Saturday, August 02, 2008

Indescribable

You ever had one of those experiences that you don't know quite how to describe it, but you know that it was just incredible, amazing, wonderful, inspiring in so many different ways and so fulfilling - but you know those words just aren't enough?

Most of us do. Of one kind or another. Some of them are healthy, others probably aren't. But we all have them.

I had one this week. I met with God at New Wine 2008. It was almost indescribable.

I can tell you what happened. I can tell you what God spoke to me about. I can tell you what God did.

But it doesn't get anywhere near to explaining the full experience.

So what did God say and do?

He spoke to me about areas of my life I'd tried to keep hidden for years, and habits and attitudes I'd had for a long time, and healed me of them and led me into a new understanding.

He gave me clarity in what He wants me to do now, next year and in the long term.

He gave me new self-belief and confidence. Or at least the seeds of it.

I can't really explain any of this in more detail, other than I know I had an incredible encounter with God, and came away glowing (according to one of my friends anyway) which lasted a week and which I know has changed my life.

I know that this was a mountaintop experience. Real life isn't like it at all, and is much more testing, difficult and stressful.

But more than ever before, even other New Wine events, I know that Jesus is with me. That He believes in me.

Even more than that though, I think I want to follow Him more than I did this time last week.

My prayer is that the non-believers reading this one day encounter the Lord in the way I did this week, and that the believers reading will encounter God once again in a new way. For myself, I pray that I can use what I've been given out to others as I go back to the daily grind of every day life, and be an example to people of the best way to live.

Jesus' way.