MY PARENTS’ 38th
wedding anniversary was a day that something remarkable happened to me. It was
December 18, 2003. I had been working from home when I decided to walk to the
park and pray. I’d been separated from my then-wife for a period of 90 days.
Having suffered the worst grief I could then imagine, I was finding my way back
to the church; my faith had never been better, even though it was the most
vulnerable time in my life.
Suddenly, in
that park, I found myself baptised in the Holy Spirit. I had been running. The
experience floored me to the depths of teary, goose-bumped joy. I’m unsure if
the manifestation of God’s Presence brought me to praying in tongues, for I was
alone and for a time I was struck down to the ground. It was the most
remarkable encounter I’d ever experienced. I was overtaken through my entire
being.
What led up to
the experience — back on December 14, a Sunday night — was the execution of my
Step 5, of the 12-Step Program, where I admitted to God, to myself, and to
another person the exact nature of my wrongs (sins). Step 5, for me, took 5
hours. My AA sponsor came over at 7pm and didn’t leave until midnight. It was a
Sunday night. It took 5 hours to spill that deluge of my sins before him, both
of us present before God — the product of two months of Step 4 soul-searching.
I had taken to the 12-Step Program with great enthusiasm.
5 days later,
still vulnerable and grieving, I found myself the most blessed human being on
the planet (not to besmirch any of you from feeling the same way!). Baptism in
the Holy Spirit was a real experience. It was something I could not do independent
of the work of God.
I attribute this
manifestation of blessing to my obedience of confessing all my sins that
previous 5 days beforehand.
Baptism in the
Holy Spirit is not something that any denomination of the Church can say they
own. My experience is that God pours his Spirit out over the obedient. Only by
faith is obedience manifest. My experience tells me that the Lord is the God of
the contrite of heart. By contrition my obedience was manifest, and by faith the
Spirit of the living God manifested by experience.
God loves
nothing more than a sinner turning back to him.
My
encouragement, to you and to myself, is to continue in the softness of soul, to
step forward out of fear: turn to him, alone, who helps, who saves, who
restores; who sanctifies. Spiritual experiences of blessing — God’s very
spiritual confirmation — are manifest over the obedient. By grace we are saved,
through faith.
***
If we will bless the Lord,
By obeying His Spirit by faith,
He will bless us in His own way,
Then we will know about grace.
© 2015 Steve
Wickham.
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