Intimacy with the Spirit of God is spiritual, not mechanical. Some of the most powerful, intimate moments of our lives are beyond human logic and understanding. They are beyond words. Our relationship with God is often like that. The beauty of His presence and glory cannot be described or understood from a natural perspective, as if we could figure Him out. Rather, the beauty of God’s presence and glory is to be tasted and seen. It is to be experienced.
Fast Start, Slower Progress
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There was a time in my life when I was intimate with God. As a young teenager, I had extraordinary visitations from the Holy Spirit, and praying was as easy as breathing. I felt such peace and refreshment in my life with the Lord. I would spend hours on end reading and meditating on Scripture, praying in the Spirit and worshipping in the presence of Christ.
Passion for God raged like a fire deep within my being. Love for God, the lost and the church were the beat of my heart. But slowly I grew distracted and careless in my walk with God, and I stumbled often, yielding to fleshly impulses and creating strongholds. The complacent, lukewarm waters of life started to quench the fire that once consumed me. This resulted in a 10-year dry season.
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I used to pray, “God, bring me back to the place where I once was! I want to go back to where I was!” My cries often were met with silence, and frustration would well up inside me. Proverbs 13:12a (NIV) says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick,” and that is how I felt. Through all my praying, the only thing that kept coming to me was to remain faithful in the wilderness and that this was only temporary. I didn’t realize it at the time, but God had no desire to “bring me back.” He wanted me to go beyond my past experiences into greater glory.
I still loved God, served Him and even ministered, but my heart was like a bag of dust. I so desperately needed refreshing. Sometimes, even while serving God, you can forget Him. You can preach about Him without ever spending time with Him. You can minister to God’s people without ever ministering to Him directly. I have been there. The vast majority of believers are stuck in this state. They have just enough of God to make them miserable with their sin and just enough of the world to make them apathetic to the things of God. In this dry season the Spirit taught me to remember Him. It’s easy to forget the Lord when you have lost fellowship with Him. But once you regain it, you are flooded with the familiar embraces of His life-giving presence.
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