I didn’t know when I returned to Redding, California that I would be planting myself here for a while. I just got the sense that something was shifting. I summarized the experience that pushed me back to Redding in my previous article In Troubled Times. As I was driving north to Redding, I felt so much relief knowing I could spend more time with my friend Danielle and figure out what to do next. We were going to meet for the evening church celebration at Bethel and were so ready for getting recharged. It was a familiar place to me since I had visited with her before, and I figured I would just sit quietly while the 700+ others worshiped in their own particular way through swooning, raising their arms, singing loudly, dancing, kneeling, etc. There are no rules around how you receive or praise the holy spirit. It is an encounter to revel in with the talented singers, electric guitars and pianos, drums, violin and more. The praising time really feels like a concert! The diversity of people around age, race, countries, clothes, hairstyles and culture is off the charts. I saw torn jeans, face piercings, tattoos, T-shirts, shorts, jeans, Sunday best, different colored hair, suits, heels and sneakers.
Throughout the evening service, I continued to enjoy the music and feel so grateful to be in the beautiful atmosphere. I also was experiencing something unexpected happening within me. A surge of energy and heat was flowing throughout my body. I had felt something like this periodically in my years of yoga, but this was amplified so much more. There was a holiness filling the room and gracing me with its presence. I remember questioning what’s going on? Who is this? This isn’t what I thought Christianity was about. How can this be grander than all the ashrams, temples, sacred places, or even amazing cathedrals I’d been in around the world?
As I surrendered to the presence, I felt lifted to another level of awareness where numerous questions I had about the story of Jesus were being answered all at once. At some point we were encouraged to link arms with the person next to us and feel the presence of the holy spirit more within and around us. I was transported to a place of deep peace and oneness never experienced before. Then I fell into Danielle’s arms crying, “Oh my God. I understand now. The Holy spirit is so expansive, loving and full of the freedom! Thank you, God. Thank you. You are real!”
The electricity and heat continued to ebb and flow throughout my body. I was mystified and in awe. Then after the music slowed down and everyone found a seat, one of the lead pastors came to speak. My full attention was on him as he spoke with enthusiasm, conviction, humor and confidence. So much of what he was saying, I resonated with and could confirm: Yes, that’s true for me. Oh my. Yes, that too!
Some of what I recall him saying were:
“You can come to the Lord our Savior just as you are. He loves you. Are you weary of searching? You don’t’ have to earn his favor by struggling, fasting, doing rituals. God doesn’t need that. He wants your presence at his table. You can see his glory and receive his grace by simply saying yes to him. It’s yours if you accept that he did God’s work of sacrificing his life for us. He loves our worship, but he simply wants to be with you and grow in him. Then the pastor very fiercely said, did Buddha die for you? Did Mohammed? Yet we are supposed to revere them without the same sacrifice? Now if you can see this truth, which of you who hasn’t yet given your life to Jesus Christ, are ready to receive anointing from the holy spirit? ”
I didn’t really know what that meant, but I wanted more of this divine, grand presence. The room went silent and I again felt a surge of electricity and heat throughout my body. Someone near the back of the church raised their hand and the pastor said, “Praise be to God for your courage.” The room was quiet. The pastor again said, “Who else is ready?” I knew this energy was something sacred. It was moving me to respond. My arm shot up. The pastor and I locked eyes since I wasn’t far from the front. He said, “Bless you. Bless you.” There was some pause and then he continued. “I can see angels pulling arrows from your heart. The devil marked you there. The Lord is showing me that you were heartbroken by 2 members of your family. They hurt you deeply. But you will be healed through the grace of the holy spirit.” I meekly said, “Thank you.” At that time, I didn’t know who he was referring to because I thought I had healed so much of my past pain. But some days later I realized he had been referring to my father’s death and my mother’s trauma from it. I wrote about this in my article, Experiencing the Abandonment Code.
Someone else raised their hand to receive the anointing from the holy spirit, and then we were called to the bottom of the stage to talk with the pastor. Music started again and people were praising and forming a line of hands-on healing. The pastor was talking to us 3 while so many people were moving around us. At some point it was just him and I talking and praying because the other 2 were on the floor in a daze and getting support from the pastor’s assistants.
He mentioned that if I wanted to open myself more fully to the holy spirit, I needed to revoke the negative spirits still attached to me from my past. Then he asked, “Have these spirits been helping you?”
“I thought they were.” I said. “But now I’m not so sure anymore. What I feel now is real.”
“Yes, you’re right. This is real,” he responded. When you feel this greatness, everything else is just counterfeit. This is the powerful presence of the holy spirit. Receive the Lord and the anointing he’s giving to you now.” I agreed.
By this time, Danielle had joined us up front and continued to pray over me in tongues. Then there were many people to one side of us who were occasionally falling on the floor lost in this great presence. What the hell was going on? I remember thinking. What is the holy spirit doing to them? I just want more!
We must have been up near the front about an hour before I noticed people leaving and chairs being stacked. This experience in the church was coming to an end and I got information of classes I could visit for the week ahead to help me connect with others and learn more. I walked out into the dark night with Danielle and said, “I think I’ll be staying here for some time.
I somehow made it back to my Airbnb and just reveled in this energy throughout the night and into most of the next day. I felt as though I was in love and full of joy in the holy spirit. At some point, I felt a divine hand lift up my spirit and transport me through what seemed like an energetic portal and place me in what I might say was a new ground. Would I really now be walking in a new reality? I was given beautiful visions of my future and felt I would be guided with His loving hand. I also recall that this experience started to dissipate as my mind got involved trying to control and plan out what I thought my own effort could or couldn’t manage! I wish I could have continued relaxing into that experience even longer rather than having that worry and disbelief creep in.
As I subsequently reflected on how I got to this point in my life, I wanted to find some marker which had led me here. I know I have been searching for God most of my life, and I thought I had found the way before with yoga, but then felt the emptiness and disappointment of it. Then one that seemed fitting came when recalling a wonderful week I spent early on in my travels with a kind and loving couple in Eastern Montana. I had been staying at their Airbnb and had some heartfelt conversations about their Christian faith. Before I had left their house, they gifted me one of their Bibles. “This is the passion version of The Bible,” the woman told me. “It’s a devotional bible from a church we studied at years ago. We love the Introduction to it cause it’s written by one of our favorite pastors there, Bill Johnson.” It wasn’t until shortly before returning to Redding that I realized this Bible was connected to Bethel Church in Redding, California.
That was where they had studied and where this Senior Pastor Bill still gives insightful sermons at. This is a congregation unlike anything I’ve known. People seem quite normal while they deeply long for hosting the holy spirit through supernatural experiences and studying The Bible. And the experiences I had the night of my anointing, as well as times that have followed, have confirmed that the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ and God are real and to be embodied. They aren’t just fairy tales as I had long thought before. They are way more than even my own empowerment and sovereignty had been.
I am new to this. But so far, I’ve seen that Christianity is not just about being blindly obedient, shaming and evangelizing for others to come to the Lord or go to Hell. For me, it’s a personal connection with an awesome and mysterious power that protects, guides, comforts, heals, loves and flows through me. I embrace this and allow it to settle in me. The healing work I’ve done has no doubt had grace in it, but now I feel it will become so much more. I also know that I come to this path with an exploration of alternative perspectives on our reality. Mud floods, resets, star forts, orphan trains, the shape of our realm, how we are guided and manipulated within a divinely orchestrated matrix is something I will continue to explore even though I don’t meet people who know what I’m talking about or even think it’s important! And I will finally spend time reading the Bible. A first for me! It holds wisdom that applies to our current day because it teaches us about great stories of healing, hope, freedom and faith. All which have been renewed in me.
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