In this Personal Section I am showing you a copy of a letter written in answer to a Christian seeking a deeper relationship with the Lord. The name on the letter has been removed and the answer – due to it being a letter and not a book or a teaching – of necessity – is short.
However, I have had this question asked of me many times recently – and truly, if many are asking the same question – the Lord has put it on each heart and is drawing each in a mighty way.
Here is what I shared with one earnest seeker. May it help you, also.
Dear Friend,
I know just how you feel. I never thought I would ever have any unusual experiences with the Lord. I was too plain, too ordinary – too down to earth.
But lo and behold, He chose the plainest and least gifted of everyone around to take to Heaven and to share these remarkable experiences with. One day I did not see and the next day I did. Amazing. I still am amazed.
But dear friend, I was not seeking the experiences, I was seeking more of Him. I was going to hunt Him down, until I knew that I had the fullest experience of Him I could have on this earth.
My husband and I had already pastored many years and by this time the Lord had used us to help bring together the pastors for prayer, of all the 72 different denominations in Kansas City. We met once a month in the ballroom of the downtown hotel. The church was being brought together in love, prayer and repentance but I knew there was more. When we finished our part of the Lord’s work in that metropolitan area and turned it over to the pastors of Kansas City, I told one of the pastors that I was going apart to find God.
We were exceedingly tired after having brought together the pastors from a population of a million and a half people: so we took a year off to pray and seek God.
Now, most people – unless they are retired as we were – are unable to take off a year to press into God; but John of the Cross and others did not get to take time off to seek Him. It can be done while one works – look at Father Lawrence. It takes pressing in and pressing in – not frantically, but like a lover that just wants to sit quietly with the Beloved – happy, just to have a chance to “hang-out;” sort of like on a lazy summer afternoon on the front porch idea… but with the One you love.
It is so simple that we Christians want to “busy-it-up.” Go ahead, enjoy Him. Just talk to Him. Share with Him. Thank Him. Be more grateful for what has been given to you already – that you know Him – that whatever He is doing with you, right now, is good. And if you cannot stand it any longer; that too is good. Cry out to Him from the depths of your being… wail – use scripture to back up your point of view. Make a case for yourself – He says, “Come, let us reason together.” Reason with Him. Convince Him that you are right and that He should fulfill that which you are laying before Him. Be bold. Be passionate.
Either approach is right and taken into consideration: either quietly or “storming the castle.”
Come on dear friend, pull yourself up on your most holy faith and stand. Take nothing less than Him in His fullness and you knowing Him in His fullness.
Bless you,
Anna
