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TAPPING INTO THE SPIRIT

By: Charles Muller, Fri Dec 9th, 2005 04:35:04 PM

b>Come near to God, and He will come near to you. (James 4:8)

About 4 a.m. on the 28th of November, 1984, I had a strange and wonderful experience. In essence, I told God I loved him - and to my amazement, he answered me and told me he loved me.

That was it, in a nutshell; but the experience was so shattering I don't think I'll ever be the same. I've told people it was like an extraterrestrial experience, because I had never experienced anything like it before.

'The Lord is a FACT,' I had said to my wife Carol some weeks before the experience. 'His presence is a fact. He is real and unquestionably there. That's all that matters.'

'Yes.' Carol looked at me with amusement. 'But one should feel God's existence, too.'

'No,' I insisted. 'Feeling doesn't matter. It's enough that he exists!'

It was important, of course, that each day I was getting one step closer to God. I was spending more time in prayer because I knew he was listening - even if I didn't feel anything.

Soon after that I was alone in London for a visit to the British Library before returning to my home in South Africa. It was the 27th of November and a British Council friend kindly put me up in his London home. He gave me a comfortable bed in a tiny room at the top of his house. I was hardly prepared for the incredible surprise in store for me.

It was about four the next morning when I woke up with some asthma. I turned over and lay on my back when I became aware of a woman seated beside my bed. I ought to have jumped out of my skin, especially since she radiated a soft light! But the strange thing was I wasn't in the least bit frightened. On the contrary, there was an immense sense of peace and warmth and contentment. And, I knew her - or, I should say, it was as though my spirit recognised her. Yet I couldn't put a name to her. It didn't matter. It was enough that she was there. She was elderly, and I felt afterwards she was like an old German teacher I was very fond of as a child. But afterwards (and this is very strange, for I don't understand it) I felt she was like Corrie ten Boom: that name came to me very clearly, afterwards, yet at the time I had never read any of her books. In any case, the sense of warmth and comfort made me want to pray. I lay back and said, simply: 'God, I love you.'

That was when it happened. All at once there was a flood of light from above: a sudden downpour, like an energy beam of pure power and pure love. It came straight down, like a pillar from heaven: but it was a stream of heavenly power, like electricity that surged through me, like a waterfall pouring, rushing through me. I knew it was God. It was overwhelming. I felt like a small child on the breast of its father, held ever so tightly. I was crying and sobbing helplessly, overcome with joy. Somehow it was my spirit that was crying, not my physical body. I was held in a firm grip: movement was impossible. I had closed my eyes, and now I dared to open them for a moment: the room was flooded with light! A vague human form stood by the bed. I felt fear, yet total acceptance by God: it was too much for me to stand for long. I wish I'd had the courage to surrender totally to the accepting love of God. And I felt so unworthy, so ashamed, in spite of the total acceptance by God. Perhaps that's why I cried: 'Oh, please, please let my life be worth something to you!' And yet no demand was being made on me. At that instant, very powerfully, I felt the sentences in my mind, wordlessly, like a telepathic force: 'It's all right. You don't have to justify yourself or do anything to make me love you or want you.' Then suddenly it was all over.

But as I thought, 'It's over,' and while I still felt elated from the experience, I was aware of a desk standing in the room. It was a visual impression, of course, but the physical reality of the desk was uncanny and lucid. It was a modern desk, tall and narrow, like a pulpit. It felt inviting. I knew then that my calling was to write - to proclaim God's word and message of love through the written word. As if to confirm this, the thought pressed into my mind: 'Feed my lambs.' And then, finally, there was a feeling, like a chuckle, as though God were saying, 'Did you say feeling didn't matter?' That was years ago, but I still ask, 'Did it really happen?' Of course, I know it did. I've been blessed with more than biblical proof that God lives and that he loves me too! For some time after the experience I had an overwhelming sense of love for everyone that I never had before. Since then I've read Corrie ten Boom's Tramp for the Lord. She describes a similar experience of the Lord's presence - when she was healed in hospital. In a sense, I was healed, too. God goes to the sinners and failures, and I was failing badly. (Extract from Have Anything You Really Really Want by Charles Muller. Further information at Diadem Books )

About the author: Charles Humphrey Muller, MA (Wales), PhD (London), DLitt (OFS), DEd (SA), was Professor and Head of the Department of English at the University of the North in South Africa for ten years. In 1988 he left his academic career to move to Scotland where he runs his editing and publishing business, Diadem Books

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