When the Spirit Speaks at Night

The other night, I was awakened, and I earnestly believe I had an encounter with God, an intimate moment with Him where He helped me to understand a few things of His word and His work in my life. During my encounter, there was a point where I felt compelled to write, and the words poured out. It is hard to explain the experience, and it may sound a bit crazy. The following is what I wrote during that time, however, with only a few minor edits later in order to make verb tense and pronouns make more sense for the reader. I kept the original, unedited version for myself. When I finished writing in the night, I didn't feel or sense that God had given me any HUGE revelation. I knew He had awakened me and that I had met with Him, but nothing felt monumental. When I read what I wrote in the day light though, it spoke volumes... especially since I literally just typed as my fingers felt instructed. I was not thinking ahead and forming thoughts on my own. Once again, I can't really describe everything I mean, and perhaps that is okay. Here is what I wrote:

So as surely as I could not sleep I got up and wrote as the spirit directed me to write. I don’t even know what all I was going to say but I just got up and started typing slightly afraid but also really excited like a kid on Christmas morning because all of the sudden I was in the moment and it was happening. Wow. God is moving my fingers. This is incredible. When I was a kid I thought that a ouijia board was the most incredible thing and wondered how it worked…. And now THIS. Something different ENTIRELY. So what was it that God wanted to say… what did he want his child to write about Him? I mean, haven’t there been countless other books written- so many more authors out there? I can’t imagine there is anything left to say about God that hasn’t been written before. Why would I be up typing? This made absolutely no sense. In the moment, I was terrified, I was afraid- is this doubt? Will it stop? I didn’t even know if I should type the words because I was afraid it was going to make everything stop and surely I didn’t want this to stop, not now, not after I had asked God to help me see Him and to know Him- the way Job knew Him and saw Him. Surely, I didn’t want this to stop after He had taken and taken and taken away so much in my life only to, in return, give and give and give me Himself in this newest way that I had never experienced before! I certainly didn’t want any of this to stop-

It’s how Evan said earlier in the night, that he was encouraged or strengthened, pleasantly surprised or something, about how I am doing after losing a second baby. Which is true- a second baby…. A SECOND BABY! I JUST LOST A BABY- And now this… I didn't know what God was doing. Don't know what God is doing, but know God IS DOING. It’s like he’s moving my fingers, and out come the words. There is nothing else in my mind to think about. There is no wandering- it is crystal clear. I have never experienced a mind that was more clear than at this moment. If I didn’t know better, I would wonder if I had been drugged. For surely the only comparable experience I have to compare what I am feeling and sensing right now is when I was in labor and they gave me the good stuff to help me through the night. For about 20 minutes, before I passed out, I was in the best mood I’d ever been in my entire life, and I felt like I was having revelations! Of course, it was the drugs. They told me I’d enjoy it.  But that is not the case tonight…. I have been helped along to this place by nothing but the Spirit of God. I don’t know how long it will last or what the purpose is, but I will write…

I do not have to think about what to say… I just write . Just listen. Just listen. Just be the vessel. That is all. I Write. It all feels so mechanical almost. I don't have to think about how to move or what to type because my fingers know where to go before they start to move. He shows them where to move. This must similar to how God would tell the prophets that He would show them where to go or tell them what to say or put the words in their mouth. This is insane. I trust You God. That is what I keep saying over and over and over again. I trust You God. I don’t know what is going on but I trust you God. I never thought I was a charismatic, but I trust you God.  Good. You are not safe but You are good. That is what I hear. So one must be willing to lose a limb or two, to suffer, to endure some of the craziest things. It’s like in a movie you see, where the hero is some strange creature from some other world that we’ve never contemplated, and in order to rescue everyone, this creature with his super human strength has to put himself in situations that the normal person would say is completely ridiculous- “why would you ever do that? That doesn’t make any sense,” we ask, as we watch. But the creature does it. It seems like the most common-sense thing to him, and he does it, and he makes a way where there is no way. Thus a new way is forged, and it’s like, “okay, we’ll just do it this way now... I suppose.” And so said creature may have to sacrifice an arm or a leg along the way, a dream, a desire, but in the grand scheme of things, even though it’s inconvenient and at times VERY, VERY, VERY painful, it is worth it. To save, or to do, or to go where one has not been before…. And that is what it is like. To follow God you won’t know what you may bump into. You can get caught up on the scariest things you could ever confront. They can distract you to where you can barely get past, like you’re walking and can barely keep your balance.. but in the end…where you end up…where you are at finally, in the place never before you would have come, you are secure. It is a place you could not have imagined or even believed were someone to have shown it to you. So you go… one step at a time. Not knowing where the next will lead, but knowing that is what you have to do, and want to do, and need to do, and will do. 

And then you wait, and the words come out the tip of your fingers and onto the page and say what they need to say, what He has to say about Himself, that someone else hasn’t said yet because they haven’t thought of it, but He has since He knows Himself. He knows what needs to be said, what hasn’t been said, where there is space. That He isn’t misunderstood like a kid whose actions we accidentally mistake, but that He is maligned by a world and a culture, even a religious culture, a CHRISTIAN culture, that will falsely paint Him. In our quest to know Him, we have to be so fed on Scripture, but we have to be honest about Scripture. We have to know how to weigh human error and divine sovereignty and miracles with also history, the time and the place of the text, who was the author, who was the audience, who was the editor, why was it written? Know the stories- know the cultures- understand the MEANING and not just the fads of interpretation of the current age alone. Christ is more than this generation of Western-American good old boys that testify to experience but are white-washed tombs and racists. Christians are more than white Americans. 

Will we decide to follow Jesus with no turning back? Will we wait in the moment for Him to bring us to where we are supposed to be, even in the confusion? Or will we need the answers? Will we sit through the awkward times and the times when we don’t know what to do for Him to bring about anything of use? Will we wait it out? Will we let Christ be enough for us even when we can’t understand our circumstances. So maybe we quit our job. It was scary to quit working for the church. Jesse and I certainly needed the money, and if I was going to be doing the things for the church anyway, shouldn’t I get paid to do them? That would make the most sense logically! But no! Where is the faith? Trust in God! "Said I not unto thee that if thou would just believe thou would see the glory of God?"

So maybe you make the hard decision; the right decision; the BIBLICAL decision, and you lose a friend or approval... but you know you are following God... and you leave the wrongs to right themselves... that is what Jesus did. He was not captive to man. He was captive to God. Be captive to God alone Megin.

May 2017, Doyle said God was going to speak to me at night. I would have dreams or something… wow. I suppose he was right. I knew he saw something. Whenever I spoke with him. Whenever he looked at me, it was as if he saw straight through me. All my struggles- all my sins. I carried so much shame, and I felt “This guy must see straight through me.” Today more than ever, I’m sure he did. But then why didn’t he judge me? Or out me for every sin I was committing at the time? Grace- He knew God’s grace. He knew all he was but for the grace of God and trusted God would work it all out. That’s what I think at least. God knows, none of us are what we are supposed to be. For a girl who liked to be in control, this is pretty ironic. I’m having to trust my everything- my every desire, reputation, future goal, all in Him- and I don’t like risks. But He is good, and if He has given Jesus for me, what wouldn’t He do. I feel I will be cared for to a degree which I could not have imagined. He will watch over the particulars in a way that would have no other explanation. And He will get the glory. But the hard part is I want to look to the future- I want to go to far ahead- to see what is coming, to know. I get excited and want to be there, and we’re not there yet. To stay in the moment, in the mundane, off the mountain top and living out in the very moments… not caught up in just being in it for the majestic… but being in it because we are committed to Him- to knowing Him. Because at this point, that’s all I want. I just want You Jesus. There really is no other goal. To know You and become more intimately related with You. I just want You. Actually, is it self serving? Do I want You just because I want to be satisfied? Well Yes, maybe, but I know that all other wells run dry. I don’t even need to feed on them. There is no other pursuit to look for. So I will wait, I must wait for you… during dryness and pain, and when nothing has happened. But You are there. Just because the vision tarries, don’t think it isn’t coming. 

There will be loss. There will be more loss, but there will always be loss in order for life to exist as well. Because that’s where we find our life… at the place at which we lose it… in the midst of the loss. New life. New beautiful life. Life that wouldn’t live if it were not for loss. Death is of this world, but not of the next world. Death says something stops- turns off. But loss does not have to be death. Loss can be change and transformation, exchange into new birth… these experiences are a weight that cannot be forgotten. They are eternal because everything that happens after them is shaped and formed by them. Abel has created her mother of today. The hands that write these words are hands that held her physical body and endured her loss and became something because of her. She is in them. All of this is ongoing. It continues. Amen.