Shortly before I was baptized God gave me a gift, a vision, a dialogue, more than I could have even imagined could happen. He showed me who Jesus was in an intense, direct, complete, and special way. It all started with a question, a question I had because of how my mind works, and how I had a hard time believing in something fully without understanding how it was possible. I simply could not wrap my mind around the creator of the universe, a non human being, having a human son through a woman on earth. How does that work? How can a reasonable, logical, methodical, scientific, and extremely skeptical person, actually accept something like that in this physical world. The unspoken scientific way is that anything that is real can be explained, and it can be explained by what we already understand. I had no foundation of knowledge that could render the possibility of Jesus, as the Son of God.
I believed in God. I knew that as fact. He had been moving in my life strongly in ways I could not understand, and I observed the reality of it. Things were changing and happening in ways that could only be reasonably explained by a higher power responding to me, a simple arrogant man. God answered prayers quickly, powerfully, and in ways that it would be foolish to think were a coincidence. God is there, and I knew it, no question. All creation does not make sense without God. That was my foundation, and a strong one. I was reading the Bible, and I was seeing the same character revealed in the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, throughout all of the history recorded in the Old Testament. But this Jesus guy, the Son of God as a man — how does that work? I believed that it had to be so, but how? It didn’t make sense.
I started to pray, asking God, “who is this Jesus guy?”. He was clearly a big part of the picture. I read what the Bible says he is, but it does not make sense. I can’t have such a big gap in understanding. God surely could help me make sense of this nonsensical reality. I mean really, if Jesus is so important, why would God not help me understand it? So I prayed, and continued to pray. I knew God could do all kinds of things I did not expect or think possible. I didn’t let up.
One day I was talking to God, as I had grown accustomed to, while I was getting ready in the morning. The shower had become a sort of holy place for me, as I felt it was how I wanted to be before God, nothing to hide. I believe anything that needs to be worked out, any darkness in me, He is faithful to reveal it to me and while constantly forgiving, he will help me right any wrong. I know I have nothing to fear from God, simply by his character.
I did not believe the lie that the Jews did at Mt. Sinai (Exodus 19-20), where they feared death from God because they did not know Him. I asked God that same question, happy, but pleading, my spirit crying out with whatever words came to mind at the time, basically, “who is this guy, how does he fit in the picture, how does it make sense?”. As I got into the shower, He showed me who Jesus was. It was unlike any experience I have had before in my life, one I am sure my words can only poorly render. You could say it was a vision, a vision of the beginning of human history all the way through to the end of time, but strictly with regard to who Jesus is. Calling it a vision is really a horribly incomplete way of describing the situation. It was more like an open dialogue, not with words, but with raw expressions of a person, being instantly understood and responded to, in a full memory transfer, but clearer than a man’s memory of the most vivid part of his life. When I say memory transfer, it is much like you might have seen on a sci-fi movie, where a higher intelligence has just downloaded memories into a human’s mind. If you have watched the Star Gate series, then you get the idea. But it was fully interactive, I was communing with God. Every question and every concern was immediately responded to with an understanding given to me. In that dialogue, I knew what I was seeing could not possibly fit in my mind. There was too much to remember, and too much to see. Maybe before the fall [of Adam and Eve], a human’s mind could take that information in with stride and remember it, but not a human in our current state. So we agreed that it was good enough to walk away from this experience with a shadow of a memory, if I could just know that knowing who Jesus is could be understood. In those moments of dialogue, it was made clear to me that there is much more than I had ever understood in this world. In this existence, there is the spirit realm, which is as real as matter, and it works with its own set of laws, just like the physical world’s laws (gravity, relativity, etc.). God is spirit, and He extended Himself into the flesh of Jesus here on earth. God was not the flesh, but God bound himself to flesh to form Jesus, this is why Jesus really blurs the boundaries between Himself and God the Father. This is how it is true to say that Jesus is God, and yet Jesus, the combination of God’s spirit and flesh, still prays to God the Father. In that dialogue, in my memory I came up with a reference to a scene in a movie, just to see if that was a good enough idea, if I understood correctly, that the concept of God extended into flesh was sort of like in the movie “The Abyss”, where the deep sea creature extended itself in this watery tendril and interacted with people in a deep sea vessel. I knew it was rough, and an incomplete parallel, but at least an idea, and we settled that this concept in the movie was as close as I would find on earth to being like how God was extended into the flesh of a man named Jesus. Throughout the entire dialogue with God, I was shown the history line, event after event, a complete accounting of Jesus through history, from before He was rendered in the flesh, to after, all the way to the end of time when He comes back to call his people home, and to put an end to all things that cause sin. And then it was done. All I could express at the time was something like “Wow, wow, Jesus IS the way!” Even then, saying those words seemed odd for who I know I used to be, and where I came from. I used to scoff at such a commonly said, and seemingly meaningless cliche phrase.
Shortly thereafter, with that confirmation and direct communication from God, I was baptized. I did not tell anyone about this for a long time. Eventually, many months later, I came to a reckoning, where I would have to decide how I would take what had happened. I could either let the memory fade and eventually discount it, writing it off like it was nothing, a fluke, a brain glitch, or I could be logical and embrace the real tangible experience that I had, where I observed first hand, God communicating with me, and responding to me telling me who Jesus is. I chose to let the experience change me. Dealing with the fact that as a person gets older, memories fade, what was clear becomes muddied, and maybe eventually lost, I decided it was time to record this event that would forever change my life and the lives of those around me. I cannot let something this important slip away. It is a talent,
and I am looking to invest.