Vanity - Have you had a personal experience with God?

Google search "Leap of faith" ^

[gondramB]

I was raised Baptist - a mixed marriage- Southern Baptist and Primtive Baptist. I never belelived in God until was 18.

My personal experience came just as I was studying science -and beginning to wonder about the patterns in the world and the universe and how they could have been there by chance.

I went to a revival I did not want to attend. I had a mohawk. I went to the church in a black Leather Jacket with Highly Toxic and a skull and corss bones painted on the back in flourescent orange on the back. The people at the irst baptist church of Atlanta acted like it was wonderful to find someone who dressed differently - they made sure I was comfortable and then left me just enough alone.

I heard the voice of God. It was was like thunder in my head but it didn't give me proof to carry to others. I was told that I was loved. That I should learn more about God and that I should treat others well. I guess this doens't sound much like a revolution but it was all I coud handle.

Since then I have never doubted in belief but I struggle for direction and have a hard time with what many others tell me God wants.

Is there anyone else who would share their eperience with God that I might learn from? All I can offer is that I will share too.

I don't remember anything the preacher said except he talked about Kierkegaard - what I got was that Kierkegaard said we can get only so close to God by logic and then there is a leap of faith required. I remember feeling as if I was on an edge where I been a hundred times before. It was a nice safe ledge. But I stepped off and stll felt totally safe. It was over in an instant. My tiny little revelation from God.

I met a Christian teacher on the way home - I would have avoided him normally. He asked me how I was and I said wonderful but confused I thought that he thought I was stoned. But he never mentioned it or acted like he was there whenever I saw him. I wonder if it was really him.

[gondramB]

Would anybody else like to share?

[Tuscaloosa Goldfinch]

I'll freepmail you.

[MotleyGirl70]

That I should learn more about God and that I should treat others well.

I treat people well, but others have a hard time doing the same in return.

I don't rely on God to grant me a "tomorrow". Prayers and hope do nothing for me anymore.

[thehumanlynx]

My guess is that there are millions of stories like this one. The only thing I can say is that God continually shows himself in my life. I struggle just like the next person but God never fails to accept me.

[Libertina]

Oh darn, we ALL want to hear the story! :)

[Old_Mil]

...what's a primitive baptist?

...and no, I've never had a supernatural experience of any sort.

[Blind Eye Jones]

Man has a longing that directs him toward completion, however incomplete or un whole he feels. Buddhists think longing traps you to this world and that it's best removed. Christians perhaps see it as evidence of original sin -- man's distance from God -- that man is unlike the animals who don't aspire, who are content with themselves on the planet. I personally had a revelation that physically we are always removed -- that we are finite, fallible, never really complete or at one with our creator. But a part of us wants to be and will try to make the assent toward love. Plato's Symposium has a beautiful analogy of the ladder of love and with Christianity the accent can be immediate through grace. My revelation ended with the belief that love conquers death and the physical world... I realized that my mother loved me and extrapolated that to God.

[MotleyGirl70]

BTW, your story great :) All the best to you and Happy Thanksgiving.

[Auntie Mame]

My story is this. I was sitting on the couch in the living room with a purring cat on my lap. My boyfriend at the time was sitting next to me. He was a Morman. He asked me if I would like for him to pray to the holy spirit. I said, "Yes."

He started praying. My first inclination that something was happening was the cat stopped purring. A glorious light filled my eyes. My face broke into the widest smile I've ever felt, before or since, and I felt a complete love, joy, happiness, fill me. I think I was looking into the face of the Christ.

This is the best I can write this experience. There was much, much more to it.

As an aside, the boyfriend turned out to be a complete nutter, I'm talking looney bin-type crazy. But the experience was real so ............. who knows?

Was this the kind of experience you were asking about?

[Cedar]

My story is a long one, but I'll try to give the short version.

After graduating from college (all the while drinking, some drugs), I moved to Los Angeles. While there met some people in new age and occult teachings and generally I sank lower and lower.

Finally reached a point and called out to God one day (hadn't prayed in years)...a cry for help, a real plea.

God heard my prayer. Over the next few months, I ended up going through some experiences that made me realize this-- the only thing that REALLY matters in life is do you know the Lord? Are you ready to meet Him?

I realized I wasn't. I picked up a Bible that was at my parent's house and began reading.

I was reading one day in the New Testament when all of the sudden the scripture verse practically "jumped" off the page. The truth of that verse became alive...in that moment of time I was made to realize that the Bible is the true word of God, and that Jesus truly is the Saviour of the world.

I became aware of the wrong things in my life and realized they were actually wrong...sinful. But at the same time it was given to me to see that was why Jesus had come and given His life...He died for my sins, so that I could be forgiven. That was the price paid for the sins of the world..His life was given so that we could have mercy and everlasting life.

I prayed then and there asking for God's mercy and forgiveness for every wrong thing I had ever done in my life. And I asked Jesus to come live in my heart by His Spirit, I opened my heart to Him.

And as I prayed, after a while a peace came over my heart and mind--the most wonderful peace I've ever experienced. I knew I was forgiven of my sins. I knew God had heard my prayer. I knew I finally had peace with God.

I slept like a baby that night, and ever since then, now years later, the Lord has had me continuing to study the Bible and pray.

And the amazing thing too was after that night I no longer had any desire to do drugs, no desire to drink (I liked to party, liked to keep drinking and drinking). I even lost the desire to smoke cigarettes.

And, of course, there was no longer any need to search for "truth" -- It (or rather He) had found me. So, I began studying God's word, the Bible.

If you really want to get closer to God, do start reading the New Testament...and also praying, asking the Lord for your own personal experience--but mostly just to be closer to Him.



Hope this helps. And this actually is the short version!

[Hetty_Fauxvert]

Thank you very much for sharing your story.

I had sort of a "second hand" experience with God, but it was sufficient for me. When I was in college, my grandfather (who had been ill with Alzheimer's for several years) passed away, and appeared to me that night in a dream to tell me goodbye. I did not have any word beforehand that he had died, and the news did not reach my family until about 10 am the next day. I asked around later, and none of the rest of my family had any similar experience -- I was the only one. I was not particularly close to my grandfather, but I have always felt this was the most loving thing he had ever done for me. Since that night, I have never doubted in the existence of an afterlife, and therefore, I have also never doubted the existence of God. It has made a big difference in my life.

[185JHP]

I was raised in a Baptist Church. I didn't become a Christian until I was 41. The Holy Spirit can touch you in a place you didn't know you had a place. A supernatural experience convinces you of a body of supernatural truth. You can't do what Romans 10:9 says without the touch and help of the Holy Spirit of the Living God.

[RangerM]

Life has been good to me, but I admit there have been things I wish could have changed.

I wish my heart hadn't been broken so badly by a long-term girlfriend.

I wish I had taken a different career path, since I know I am more capable than I am able to be in my work.

I wish I hadn't got married to my first wife (ex-wife).

I wish I'd studied harder in school, since I know I was capable of much better.

BUT.........

Everytime I interact with my 4-year-old daughter, I realize that there is nothing about my life I would change, if it would mean I wouldn't have her. I now know that my life is the way it is because of her.


While I admit, this doesn't go hand-in-hand with your original question, it is important (for me) to know that I am thoroughly convinced of the presence and importance if God in my life.

My personal viewpoint is that God is the stage master. He directs the circumstances by which the world works. Rarely, if ever, does he get involved directly, but his influence is ever present, even if it is subtle.

[Maceman]

I wrote the following back in 2003:

Well, since you asked . . . I was brought up in the reform Jewish tradition, Bar Mitzvah’d in 1963 and confirmed in 1964. During high school, I began dabbling in Hinduism (studying the Bagavhad Gita, reading SIddhartha and learning to play the sitar). After discovering Ayn Rand in my early twenties, I subsequently became a confirmed atheist, and remained so for almost two decades.

During the 1980s, my layman’s interest in physics, particularly my efforts to understand the theories of Albert Einstein, led me to contemplate the implications of the unified field theory -- a single mathematical equation that describes every process in the universe. Einstein spent the last years of his life trying unsuccessfully to discover that formula, and although modern physics has yet to establish this Holy Grail of everything, I believe that it will one day be found. Stephen Hawkings has said that the discovery of this formula would be equivalent to “reading the mind of God.”

I also found an interesting book on “Financial Success though Creative Thought,” which began by stating a position of “Monism” -- the realization that everything that exists is all one thing. The author, whose name was not given (the book was written around 1905 or so), referred to the universe as being a manifestation of “the Universal Thought Substance.”

Through such readings, and through my study of acoustics in connection with my earlier pursuit of a music degree, I eventually came to realize that the entire universe, which at the subatomic level is not solid, is nothing more than one incredible concept. We experience it physically because our brain interprets its sensory input that way, as a way of making order our of the stimulus. But just as there are only vibrations of air molecules, which we perceive as music, the actual music has no reality. Neither does what comes to us through the other senses – touch, taste, smell and so forth.

To me this fact implies a single, universal mind at the core of creation. Once I had that insight, I felt I could no longer scientifically justify my atheism – especially since at about the same time, while I was training for my black belt in Korean Zen Sword, I began to notice that when modern physicists try to put their mathematical formulas into English, they end up sounding a lot like Zen Buddhists.

Of course, try as I might, I really couldn’t grasp the implications of all this intellectually since it really can’t be done. But in the early ‘90s, reeling a catastrophic business failure and a simultaneous great personal disaster, the only way I could find comfort was by spending hours alone in the chapel at Boston’s famous Mt. Auburn Cemetery, where day after day I would walk among the tombstones or sit in the chapel sobbing and praying out loud for relief from my great pain. I experienced the healing that I felt there as finding my connection to God on a heart level.

To this day, when I feel the need for spiritual renewal, I head to the nearest cemetery by myself and pray to God for strength, wisdom, courage and guidance.

So when asked today what my religion is, I tell people that I am a “Cemeterian.”

[Ditter]

I have experienced two very profound visits from God and I am happy to share.

In 1984 my 18 year old son was killed. As I sat in church during his funeral I felt a scream coming on because of the horror of the situation. I asked God to see me through this with some sort of dignity. I no sooner asked this when I felt as if I was being wrapped in a down comforter. All sound and feeling was muffled and this feeling continued for several days.

Then when my son had been gone for about 6 months I went to the cemetery and sat on his grave and asked God why it had to happen to him.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw some mylar balloons on a grave, when I got up I walked over to that grave. It was the grave of a child, from there I picked out a grave about 30 feet away and walked to it, it also was the grave of a child. I continued to do this zig zagging all over the cemetery and every grave I stopped at, was also the grave of a child or teenager (what is the chance of that?). This was NOT a children's cemetery, it was filled with people of all ages. God was telling me that I was not alone in this tragedy and that I had to get through it. With his help I did.

[buck61]

You are having a supernatural experience every day, you just aren't convinced of it.

Look at nature, the universe, the wonderful gift of child bearing. I realize the evolutionist will try describing to you about the "big bang" theory, don't fall for it.

I'm 63, and I excepted Christ as my savior at the age of 15.
About four years ago I came to the knowledge that there is nothing I can do to get into heaven on my own. It is a gift of God, through FAITH and GRACE. You would need to do a lot of understanding of the Gospels to comprehend this theory.
I am at peace with my self, I no longer worry about Hell, it has no claim on me because what Christ did for all who except him as their personal savior.
When I say personal, it is a personal thing. I talk to God in much the same manner I'm talking to you.
I often ask God for many things that I never receive and, I think God He doesn't give them. I have ask for things if he had given would have caused much pain down the road later in life.
I put all my trust in him and, I live one day at a time, by the way, there is much scripture regarding how to attain this belief.
I don't know your age but, I can tell you only about my beliefs. I know the older I get the more I am understanding things pertaining to my relationship with God.

I wish and pray the best for you, stay tough, be kind to others, give yourself to others needs and, love the brethren.

[Old_Mil]

I think you misunderstood my post - I am a Christian, and believe that creation is God's doing. However, though I believe that God can act supernaturally (outside of the laws of time, physics, etc) to perform miracles, I've never seen one.

[Smokin' Joe]

A few years ago I was in the hospital with double pneumonia. I was not doing very well, and there was murmuring in the hallway about putting me on a respirator.

I was fading in and out of conciousness when I saw a man dressed in robes standing in clouds who looked an awful lot like Jesus as portrayed in most images.

I realized I had been praying, and continued, saying "If this is your will, I can only comply. If not, there is much I have left to do here."

He said to me, " Go Back. It is not yet your time."

From there I started coughing up gobs of crud which even amazed the RTs, and within a day I was released.

Someday I will see him again, and it will be my time.

Until then, there is much to do...

[Continental Soldier]

I have never heard the voice of God, even in my head or in my dreams. But I have prayed to God in difficult times, prayed quietly and privately in ways that I deemed right for me. Since I have survived those difficult times, I am not one to discount prayer. I am not a religious man, but I like to think that I am a spiritual man.

[gotribe]

Best to just listen.