"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." I Cor 13:12
Very early as a devout altar boy I saw myself becoming Catholic priest able to read the Bible with understanding and able to help others move closer to God as well. That vision was the men as trees walking described by a man whose eyes Jesus touched one time. Jesus certainly touched my heart even then, but like the man it was only a first touch. What I thought I had seen was in the right direction, but the details were very much "through a glass, darkly".
I was 32 years old and married with two young children when it really began... Consider that man when Jesus touched his eyes again:
"After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly." Mark 8:25
How I got into that place is another testimony, but there I was waiting for I did not know when the evangelist, having shared God's Word invited people to come forward. I had never seen such a thing before, but I stood, looking around for my wife but she was not in sight. The evangelist said to me, "Come on sir!"
I walked forward and reached out for God in a way I had never done before. I tried to repent that night, but something was in the way: Me!
My wife had gone forward before I did, which is where she was. When I saw her she was praying with tears running down her face. She had been blessed by God. They said she had received the baptism of the Holy Ghost. I was envious, jealous, of what she had received. I did not understand that God has more than enough to go around. We joined a Bible study which included several other new "converts" and for the first time in my life I began to read the Bible.
That church group was in the midst of what they called a revival. Services with preaching and singing continued every night daily [7 days a week] and we were always there. Our children would fall asleep on the floor at our feet when it was their bedtime. I would wait quietly until the evangelist would again extend the invitation to come forward for prayer. In beginning many men among them would gather round and pray with me. As the weeks went by with me never missing the call to come forward the number of men praying with me decreased until after about six weeks when I went forward to pray I was all alone except for the evangelist. I prayed anyway, talking to God asking Him to give me what my wife had received. Shortly the evangelist also left leaving me alone with God. Seeing that everyone had apparently given up on me, my wife walked up beside me and taking my hands in hers began to pray with me.
Then with her standing faithfully with me it happened. I felt a warmth seep through my entire being beginning at the top of my head and seeming to flow all the way down to my feet. As this happened the words I was speaking to God changed into another language unknown to me. I had studied languages some and knew both Spanish and German, but this was neither those nor was it any other language I remembering hearing before....
The end of those 6 weeks was really for me the second touch of Jesus. I could see then, I guess still through a glass darkly with the opening of my new "eyes to see". I did not recognize my Mother and my Father yet, but they were there and I was on my way toward that "then face to face" vision about which Apostle Paul had written. It is also embodied in the words of that old hymn, Amazing Grace": I was blind, but now I see" .
I thought I had been seeing when I was a boy expecting to become a priest, but I did not realize at that time how little I could see. I had not then realized that that... was only the "men as trees walking". God had an infinitely better promise... the ability to see the beautiful face through the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. Praise His name! I did not have a clue as to what these things I experienced really meant at the time, but there was no doubting on my part as to their source. From then I began to grow as a child does with the help of loving parents [not the Oklahoma born parents of my carnal flesh] and proper nourishment. Within me is my part in the Kingdom of God growing and for so long as I allow it...
"And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:
Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you." Luke 17:20-21
His face do I seek! So what do I see now? What is a born again or from above person able to see. Without that vision is death... but Jesus did not bring death. He brought Life and more abundant Life at that.
