My Visitations from God – Part 2 – The Glory Cloud

This is part two of my new series called ‘My visitations from God’. I have had three major experiences that greatly impacted my life and this series consists of these three experiences though I have had multiple experiences in the presence of God. Each of these experiences reveal something about God or teach us a lesson that is worth learning and they have strongly impacted my life, therefore I felt in my heart that this is the right time to share them publicly. 

First experience, which is my face to face encounter with Jesus can be found here. 

The Glory Cloud

This experience happened the same year when I saw Jesus face to face. I had a great hunger for God and whenever anyone preached I usually listened with my heart on the edge of the seat so to speak, ready to grasp any truth that might help me get closer to Jesus and know Him better. 

One Sunday, Michael preached a sermon about seeking the face of God verses the hand of God. He went on to elaborate on the story of Moses, how he was different from the children of Israel. The Jews were always looking at what God can give them while Moses sought to know God and His ways. He asked God to show him His glory. 

“Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.” Exodus 33:18

As I was sitting on the edge of my seat listening to the sermon, my heart jumped. That’s it! This is what I want! I want to be like Moses, I want to be of a different spirit like he was! I want to see Your glory! 

From then on, for a period of two months, I was obsessed with this one request: ” I want to see Your glory!” I have prayed it every time I was conscious of this desire and since I was obsessed with it, that was very often. It was more than just a request, my whole being was requesting it, it was like a groan, like an intense desire that would pour out of my mouth from the depths of my being. I kept on and on at asking it, somehow having the feeling inside me that if I keep doing it, it will happen because God is not a respecter of persons. 

Two months later, Michael went to another pastor’s conference. He began to jokingly regret these conferences as God seemed to show up when he was away and he did not get to be part of the experiences I was having. 

I was awakened from a deep sleep that night by a force I did not control. In a split of a second I was wide awake. I usually take time to fully become awake when I wake up from sleep, but this time it was an instant change from deep sleep to fully and completely awake. 

I sat in bed and looked around my room. I saw a massive, illuminated white cloud floating in the middle of my room from one side of the room to the other. My room was rectangular, I was in bed at one end of the rectangle and the cloud was filling the middle of the rectangle. The image I have selected at the beginning of this post is similar to what I saw, except that the cloud filled almost all the space in the middle of the room. The cloud was more condensed and more illuminated in some parts and less illuminated and condensed towards the edges.

My mind was extremely clear so I started to analyze the cloud and see whether the light in the cloud came from street lights. I lived on a main street in a block of flat at the eighth floor. Though the street lights were powerful, because I was at the eighth floor, they could not penetrate through my window. I could see vague lights outside my window, then darkness for half of my room, then an illuminated cloud in the center of my room. 

It is then that it dawned on me. This was God! Fear gripped me and I just shouted ‘Jesus’ and pulled myself against the wall in shock. Immediately after the shock I felt quite at home and extremely peaceful. I was then immediately, in a split of a second put back into a deep sleep by the same force that woke me up. 

The cloud looked very much like a normal cloud, thicker in some areas which also emanated a white light, and more dispersed towards the edges. It was floating like an oval laying down, filling 95% of the space in the middle of the room, from the roof to the side walls and the floor, though suspended and not touching any of the sides. 

The same night I was again woken up by this same force suddenly out of a deep sleep and completely awake in a split of a second. This time the cloud was only filling one corner of the opposite side of my room, the other side of the rectangle. It was less in volume, less thick, less illuminated and more dispersed. This time I did not feel any fear, I only felt at home with God and deeply peaceful.

A sudden grief grabbed my heart and I blurted out with deep longing and regret: “You are leaving! …” and then I was put into a deep sleep by the same force in a split of a second. I knew that the reason the cloud was less in volume was because God was leaving the room and I felt a deep regret and longing as I never wanted him to leave. 

When I woke up the next morning, I realized what happened. God answered the deep cry and longing of my heart and showed me His glory. He had to do it in a way that I could not do anything silly in His presence and probably die so He completely controlled me for my own safety. Being in the presence of a Holy God is no joke and that is the reason when Jesus appeared to me face to face and when God showed me His glory I initially felt fear. It’s the initial shock reaction which is almost instantly replaced by peace and a feeling of being at home with God, totally relaxed and secure in His presence. 

I have learned from this experience that He puts desires in our hearts and He then brings them to pass. Though the initial desire is placed there by God, we have a free will to respond to it. My heart was hungry so I grabbed it with everything I had and held unto it. I chose to meditate on the story of Moses and the glory of God often and it became my obsession for two months. I chose to pour out my desire constantly before the Lord. I made the desire my own through constant prayer in this direction. And my diligence was rewarded. 

I think God wants to visit us from time to time with unusual experiences. The problem is that sometimes we miss these potential visitations simply because of lack of preparation of heart. The Bible says:

“The preparations of the heart belong to man” Proverbs 16:1)

I have learned from this experience that if the Word of God finds a hungry, teachable heart in which it can spark a desire for something divine, it can bring something supernatural to pass. Together with the sparked desire I have also received the gift of faith that if I ask and keep on asking, God will do the same for me as He did for Moses. And He did, I am sure to a lesser degree. 

On the other hand, if I was distracted in my heart and only lukewarm at that time, the message might have passed my ears never able to touch and capture my heart. How many messages have we heard in church that never changed us, though we exclaimed how wonderful they were. And how often have we been moved by a message, only to be quickly distracted away from it by other issues of this life. 

I think the principle of an undivided, focused heart is missing in such situations. We want God, but we want many other things too, we are not singled eyed towards our Beloved. Our attention is divided and our heart is pulled by the desire for other things apart from the Lord. The desire for other things chokes the Word. 

The principle of intentional setting of your heart on God is what helped me over the years. I intentionally choose to be hungry and attentive to God with what I call all my four ears (meaning doubled attention). I position my entire being intentionally in a position of attentive, focused listening and intentionally hunger for the things of God. I did this to the exclusion of all other things from the sight of my heart. 

When Jesus was nearing the time of His death on the cross, the Bible says that:

“I have set My face like flint” (Isaiah 50:7) – which means to resolutely set out, to steadfastly set your face towards something, flint refers to a firm piece of rock which is immovable.

I have found this attitude helped me enormously in my pursuit of God to encounter Him. Imagine your heart, out of your body, with legs and arms, very eager and resolute eyes and sitting as a runner on the start line of a race, ready to sprint at the shot of the gun. This is the kind of attitude of heart I am talking about. We can prepare our heart and set our heart to be this way towards God. 

I also compare it also with focusing on one point to the total exclusion of anything else around it till all you see is the one point. It is a focus of the heart to the total exclusion of other distractions and pulls on the heart. It’s the same as being 100% in, sold to a cause. 

I encourage you to intentionally and consistently set your heart in this attitude. It is just a matter of the will.  Then  you need to be diligent to keep it there. It is great effort at first, because our flesh is so used to distract us in this or that direction. It will be hard at first and you will find yourself failing again and again. Don’t let those failure upset you, simply just set your heart again to be hungry, teachable and totally focused on God. And do it again and again till it becomes a habit.

Doesn’t matter how long it takes and how many times you have to do it. In the end, your flesh will weaken and your heart will learn to sit more still and flow with God. Your heart will start to keep its spiritual antennas up all the time and picking up what God is saying or wants to do. At first it will pick up a bit, then more and more. 

At times you might lose some of this sensitivity. Don’t beat yourself over it, quickly repent and instead of feeling regret quickly reset your heart. It’s like clicking the refresh button in your browser, it’s a choice of the will. If you focus on the regret of loosing it for a while, it will sap you of your strength and make you sink in disappointment with yourself. This is very counter productive as it only makes you want to give up or not try so hard. You loose the faith that you can do the will of God. This is from Satan because God commands us to be perfect and therefore wants us to believe that we can be with His help. 

Perfect does not mean entirely without sin, it means having a perfect state of heart towards God, which wants to do His will no matter what, even though it might falter and fall often. This is the perfection God is looking for, a perfect attitude of heart towards Him. This attitude will eventually translate in the fruit of holiness, but it cannot arrive there if we give up on our attitude along the way. That’s why I see it as imperative that we don’t get stuck in the mud of condemnation and regret, but we quickly focus on setting our heart back on the right track. That is the repentance God is seeking more than a million ‘sorry’s. 

I know that I what I shared above might have raised questions in your mind. If this is so, feel free to raise the issues in the comments and I will do my best to reply. 

In conclusion, what was this experience all about? I would say it in one phrase:

“When opportunity meets preparation God can do what He longs to do”. 

And what are the attitudes needed to prepare your heart towards God and stay prepared? It comprises of the following ingredients:

• hunger
• teachable
• total focus
• resolute commitment of the will to stay in this attitude

I am fully aware that my preparation and hunger were initial gifts from God, it’s not something I worked up initially. Just as the Scripture says:

“For it is God who works in you both to WILL and to DO.” (Philippians 2:13) 

He puts the desires in our heart to begin with and He makes the power available to us for doing. But He will not sustain the desire in us and He will not force His power on us. We have to sustain the desire through discipline and focus and we need to avail ourselves of His power by seeking the Lord. It is as the Bible says: ‘we are co-workers with God” (1 Corinthians 3:9) and the “preparations of the heart belong to man” (Prov 16:1)

I think the Lord is working right now on you to stir up the desire to set your heart like a flint for God. It is up to you what you do with this desire. It’s like a talent given to you by God that He expects you to invest and gain more talents with it. And the more you are given the more will be required from you when God comes back. We know from the parable of the talents that the one who found excuses for not using it was called an evil servant by God.

And why wouldn’t you want to use a desire that is bringing you closer to God and into the realm of possible supernatural encounters. Ask God to increase the desire and increase your hunger as well. In my experience I have found Him VERY eager to answer such a prayer, if spoken persistently from the depths of your being. 

My next experience that I will share in this series is just a reflection of the power of increased hunger and God’s eagerness to respond to such a request. Please watch this space here for the link to THE MOST LIFE CHANGING ENCOUNTER I have ever had.