Math 7:24-27

Sometime in 2004, I was introduced to Benny Hinn’s Good Morning Holy Spirit by a friend who doubled as a roommate. Not baptized with the Holy Spirit with evidence of tongues, I would join my friend to pray at a stretch after reading maybe a chapter or two of the book. If you have laid hands on that book before, you’d discover it has a lot to say about hearing and interacting with the Holy Spirit as a person. That experience was the height of our desires – my desire!

Suddenly, from work one day, I heard Him, and knew sure He was the One who spoke. And what He said turned out to be true. I wasn’t going to pass it for a rare coincidence. I had prayed for days for this experience, here it was. It was worth my ‘celebration’! Immediately, called my friend on phone and couldn’t wait to announce “the Holy Ghost spoke to me today”! It was worth anything to me, and today I feel He knew that. Before the end of the next day, I heard Him again; and again, …and again! ‘Ough my… I am made for life’, I thought to myself, with little understanding of what I had just stepped into: a place where I could now receive instructions, I mean specific personal instructions! My excitement captured only one side of the coin, leaving the other.

Experiences and encounters were already filing and I was going through them. Shortly after some months, I realized I was experiencing growth. And part of the growth experiences I didn’t like so much was receiving instructions that were not convenient. That’s the part of the coin my earlier excitement was blind to, though I found refreshing comfort and joy at the experience of Holy Ghost baptism shortly afterwards. The voice was no longer as special. Sometimes I would like to pretend I didn’t hear anything at all. But who’s fooling who?

Gradually, the frame of ‘self’ began dissolving, sometimes with tears, other times with sighs, yet some other times with smiles and joy; but through it all, one thing was certain: I was developing. Church meetings began making better sense to me; prayer began to get interesting such that I looked forward to it; certain things lost grip of my attention, and in fact a lot began to give way. And I must tell you He didn’t spare me any necessary sweat! I mean Holy sweat!! Then I found that I could read and study scriptures with interest and clearer insight than before. And for a while, something strange happened: most times a scripture I would be led to study during the week would turn out to be the sermon scripture on the following Sunday, leaving me with deeper impressions of truth. I never told anyone these experiences back then. But it all started from a ‘blind’ curiosity fueled by naivety in an innocent heart possessed with real hunger.

And today, when I look back, I discover that those who sincerely seek Him with true hunger will surely find Him. Might definitely not be like my experience, but surely they will find Him. I have seen it in countless friends and people I know nothing about other than an expressed hunger for God.

Following all that, even as a youngster in the hands of the Spirit of God, I saw some fragments of miracles at occasions. Initially, I mistook them for coincidences, then when the Great Gospel Campaign in the city was held, Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke said “… isn’t it wonderful that all the coincidences happen ONLY when we pray to God in the name of His precious Son Jesus?” That settled the matter for me. I knew God needed me to hear that statement.

Afterwards, my friend and I began to plan how we’d start looking for mad people to pray for. Well, we never did go. It ended with mere good intentions.
Now this is what is leading me to write on the topic WHEN YOU NEED MORE THAN JUST INSTRUCTIONS, which is a follow-up post on this blog.

But before I have you read that, I need you to understand, that a relationship with the Spirit of God is not some esoteric juggernauts. Simplicity is crucial to growing intimacy with God. By ‘simplicity’, I mean true simplicity and not artificial or simulation simplicity. People, I mean real people like you, are experiencing God today, daily, and are growing daily. Not out of adventurous curiosity, but out of true hunger for God. Lives can be saved or lost because a spiritual signal was either ignored or mis-perceived.

Well, as a recommendation, you may need to look out for any of these books (preferably both):

1. How You Can Be Led By the Spirit of God – Kenneth Hagin
2. Good Morning Holy Spirit – Benny Hinn