strangely warmed

Recently, I had dinner with a sister-in-Christ, S, and we talked about what was up with our lives. She said how she hadn’t possessed the true joy of the Lord, and at this, I reflected and remembered how I’d this uplifting and radically different experience at this year’s Good Friday and Easter services... I described this as incredibly “strange” and “moving” because I’ve never felt such happiness and lack of sorrow (even though it was a remembrance of the horrible crucifixion of our Lord) in all my life, all my Christian life attending the holy week services, putting myself In Christ’s shoes, as it were, bearing that heavy, heavy cross. It was always more natural, and I gravitated to that despondency. Sure, I believed with all my mind and soul that Jesus rose from the dead and my life is hid with Christ on high, but joy? I never possessed that joy. So that Sunday, it was unnerving and surreal, I just could not identify with that grimness and all my past self because I knew that Christ was alive, and I was so very glad, I could not be sombre and felt out of place sitting by myself in the sanctuary. I remember: I teared, I was so very moved that for the first time in all my life, I felt this strange contentment and settledness that confounded me, unworthy me. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.

So that night, as I attempted to utter this inexpressible state of being to S, recognising then that this did seem to me that joy of the Lord, I described it the way I had, and she said, “Wow, it’s interesting you mentioned ‘strange’, because John Wesley used this word when the joy of the Lord found him too.” And I’d never heard that before but took it as a beautiful encouragement. This phrase stayed with me through the week—no coincidence through a week of tough spiritual warfare at work, and where I’d requested for and was prompted by the Spirit to pray for divine intervention. Then, tonight in the new week at bsf, where I’d come to find renewal from the Word, the tutor should mention, quite randomly (though I know not) as like a non sequitur while explaining justification by faith—“Do you know who else said “strangely warmed”? And I was floored.

I now truly believe that that service was my “Aldersgate experience”, and I praise Him for His grace and mercy. I give thanks that my troubles are strangely dim, and I can rest in the assurance that God is in control and I need not fret over the tides of evil. By simply setting my sights ever on Him, for in Him, and by Him, and through Him, all things come to be, I can have full confidence that He will make things right, in His time, and according to His will.

Ah, blessed assurance, Jesus is mine.

Now, to tell of your goodness to all who have yet to receive this gift of life.