I embarked on a wild journey 3 years ago, packing my bags and moving to California with one intention: to discover the more of God. Weeks before while devouring the pages of Face to Face with God, I had a realization: there was more of God available than I was experiencing. I read endless stories of people who had touched, seen and encountered God and were now changing the world. If this was possible, then I refused to disqualify myself. I wanted in!

However, I quickly realized that God was not as predictable or politically correct as I had hoped. I was hungry for him to touch my life and yet terrified of what would be left of me once he had. I watched as others were gripped by the power of God but I clung to my need to be in control of my life.

One day as I stood worshiping I heard him say, “Will you give me your dignity?” I am a working professional with a high value for good manners who hates to make a show or cause offense. I realized how important my dignity was to me and yet here was his unmistakable answer to what I longed for: my dignity for his touch.

As I answered and yielded myself to God, I began to violently shake under the power of God. I fell to the ground as power surged through my body like waves. I had never physically felt God before and I was scared.

The awareness of his holiness, his greatness and his majesty were suddenly so real and the fact that I ever thought I could box him in through agenda, religion, theology or human reasoning suddenly seemed ludicrous.

God has a long history of touching his people in glorious ways and you are no different. Yet it means letting go of how you think it should happen or what you think it should look like. It’s a yielding of dignity and control. It’s the pursuit of a God who is bigger than you think and will encounter you as he chooses.

Begin to hunger for God. Silence the voice that disqualifies you. Rest in the knowledge that he wants to encounter you and is already in full pursuit of such a moment.

I stood in worship recently and heard his voice again, “The doors of encounter are open.” I believe we are in a time when God wants to touch his people. He is longing to mark us in ways we have longed for, ways that will shape us, change us and possess us. “We all, seeing the glory of the Lord with unveiled faces, as in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory.” (2 Cor. 3:18) You too can see the glory of the Lord, but you cannot see it and not be changed!

Friend, the doors of encounter are open. Will you yield to his touch?

By Lisa Clarke