A Pair of Spiritual Experiences: Part 2

The day after my first big spiritual experience, my younger brother Scott was getting baptised at Carey Baptist Church’s evening service (in the same auditorium where I heard God say ‘time to leave’). I decided to go along (I wasn’t planning to initially), and because I was feeling so proud of him, I went up straight after he was baptised to give him a hug. As I was going back to take my seat (or maybe it was when I was hugging Scott), I started crying, so I decided to go outside and sat on a nearby bench - the sort where students would normally leave their school bags. Soon, my Mum and my sister Rhianna came out to sit with me, but after a little while I said something like ‘I think this is for me’ and sent them back inside.

After that, a lot happened – I felt a lot of things. Some of it is still clear, but a lot of it is a blur now. While I was on the bench, I can remember feeling really happy for Scott, but really sad for some other people I was close with as they were losing their faith. At some point I moved over to the end of the demountables by a drink fountain, and I can remember saying to God “why me?”, and “I don’t want to be a pastor!” Eventually I was lying on the floor again, and someone walked past and saw me and asked if I was okay, and asked what had happened, so I told her.

I don’t remember a great deal after that, but I do remember that across these two experiences I felt that God had shown me a number of things, which I later wrote down in a little brown book. These are from both nights:

• You cannot know the truth apart from what God reveals to you.
• I am broken and dependent. Knowledge of this is good and freeing.
• The Bible and the Word of God are different things.
  • (For this one I wrote my own clarification - The Bible contains the words of God but the Word of God is not the Bible.)
• Jesus lived always in the Spirit.
• Jesus waited before he began his ministry.