Dear People Who Keep Company With God,
On Dec. 25, 1997 at about 5:00 AM, I was in the in-between state; I was not fully awake or fully asleep. I saw myself preaching a message and I said, “The Holy Spirit is no gentleman like some have told us because He will wake you up in the night.” The scene changed and I was standing in my bedroom and I heard the Holy Spirit say, “I have a Christmas present for you and it is in your Bible on the nightstand.” I eagerly opened my Bible to a page that looked like a Christmas card; it was green with gold writing that said “The Story of Martha and Mary”. I then heard the Spirit say, “There are three points to this story I am giving you.” The three points were also written in gold on the green page. The points are:
1. All true ministry has a goal
2.
3.
I do not remember point 2 or 3 because I woke up and told the Lord,“I do not want to get up and write them down now because I may awake the kids and they will want to open their Christmas presents.”I was assured in myself that I could remember all three points since I carefully read the story so I went back to sleep. A couple of hours later I woke up and I remembered the vision. I grabbed my Bible and note pad and began to write down the three points and it was then that I realized my error. I began to earnestly seek the Lord with a repentant heart and I asked Him to tell me the other two points. To this day, God has never told me the other two points. It was and continues to be a lesson well learned. God offered me a gift of understanding from His word, but because of the inopportune time and situation I only received one-third of that gift.
“I was asleep but my heart was awake. A voice! My beloved was knocking: ‘open to me, my sister, my darling, my dove, and my perfect one! For my head is drenched with dew, my locks with the damp of the night.’ 3 “I have taken off my dress, How can I put it on again? I have washed my feet, how can I dirty them again? 4 “My beloved extended his hand through the opening, and my feelings were aroused for him. 5 “I arose to open to my beloved; and my hands dripped with myrrh, and my fingers with liquid myrrh, on the handles of the bolt. 6 “I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had turned away and had gone! My heart went out to him as he spoke. I searched for him but I did not find him; I called him but he did not answer me. Song of Solomon 5:2-6
I believe this describes what happened to me that night. I was asleep, but my heart was awake. I think that is what the in-between state is. The Lord did come to give me a gift, but even more importantly to teach me a life long lesson. For a long time I grieved over what I missed, but I have learned something about the Lord. He had something greater in mind for me than what was written in gold on the green page in my Bible. He has a lifetime of encounters, dreams, visitations, revelations, and visions for me. However, the most important thing He desires is a close relationship with me, which is His greatest gift. He wanted me to learn the lesson that the Shulammite learned, so I would never miss those special inopportune moments when the He shows up.
Many Blessings, BW