Encounters with God

[AlexDTX]

One thing I miss in many congregations is testimony time. There is great encouragement in hearing others speak of how they have experienced God.

Sadly, there is a natural tendency in us to create boundaries of what we regard as appropriate testimonies. Such testimonies tend to spend much time on the problem and only a little time on the work of God.

I would love to hear stories of how God has profoundly touched you. To get it started, I will share a recent profound experience I had with God.

Mission to Dominica Republic

I went on a week long mission trip to the Dominican Republic to share Christ in an E3 Partners campaign. There were about 30 of us from various parts of the USA that had gone on the campaign.

There was one woman who told me she would share her testimony of how she came to Christ, but due to the mission could not get around to it until the end of the week. So I reminded her that she said she would tell me her story.

Her story was one of deliverance from drug addiction. As she was speaking, the Lord spoke to me, "Have her pray for Donna." Donna is my sister who is calling herself a Christian, but has never had the new birth. Her Christianity is Al Anon 12 step program which requires everyone to put faith in a higher power, but does not specify who is that higher power. She chose Christ, I suspect because I had been a Christian 20 years before her Al Anon program. The Lord repeated to me 3x in an urgent sense to ask Melissa, the woman sharing her testimony, to pray for Donna. However, I did not want to be impolite and interrupt her. So I waited until she finished her story

When I told her what the Lord wanted her to do, she replied, "Of course I will. Al Anon Jesus is not the real Jesus." The moment she laid her hands on me to pray, I began sobbing uncontrollably. I was utterly embarrassed to cry in front of the other missionaries.

The next morning before our last campaign, I sat on the balcony of our room and prayed as I always did for my family's salvation. Again I began to sob uncontrollably. My room mates prayed over me. It was our final day in which we had a wrap up testimony time.

A pastor from Houston got up to share and struggled with his own tears as he shared his testimony. He had gone on these trips with E3 for 12 years in a row. Each year he would invite members of his congregation to join him, yet none would. He did not understand why none would come, but this year he had 5 people from his church go with him. The Lord had told him each year, simply be faithful.

When he said that I realized what the Lord was letting me know about my own family. When I came to Christ 35 years ago, I was the only one who was a Christian so I promised the Lord that I would pray for my lost family members' salvation daily. A promise have kept with about 98% consistency. Many of my prayers were routine rote prayers for them, but I did my best to keep my promise. Through the pastor's testimony I realized that God was letting me know that a harvest was coming for my family.

In hindsight I also realized that the uncontrollable weeping that I experienced was the Lord breaking the hardness of my heart towards my family. I have no real love for them, but only had prayed for them out of duty. My parents divorced when I was 10 and my mother had to raise 6 children on her own. We were quite poor and left unsupervised. All of us wanted to get away out on our own as soon as possible. I moved out when I was 16, my sister married when she was 15. The love of God can not flow through hardened hearts. God has to break our hearts sometimes so his love for others can flow.

Testimonies are personal experiences. I would love to hear what other people have experienced with God in those profound moments. Please, I don't want anyone judging these stories from their academic, theological reasoning. If you don't have a testimony to share, then don't comment at all.

 

[AlexDTX]

For both of you. Thank you for the like. Do you have a story to tell?

 

[TruthSeek3r]

Hi. I don't have a personal story to tell "just yet", but I know many testimonies of personal encounters from other people, some of them very powerful, which I think would be appropriate for this thread. I'm collecting them in this link. Most of them are youtube videos though.

 

[AlexDTX]

Hi. I don't have a personal story to tell "just yet", but I know many testimonies of personal encounters from other people, some of them very powerful, which I think would be appropriate for this thread. I'm collecting them in this link. Most of them are youtube videos though.

Thank you. I began this thread for the benefit of the people on CF. Most of the discussions are academic debates with zero sense that any of them have had profound experiences with God. But I believe there are some on this forum that have had them, so I hope they will contribute to encourage the others.

The story I shared in the OP was because I was on the mission field. Most of the profound experiences I have had with the Lord was because I was truly serving him in evangelism. Too few share the Gospels with others, so they don't have such encounters.

 

[JosephZ]

My encounter with God started with a toothache.

In August of 1983 at the age of fifteen I asked Jesus into my heart following an evangelistic crusade which visited my hometown in North Carolina and for years afterward I attended various churches of different denominations which continued to assure me that I was "saved" at that crusade back in August of 1983.

However; despite being a "Christian", I lived a selfish and reckless life (I will spare all the ugly details). This started in high school, continued during my time in the military and for the many years that followed. All this time I believed that if something were to happen to me that I would be "OK". After all I was going to church and I had invited Jesus into my heart long before.

While I had done some good for others from time to time during my life, for the most part it was about me. That is until a trip I took half way around the world to the island of Mindanao located in the southern Philippines in 2011.

My primary reason for visiting Mindanao was a simple toothache. I had been talking online with a friend I had met on a Christian site for over a year and had always wanted to visit her, but the expense of the trip was too much for my budget. An off and on toothache finally got to the point to where it was becoming unbearable and it forced me to go to the dentist. During that visit to the dentist I learned that I was going to need to get not one, but two root canals and crowns. One of course for the tooth that was bothering me and also one for a tooth on the opposite side. The cost to do this was going to run about $4,000.

Ironically the friend I had been talking with online was renting a room from a dentist so naturally I asked about this procedure and was told that it could be done there in the Philippines for around $500. Once I heard this I decided to check prices for airfare and lodging and found that I could get the dental work done there for far less even with the travel expenses included and it would also allow me to meet my friend in one shot with change to spare. After all, why should I help pay for my dentist to have a vacation in a far away tropical paradise when I could use my hard earned money to do so myself?

It was during this visit that I meet members of a people group called the Badjao. The Badjao are a water based tribe and traditionally they live on the bounties of the sea. They are an animistic tribe for the most part, however; they do have some Islamic influence since they originate from the Muslim regions of Southeast Asia. Due to conflict, piracy, and lack of opportunity, many Badjao have left their ancestral waters and traveled to larger cities far removed from these hardships in search of a better life. Unfortunately most find that the urban areas have little to offer them and many are forced to begging in the streets as a means to survive.

My friend attended a church in the city proper of Davao and each Sunday there would be a group of mostly young Badjao, teenagers and children, standing in front of the church building begging for coins. To be honest I didn't like the Badjao at first, not many people do. They are known for having have poor hygiene, lack proper manors, and could be very aggravating especially when they are in dire need of money. But even then, each Sunday I would make sure I had enough five peso coins to give out to each of these Badjao beggars. I would hand them a coin, they would always say thank you, and then move along to the next prospect.

My trip would last for four weeks and it was on the final weekend of attending church that something out of the ordinary occurred. I gave the begging Badjaos each a coin as I always had, but this time rather than walk away, three young girls began to follow my friend and I as we walked from the church towards the city center to get something to eat. Two of the girls were in their teens, and the youngest was probably around seven years old.

The three girls continued to follow us with their bare feet despite the pavement being scorching hot from the afternoon sun. I guess they had been doing so for so long that they had become immune to the pain.

We tried our best to ignore them as we walked, but when the youngest of the three girls tugged at my shirt, I had no choice but to acknowledge them.

“Get your dirty hands off me!” I said quite loudly. I had become very upset at this point.

“Go away! I gave you money already!"

What happened next caught me completely off guard. The oldest of the three girls asked the other two to give her the coins I had given them earlier. She then attempted to return the three five peso coins to me. As she handed them to me, one of the coins slipped through my fingers and dropped into a puddle of water. I reached down to retrieve the coin and in doing so my hands got pretty dirty. The girl then reached out for the hem of her rainbow colored malong, a traditional “tube skirt” she had pulled up to her waist. A malong can also be used as a blanket, hammock, baby carrier, practically anything within the stretch of one’s creativity and necessity.

The girl then used the cleanest part of the cloth to meticulously wipe the dirt and grime off my hands and once finished, she just looked at me and smiled. The three Badjao girls then turned and walked away.

At that very moment it was like there was nothing or anyone else around. I couldn’t even hear the sound of traffic passing by. I didn't even notice that my friend had slipped away moments earlier and continued up the street without me. It was as if someone had slammed me to the pavement and I could see my old self lying lifeless on the ground. It was a very powerful and life changing moment.

It was also at that very instant that I realized that I had been wrong for so many years. Not just wrong for living the way I had up until that point, but wrong for believing I was justified in God's sight, wrong for believing that I was a Christian! I immediately knew without a doubt that had I died prior to that encounter with the three young Badjao girls, I would have spent an eternity separated from God.

Needless to say, I left my old self lying there in the street that day. I would return to the room I was staying in and with tears rolling down my face, thank God for preserving my life until that moment and thanking Him for using those three Badjao girls to show me the truth.

It's truly amazing how God works sometimes. It took three children from a pagan tribe halfway around the world to show me what a lifetime of going to church, countless pastors, Sunday school classes, and even my own Christian parents could not. And while my salvation comes only through Jesus Christ and the sacrifice He made for us, God used the Badjao to reveal this to me.

“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” Galatians 2:20

 

[AlexDTX]

My encounter with God started with a toothache.

What a beautiful story! Thank you for sharing. I fully agree that more power of God is ministered to us in many ordinary things of life than found in church services.

Your story reminded me of another encounter with God that I had on that same mission trip I took to the Dominican Republic.

Our campaign was for only 4 days. The first 2 days we worked with a church in a middle class neighborhood, and the second 2 days were in the slums of Santiago. In those slums we came to a young woman's house to share the Gospel. As it turned out she already knew the Lord. We were about to leave when her Aunt came in, and the niece told us that she needed the Gospel. So we shared with the Aunt and she asked Christ into her heart. We were about to leave when I felt the prompting that I needed to give the niece who knew Christ already some money. In my pocket I had 1500 pesos. I decided to giver her the 500 peso bill so I could have more spending money. When I handed her the 500 pesos she burst into tears. She told us that she had been praying for financial aid and that this was an answer to her prayers. She took us to the back of her building and showed us her deep fried bread baking business. She wanted to give us some bread, but my translator refused explaining that as a foreigner I was not accustomed to the bacteria of the area and could become ill. We left and continued our campaign.

The next day, I felt that I had cheated the woman and that God really wanted me to give all the money I had in my pocket. I told my translator that I wanted to go back to her house. When we arrived her husband was in the front room with a hydraulic piston on the table. I told the woman that I felt I had disobeyed the Lord and had come back in repentance. I pulled out the 1,000 peso bill I had in my pocket and handed it to her. Both she and her husband burst into tears. She explained that she used the 500 peso as down payment for the piston which was needed for the deep fry basin they cooked the bread in for their business, but they still owed another 1,000 pesos for the piston. This was the exact amount needed to pay it off so they could keep their business open.

I was stunned. At that moment I realized that I was fulfilling the words of Jesus.

Mat 25:44 Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
Mat 25:45 Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.​

Here in the slums of Santiago were my brother and sister in Christ living in abject poverty with a need. I did not just give those 2 money, I gave the money directly to the Lord himself. I was overwhelmed with the sense of joy and delight that I was used by God in the aid of my family in Christ in away that was profound. Sure I had given money to other Christians in the USA but their needs were nothing like these. For those 2 the gift was a much greater need.

 

[TruthSeek3r]

I'm sharing two powerful testimonies of encounters with God. I hope they are a blessing to someone else:

New Age to Christianity // My Supernatural Experience with God

Steve Hill - true encounter with God

 

[TruthSeek3r]

Sharing another powerful testimony. I would also recommend checking out this man's channel, he has many more videos with very edifying content:

Spirit World Awareness - Life in the Holy Spirit & Stories of the Supernatural Ep1 .Choby Siau