Adoration of the Mystic Lamb,Ghent Altarpiece
It was the middle of the night and I needed to relieve myself. My groggy plan was simply to do my business and get my head back on the pillow. As I stood and started to the bathroom I was surprised by a voice as clear as any conversation you have ever had. It spoke, “You will see Jesus face to face.” I had trouble getting back to sleep afterwards. That was thirty years ago.
I have often harkened back to that surprising voice in the night. In many ways that word has been profoundly answered. It has not happened with a vivid and tangible face to face encounter but with astonishing Holy Spirit experiences, answers to prayer, prophetic encounters, dreams and visions. There have been a few appearances of Jesus in my dreams but I still have a great longing to see Him lucidly and in tangible reality.
I know there is a pan-ultimate day when all of us will have the opportunity to see Jesus face to face. It makes me shudder and thrill with anticipation. Honestly, I feel a push-me-pull-you in encountering Jesus. I have so much desire to see him fully, yet I have had experiences with his glory which have overwhelmed me to incapacitation and trembling.
Just last night, in a dream, I was in a church building where I was praying longingly, brokenly to experience his presence and see His face. He began to make himself known in such power and holiness, I was pressed and physically overwhelmed! Pam heard me sighing and groaning and shook me awake. I have a little idea as to why God told Moses, “You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”
Apparently, the Jews are not troubled by our western thinking and see no contradiction between the exhortations to seek His face and the thought, you can’t survive if you see Him.
Jesus was seen walking about in His flesh suit and people typically managed seeing Him trouble-free.
But when Peter, James and John saw him transfigured on the mountain it was overwhelming.
When John saw Jesus in His glory in Revelation it was not the Jesus of former, familiar times but the glorified Jesus. John was down as a dead man.
One of my prayers is that my constitution and character be upgraded in wiring, and much grace be added, so I may have the capacity and ability to stand and see more of His wonderful Face! I think my attitude may be like many hurricane/tornado chasers. I chase after the experience, but “sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.”
‘Ooh’ said Susan. ‘I’d thought he was a man.
Is he quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion…’
‘Safe?’ said Mr Beaver … ’Who said anything about safe?
‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.
He’s the King, I tell you.’
(The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe)
Steven C Johnson
LandingStripEnteprises.com
