A Love Encounter

It was a typically cool, comfortable Fall Friday evening in East Texas. My son Brian and I threw our overnight bags and bedding into the jeep and took off to meet a friend (about Brian’s age) who was catching a ride with us to a church men’s retreat. It was to be the first one our church had done in quite a few years. I was looking forward to getting away for a couple of days with some other men and do manly things like sitting around a fire telling stories and fishing.

We picked up our buddy and headed east to the camp which was about an hour and a half away. We began to talk about what anticipated the weekend being like, which was of course fishing, sitting around the fire, or just relaxing and doing whatever the heck we wanted to do. We wanted very little structure and no “agenda.” Having been to quite a few of these type events in my life, I knew better than to expect that.

We had whipped ourselves into a frenzy of excitement with visions in our minds of driving into the camp to find a fire already going and join right in. We were running late due to waiting on our friend who had just gotten off work. I decided to give my friend John a call. John was the one in charge of the retreat and he and most of the guys were already there. As soon as he answered, I asked, “There IS going to be a fire, right?” “Uh, no, we hadn’t really planned on it,” he said. “What? No fire? You can’t have a men’s retreat without a fire!” I could tell he was taken back by my response. Then he proceeded to tell me that they were going to have a session of praise and worship and then a little teaching.  I’m usually content to join right in and go with the flow, and some of the most powerful and deep workings of the Holy Spirit had happened to me at men’s gatherings, but this night I had succumbed to murmuring and complaining. What was worse, these two young men who looked to me as an example were brought into it with me. The remainder of the trip was nothing but a big gripe session.

We finally arrived at the camp, parked, and walked inside the room where the meeting had already begun. There were some guys with guitars and some percussion leading worship. And there we stood in the back with our hands in our pockets. This wasn’t the kind of retreat I had in mind and I wasn’t going to enter in. Or was I?

After standing there a couple of minutes, I felt the urge to go lay down on the floor behind some chairs. This is not anything out of the ordinary for me, but this time was different. This time I didn’t really want to, but seemed to be compelled by a force greater than me or my rotten attitude.

I walked over to the back of the room and laid face down on the floor. I felt nothing, but somehow knew that was where I needed to be. After a few minutes, I felt as if I was the only one in the room. Then suddenly I felt what seemed like an electrical current go through me in wave after wave. My entire body was shaking. I don’t know if anyone else saw me, and didn’t really care. It felt like warm liquid waves of love going through me. This went on for at least half an hour.

God spoke some things to me that night, but I won’t share them right now.

What I learned more than anything that night was this – Jesus wants an encounter with me more than I ever could.

That night made no sense to me at all. How could someone who had spent the entire trip to the camp complaining, whining, and acting like anything but a man of God, walk in with a scowl on his face and then have such a powerful encounter with the love of God?

I don’t know.

But I do know this – He loves me because He is Love. He wants me more than I could ever want Him.

He wants you.

He doesn’t love you because of anything other than He loves you because He loves you because He loves you because He loves you!

This kind of love is beyond my understanding.

Oh, by the way, we built a fire later that night and went fishing the next day.

Letting Him love me,

Kevin