March 6, 2009 – 3:00 am (ish)
Lord, please help me. I don't want it to go away. It can go away so easily. I saw it so clearly tonight, Lord, and I've seen it before. It was so great to see things clearly in the past, but it goes away so easily. There's nothing I can do to get it back or keep my own spiritual eyes open. You've got to do it, Lord. But I want it so bad, Lord, everything else is vain. It's all in vain – the world, the laughter, the lives of men who don't care about you. The church, Lord, the vast majority of it is vain. Lord, I wept for them so hard. I wept and wept and wept and didn't want to stop weeping. Your people don't care about you, they don't know you. The world just darkens everything. Satan darkens their eyes so they cannot see your glory, cannot see who you are. They cannot see the glory of your Truth. How I want to see it again! Lord, I'm writing because I want something to remember it by. I know that only you can show it to me, but I want to savor this moment, it will be gone so quickly! Please Lord, don't let my eyes be darkened. Keep them open, Lord, let me see your beautiful light! You're so precious to me, Lord. How could I ever forget! I don't know why I ever did, Lord, it just happened. Maybe it was all my fault, maybe it was part of your plan, or both, but it's such a tragedy. Don't let it ever happen again, Lord, unless it brings you glory somehow. But I want to see you so bad! I want to see the Truth! I was created to see your glory, Lord! To see your amazing glory! Indescribable glory! Lord, I'll do whatever it takes to not let this fade away. But, I know I have to trust in you. I can't keep it by my own power. I could try as hard as I can, but I would grow weary. It would eventually fade, after many days, months, and years. Lord, it was so pure back then. I had such pure experiences with you, a very pure relationship. I saw you so clearly. I communed with you face-to-face like Moses. It was absolutely wonderful! I never want to come back from the clouds, when it happens. Please, Lord, let it happen again. I need to be rejuvenated by your glory! Then I can last for another 6 months! Lord, I don't know anything that I can do solely by my own effort to keep it. I've got to trust in you.
I want to make beautiful music to you, Lord. It doesn't have to rhyme. Rhyming is in vain. It just distracts from the spiritual aspects of the language. Let me make beautiful music to you, Lord. Let me give the world a glimpse of your infinite beauty so that they might be distracted from the meaningless actions for one moment. I can see why people had no clue what I was talking about when I preached to them, Lord. The only reason I have any clue what it is, is because I've seen it before. But it still takes spiritual eyes from you to see it, Lord. Otherwise I wouldn't have forgotten.
Lord, I can really see how you are inexhaustible. There is so much to you, so many different amazing qualities, Lord. If I can only touch your cloak, Lord. Just let me touch you one time. I'll climb the sycamore tree if I can catch a glimpse of your glory. I have tears in my eyes while I write, Lord. It's so good to see you! I can't find words to adequately praise you for this experience, but you know how my heart feels, Lord. My heart will praise you for it. Lord, I'm just a dead dog without you. A mere baby kicking in its blood. Without your grace, I would have fallen away by now and returned to the dust. The only reason I can see you redeeming a dead dog like me is that it might bring you glory. Please, Lord, glorify yourself with my life. I don't want to live it for anything else. No distractions. No meaningless events and behaviors. All it takes is one experience with your glory, and one glimpse of the Truth. With your sovereignty, I can fulfill my destiny.
Lord, this is such a great pleasure to write to you and see your glory tonight. Just tell me what I have to do, Lord, to experience it again. I want to remain in your glory forever! Wow, it's so different to have an experience like this than regular life. Even regular Christian life which has many great moments, this is of another world. And even this experience, at least after I woke up, does not compare to those past experiences I had with you. People must have thought I was nuts. I don't know what this looks like to people who don't have eyes to see, but it must be foolishness or they would immediately turn from their worthless lives and come to your infinite glory and lay down their lives for you!
Lord, your Holy Spirit is amazing! He does a great deal of the spiritual work. He carries out your sovereign plan and does the "grunt work," as it were. It has become a cliche that He is the person of the Trinity that is neglected, but it is very true. He does so much, Lord, and it is hard to see sometimes. He helps me with my prayers, he convicts me of sin, he guards me from falling into temptation. He has led me to never say a single cuss word for over 5 years now. He pierces my heart when I see evil, especially sexual sin. How I thank you for that, Holy Spirit! I would have totally fallen back into my depravity long ago if it weren't for your hard work on my behalf! You do so many good things!
Lord, I'll keep writing as long as you keep inspiring me. Maybe something good will come from this. Even if nobody can see your glory through this, at least you and I will get pleasure from it. People may just think I'm nuts, but I sense that your children will be able to see your glory through it!
Maybe I'll talk about my dream. I dreamed that I met other Christians who I think I thought or at least hoped were genuine, but I found out they were not. I found out that they lived sinfully on the side, and they seemed to see that as acceptable. I don't remember a lot about the dream, even though it happened an hour and a half ago. But it just seemed like, in the dream, nobody cared about God anymore, including the church. I could relate to this, because I have seen this before, the great tragedy of it, and I wept and wept and wept for God's church. I never wanted to stop weeping, because God's people have disgraced His holy Name! What an utter tragedy. I don't know if I spelled 'utter' right, but who cares. Lord, I left the building that I was in and walked down the street in the rain with no shoes on. I just wanted to walk in meager circumstances to reflect the essence of the situation. As I wept, I saw things so clearly. I remembered what it was like to be so close to God, to see His Truth so clearly. To have His Truth proven to you 100 times over so that you wanted to throw aside every weight and every meaningless thing and serve Him with your whole life in the most dedicated fashion. Because you saw it so clearly, you wanted to go tell everyone, and you thought you could explain it to them and they would have to see God. They would have to. Nobody would speak like you if they hadn't just come down from the mountain of God. Your face would emanate holy light from God, they would have to at least notice something different. But maybe they would still be utterly dead in their transgressions and have no eyes to see God's glory. It takes a profound miracle from God for our eyes to be opened.
After I awoke from the dream, it began to fade immediately. I could still see it, but not like I could in the dream. But I badly wanted to keep seeing it forever, for at least as long as I could. I frantically thought what could I do to keep it, should I try as hard as I can, should I just trust in God. I knew that only God could continue to allow me to see it, but I didn't want to accept it fading away. I wanted to do whatever it took to keep my spiritual eyes, and to keep my deep concern for the state of the church. And I saw how precious God is to me. At least, how precious He is innately, but I felt that He was precious to me, and I kept telling Him so.
Even now, I don't know what I must do to keep this feeling, this closeness to the Spirit of God. I know that I need to trust in God, but there has to be some effort applied on my part. But, even that will be the result of God's working in me, so I can't claim any credit to it. God is glorified in Man's dependence. He is glorified when He gets all the credit for our salvation, our faithfulness to the end, and our good works. Why should man try to steal God's glory? Why should man try to snatch a piece of God's pie? Give God all the glory! He can have my glory – I never did anything to get it in the first place. It's pride that gets in the way of everything. Pride is such a disease that causes so many problems. It distorts people's view of God, causing them to be self-focused. They can only see God in terms of what He is supposed to do for them or simply just what can He do for them. The world revolves around me is how they think, although they don't have eyes to see this condition. They may not even have the faintest clue as to their pride and self-consummation.
I don't know how long I will write, but it could be a dangerous thing to stop now. I may never get it back. It should be a careful decision to leave this moment or to go back to sleep. I would have to totally trust God that it would be okay. It is a good thing for me to write a lot now, because some good ideas may come out of this or some good truths about God and life. Even if just one great truth comes out of this, it will be worth it. It's not very often that I can think this clearly about God and the world, so I should take advantage of it. I've spent enough time sleeping in the past; I sleep roughly 7.5 hours a night, so it's not important that I waste a few more hours doing that now. I need to take advantage of this experience.
I want to know more of God's love. Paul said he wanted people to have the power to grasp how wide/deep/high the love of God is. It would be a good thing to be able to do that, a very good thing. There is a supernatural love that comes from God. It cannot be found anywhere else, only in those who God is living inside of. This is one form of evidence of God in the world, something that cannot be found anywhere else. The "inexpressible and glorious joy" is another piece of evidence. I've said this before, that both of these are much more convincing to the world than fine-sounding arguments and persuasive talk. You can't persuade somebody to see God's glory, it has to be shown to them. You can't persuade them to fall in love with God, they have to see Him in order to fall in love with Him. They could see His glory through the way you talk about Him, but you can't convince the mind to greatly love someone who they do not know. Having the right beliefs will not save you. These are evidence of someone who has come to know God, but without true, genuine love for God, these mean nothing. But this is all that some churches can get a hold of. They stress having the correct beliefs about God, to very fine detail. You can't manufacture genuine love for God, or genuine joy in God. It is supernatural. It is God's mark on his created beings that they belong to Him. This is why we need to strive to keep our joy and love for God at very high levels, so God will be glorified in us, and so people can see Him in us.
It was amazing to have an experience that helped me remember what the early times with God were like. I had so many amazing experiences with God as a new Christian, and I really regret not recording more of them at the time. I had such great experiences, some very close experiences. The thing is that God could help me have even greater experiences than these in the future. Moreover, God's people will probably have vastly superior experiences with Him in heaven one day. Wow, if I've had inexpressibly glorious experiences with God here, what will it be like to be with Him in heaven?
The effects from my dream have almost entirely faded now, and I can no longer write like I did at first. Although I can still write good things about God, it will not be nearly the same as before when I saw such great truth. I don't want to corrupt this document with uninspired material, so I think it will be best, for the sake of God's glory, to stop writing. God deserves my best sacrifices, the best of my flocks and herds. I won't throw diseased animals on His alter. So, although it has been a great pleasure writing these things, I must trust in God that He will inspire me when the times are right, and I will commit to spending my days seeking Him, drawing near to Him, and striving to know Him more. And I will pray that He will use me as a tool for His glory and that He will not let anyone pluck me from His hand.
