not had the strength to overcome our own carnality? Maybe it’s because we haven’t waited on Him to show up to empower us, and we’re trying to do too much in the power of our own soulish realm.
. . .
. . . .
As far as I can tell, there is only one thing that stops Him. He is not going to pour out His Spirit where He doesn’t find hunger. He looks for the hungry. Hunger means you’re dissatisfied with the way it has been because it forced you to live without Him in His fullness. He only comes when you are ready to turn it all over to Him. God is coming back to repossess His Church, but you have to be hungry.
He wants to reveal Himself among us. He wants to come ever stronger, and stronger, and stronger, and stronger until your flesh won’t be able to stand it. The beauty of it is this: neither will the unsaved driving by be able to resist. It’s beginning to happen. I have seen the day when sinners veer off the highway when they drive by places of an open heaven. They pull into parking lots with puzzled looks, and they knock on the doors and say, “Please, there’s something here…I’ve got to have it.”
I too have found the same issues. I think the church abandoning the Confessions and Constitutions are some of the reasons we are in the mess we are in. The Confessions are only a guide to the scriptures. I have really enjoyed reading through the Westminster Confession of 1644 and the Baptist Confession of 1642. These are the bedrock of the Protestant faith.
Quix, I didn't mean to offend but don't you see something wrong with this statement. I would suggest that you should have a powerful overwhelming presence of God every day. You simply need to be still. The best time I sense God's presence is in looking at the sunrise or the stars. He is always near to us.
HarleyD, If you had the privilege of driving by the service described in this case, would you drive by or would you take a risk of stretching your comfort zone and joining the service?
In a sense this is a true statement. However, would you agree that some people might try too hard for the experience? Isn't God the one that usually does the unexpected thing? Does God manifest himself to us because we want it or He wants it. I do agree if you do not want it he probably won't bother doing it. Then again maybe he might, Wasn't that Mack's case in The Shack?
My point is putting God in a box is not wise. Our preconceived notions are probably wrong.
One blessing I now enjoy is that I am no longer tied to a denominational box.
THERE’S A WORLD . . . A HEAVEN OF DIFFERENCE, Harley.
Not offended. No need to be concerned about that. I’d still value you and treasure you regardless of what you said to me.
It would appear that I am inadequate to communicate on this issue without more EXPERIENCE that only GOD can provide.
I have had a range of such experiences and none as intense as Tommy described.
The more intense that I’ve had were sufficiently atypical to conventional status quo Christianity that the differences were quite stark.
I am a bit puzzled . . . on the one hand you seem to decry such an EXPERIENCE of God and on the other hand you say one should have maximum intensity of God 24/7.
The EXPERIENCE OF GOD I’m describing is akin to Isaian’s description . . . to the several Scriptural mentions of folks being flat on the ground just because of being near to angels who had been in the PRESENCE of God.
How would one be a good father mother or co-worker being imobilized on the floor face down 24/7?
A MOST EXCELLENT question.
Thanks
God IS sovereign
He persistently makes exceptions.
Generally, however, He rewards those most who most SEEK HIM WHOLEHEARTEDLY & PERSISTENTLY.
THX
Indeed.
Sorry this is so late in responding. I'm getting ready to leave on vacation starting in a few moments.
In my earlier Christian days, I was known to sit through these types of services and enjoy them. Later in my Christian life, I was known to get up and walk out...all the while people chasing me to come back. The difference is that I find there to be little emphasis on scripture and more about "what God can do for you". It is no different that Joel Osteen or some other preacher saying that God will bless you if you just keep asking, or tithing, or fill in the blank. And then others are jealous when you receive that big promotion, speak in tongues, bring a person to Christ, fill in the blank. That is not what being a Christian is all about.
Personally, I think God has done more than enough for me already. I don't wish for this to come off sounding "fakey" but I'm simply not worthy of anything more unless God so grants it to me. Please don't think this is false humility. I am not a very humble person. That's simply the way I think. If God wants to shower me with all sorts of His blessings that's fine. If God has designated bitterness, then I pray that He'll provide with the strength to see it through and that I would be a worthy servant. But, the decision is up to Him and I'll rest in whatever He chooses to give to me. I really don't deserve any more then the crumbs that fall from the table.
Blessings on your vacation.
I don’t think it’s false humility. You sound authentic enough to me.
I still believe, however, that
THERE’S A HUGE, HUGE, HUGE and evidently unknown-to-you
DIFFERENCE
between THIS TYPE of service such as you attended
and the service of the quality and intensity that Tommy described. They may seem quite similar to you.
I assure you that they are essentially NOT that similar at all. The difference is extremely great and stark. I’ve been in both kinds, too.
. . . A hungry heart inside a man with an unbowed head (mind) and an unbroken (unsubmitted) will is a recipe for misery.
Now if God can do that in the bar room, why should we be surprised at all the other things He can do "all by Himself"? (Most people who don't come from a church background will tell you that the first time they felt the prick of the conviction of God was in some place other than in a church service or religious setting.) All these instances illustrate the effects of the omnipresence of God, the quality of His presence being everywhere, all the time.
Yet even though God is everywhere all the time, there are also times when He concentrates the very essence of His being into what many call "the manifest presence of God." When this happens, there is a strong sense and awareness that God Himself has "entered the room." You might say that althought He is indeed everywhere all the time, there are also specific period of time when He is "here" more than "there." For divine reasons, God chooses to concentrate or reveal Himself more strongly in one place than another, or more at one time than another.
This concept may disturb you theologically. You may be thinking, Wait a minute. God is always here. He's omnipresent. That's true, but why did He say, "If My people, which are called by My name shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face..."? (See Second Chronicles 7:14.) If they are already His people, what other level of "Him" are they to "seek"?
Seek His face! Why? It is because His favor flows wherever His face is directed. You can be God's child and not have His favor, much as an earthly child would be in disfavor but not disowned.
That phrase in the verse is particularly interesting. God told His people for all generations that if they would seek His face and "turn from their wicked ways," then He would har them and heal their land. How can we be God's pople and have wicked ways? Perhaps our "wicked ways" explain why we have been content just to be in God's vicinity instead of gazing upon His face. The only thing that is going to turn the focus and favor of God toward us in our hunger. We must repent, reach for His face, and pray. "God, look at us, and we'll look to You."
Too often God's people can be guided only by the written Word or the prophetic word. The Bible says He wants us to move beyond that to a place marked by a greater degree of tenderness of heart toward Him and by a deeper maturity that allows Him to "guide us with His eye" God is everywhere, but He doesn’t turn His face and His favor everywhere. That is why He tells us to seek His face. Yes, He is present with you every time you meet with other believers in a worship service, but how long has it been since your hunger caused you to crawl up in His lap, and like a child, to reach up and take the face of God to turn it toward you? Intimacy with Him![emphasis Qx added] That is what God desires, and His face should be our highest focus.
The Israelites referred to the manifest presence of God as the shekinah glory of God. When God began to talk about interested in the gold-=covered box with the artifacts inside it. He was interested in the blue flame that hovered between the outstretched wings of the cherubim on top of the ark . . . there was something about the flame that signified that God Himself was present. And wherever the glory or manifested presence of God went, there was victory, power, and blessing. Intimacy will bring about “blessing,” but the pursuit of “blessing” won’t always bring about intimacy.
What we cry for is a restoration of the manifested presence of God. When Moses was exposed to the glory of God, the residue of that glory caused his face to shine so much that when he came back down from the mountain, the people said, “Moses, you must cover your face. We can’t bear to look at you” (see Ex. 34:29-35). . . .
When God begins to visit in a place or among a people, unusual things start happening simply because He is there. If you don’t believe me, ask Jacob. . . . (see Gen. 35:1-3). . . . (Gen.35:5) . . .
The manifest presence of God often lingers in a place even when no one else is around. I remember the day a member of the church staff at a church that God invaded crossed the platform in the sanctuary on a weekday to refresh the platform water. He never made it back. Three hours later somebody noticed he was gone and they went looking for him. The light was dim in the sanctuary, and when they turned on the lights, they saw the man lying prostrate on the platform where he had fallen after stumbling into the cloud of His presence.
There have been times when a cloud of the presence of God would suddenly show up as God’s people worshiped. Now that is when things get scary. It could be the mist of the glory of God beginning to congeal itself before our eyes. I don’t understand it. I’m just telling you it has happened.
One of the pastors there had a brother-in-law who was an atheist. In fact, he wasn’t just an atheist; he was an “evangelistic atheist.” This brother-in-law was the kind of guy whom you wanted to avoid at family gatherings because he always causes trouble and started heated arguments. In the middle of God’s invasion of this particular church, this brother-in-law called the pastor’s wife (who was his sister). He told her, “Look, I’m flying in. Would you pick me up? I just want to spend a couple of days with you.”
The pastor knew something was up, because this brother-in-law had never done that before. When he arrived, it was obvious that he didn’t know what he was doing there. It was the strangest thing. There they were, trying to make conversation with each other when they had nothing in common. . . . As they passed by the church, the pastor said, “That’s the church. We just finished some remodeling.”
Since the brother-in-law had never seen it, and figuring it was yet another way to plug an awkward moment of silence, this pastor said, “You wouldn’t want to go in and look at it would you?”
To his complete surprise, his atheist brother-in-law said, “Ys, I would.”
The pastor pulled into the church parking lot and then unlocked the door to the church building. His brother-in-law was right behind him, and the pastor’s wife was third in line. The pastor stepped inside and held the door open for his brother-in-law, and the moment the man’s foot touched the floor on the other side of the threshold, he crumpled in a heap and began to weep and cry out, “My God, help me! I’m not ready for this. I don’t know how to do this! What am I going to do?”
Then he grabbed the pastor and said, “Tell me how to get saved right now!” The whole time he was writhing on the floor and crying uncontrollably. So this pastor led his brother-in-law to the Lord right there while he was sprawled half-in and half-out of the building while his sister patiently held the door open! Her atheist brother had an encounter with the “residue” or lingering presence of the glory of God.
As soon as he regained a measure of coherence, they asked him, “What happened to you?” He said, “I don’t know how to explain it. All I know is that when I was outside the building I was an atheist and I didn’t believe that God existed. But when I stepped across that threshold, I met Him and I knew it was God. I knew I had to get right, and I felt horrible about my life.” Then he added, “It just took all the strength out of me.”
What could happen in a city or a region if this strength of “presence” expanded beyond the localized area of the church building?
The excerpts are from
THE GOD CHASERS: “My Soul Follows Hard After Thee”
by
Tommy Tenney
Thanks Quix,
I have often wondered why God will sometimes just enter into the ives of those who don’t ask, don’t know Him and don’t seem to even want to, while often He seems elusive to those of us who pray and ask and sincerely want to experience His presence. Sometimes I wonder if we try too hard. Thought?? Thanks.
What an interesting question, jackv. I used to be an Episcopalian, but find these folk have gone “left”, and are totally out in the field.
Do we sometimes forget to look at the details of our lives when searching for His presence and guiding hand? I can see his work in mine when I look back at the good things that happened to me, after I endured some very difficult circumstances.
I have felt His presence several times over my 65 years, but it has never been when I expected it. Perhaps we have a “pre-conceived” idea of what His presence “should” be like, and therefore miss the moments He is there, guiding our feet in the way He plans for us?
The older I get, and the more I try to meld my heart and my thoughts, the more I wonder about how the many different ways people try to define, construct, and then explain what “Believing” should be in denominational terms.
Jesus told us that His Father’s house had many mansions. I have often wondered about how many different ways that could be understood.
I now think it is possible that no mere human can ever understand God’s power or plan, and that our efforts to structure our beliefs denominationally will always miss His power and glory.
Often pondered the same points.
1. I know that striving—particularly in our own strength—maybe there’s no other kind—is futile, if not counter productive.
2. How to discern between avoiding striving and still being fittingly responsible is still a growing edge for me.
3. I think in cases such as this atheist . . . perhaps God was aware of an inner heart attitude genuinely seeking AUTHENTICITY, REALITY, TRUTH VIS A VIS GOD ETC. AND UTTER DISGUST WITH PHONY, SHAM, !!!RELIGION!!! (vs RELATIONSHIP) etc. . . . all of which GOD GREATLY AGREES WITH. Vs the Pharisee who is smugly self-righteous, haughty, controlling, etc. etc. etc. . . . so will meet the atheist dramatically . . . or a Saul of Tarsish.
4. I’m still learning “letting go and letting God” in significant ways. So I don’t know that I have much wisdom to offer on that score. There are things about MY YOKE IS EASY AND MY BURDEN LIGHT that still mystify me. . . . as well as . . . about resting IN HIM continually while running the race with my utmost as unto The Lord. Though I know I’ve made progress, by His Grace in those matters.
5. Been accused of trying to hard and thinking too much most of my life. Including just today by Pastor Coleman on one of her regular visits up from Phoenix. That I had to repent of trying to figure things out on my own instead of continually giving up to God and trusting God and resting and being at peace in Him. I noted that I’d repeatedly done that as well as I knew how and began to cry feeling helpless to make that grade as she’d noted that repenting without being connected to God did no good. Somehow she felt convinced that in my crying out to God I’d connected with Him and He would touch me and change me on such scores.
I pray ‘tis so. Trusting and obeying as well as I know how. What else can we do?
EXCELLENT POINTS.
I’ve often wondered if pursuing God is sometimes (often?) like the proverb about chasing after happiness being like chasing a butterfly . . . the more we chase it, the more it eludes us . . . until we sit calmly and it comes and sits on our finger.
BE STILL and KNOW I am God, He says.
Are we toooo much ado about nothing?
Sigh.
In His Plan, there is nothing we can ever do to merit salvation, it is purely by grace. We are saved by faith, not because of our faith. Just as there is nothing we can ever do to merit the salvation He provides, there is also nothing we can ever do to lose the salvation He provides once we receive eternal life.
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