IN ANY MAN’S WALK to heaven there are so many high plateaus land low valleys, so many stoppings, turnings, restings, and A startings, that it is sometimes hard to know just where one should begin, saying, "There God first touched me."

But I now recall one evening, about five years ago, that was a major turning point in my walk. In the New Jersey home of a iidear brother in Christ, I heard Justice duPlessis, a missionary to the Indians of South Africa, tell what then seemed a fantastic tale of how the Lord had miraculously spoken through him, in a complex Indian dialect he had never studied, to convict a group of Hindu natives of their sins and to tell them of the saving power of Jesus Christ, resulting in the baptizing of about fifteen of them. Nothing in my religious background had prepared me to assimilate the witness of God’s miracle power given by this calm, very dignified and so obviously loving gentleman. I left that evening knowing that the universe, before so tightly constricted around my very rationalistic imagination, had opened up before me, and I prepared for a long period of Biblical study on the doctrine of the being and work of the Holy Spirit.

The Experiential Search for Reality

My study, shortly after this, was to become merely a part of my total experiential search of the reality of the presence of God. Sickness and need had arisen within my family during the last year of my graduate study at the University of Kansas, and I was faced, for perhaps the first time in my life, with a situation which I could in no way handle by my own natural abilities. Day after day, in long, exhausting, and seemingly futile praying, I realized with aching longing, my own emptiness. Where was the "Comforter," and "Advocate," the "assurance of my salvation ?" I complained to God, for He had deserted me and I did not know where I Was in Complete Control of My Speaking to find Him. One evening in the fall of 1964, after a day of nearly hopeless praying and before falling asleep, I put before the Lord my vision of my own soul. It was a dry valley, full of rocks, a barren scene with no vegetation and no water. I gave this dry soul up to Him and said, "There’s no way to reach you; if you want my soul to live, you must give me the help I need. I can’t even ask you any longer."

That night I knew the presence of God in a more vivid, powerful way than ever before. In a dream or vision I saw a standing column of pure light which seemed alive, dynamic like electricity, and holy. My first reaction was awe and fear, but then I realized that this light which seemed the force holding the universe together was also personal, was love, and was love for me, and I fell down and worshipped, with praises pouring through my mouth in a language I didn’t know. All of this was in a dream, but when the dream or vision ended I was immediately awake. The awakening was not a "waking up," however, it was more like a "waking down," for it was as if I had left a higher level of reality, where life was somehow inexpressibly "denser," more intense - and my natural level seemed a diminished or thinner-textured reality. Words so poorly express the experience; how could there be words to mirror this reality? My own soul, for a few days, could almost recapture the intense quality of holiness and energy I had experienced, but then I could only remember, never again able quite to "catch" the full sense of the encounter. But for weeks after this, I walked in a life filled to the brim with the presence of God, and I knew the peace of Christ. Was this vision of light a messenger of God? An angel? I believe it was a vision of the glory of Christ Himself, and I was here given a glimpse of Him, the full image of Deity.

I continued after this to seek God’s spiritual graces, but with a new hope and less desperation - for I was totally assured of His love. While I was now quite sure of the validity of the gift of speaking in tongues - for I realized from the dream experience that this was spiritual praise that Jesus allows us to enter into - I felt that I could not praise God in this way. I considered the dream to be a promise of this praise, but a promise not yet manifested in my conscious life. So I waited on the Lord in hope and faith. Several months later, in a very peaceful moment of praising God, while I was walking on a winter night, I found myself singing a psalm of praise to God for His creation - particularly in this instance for a small tree whose bare branches seemed a living psalm of praise which I was to put into words and offer to the Father. As I began to praise God, very quietly, from within my spirit there arose a psalm in another language. I had a sense of the meaning, tha psalm praised the loving, creative and sustaining power of Christ, but I did not know the words I used. I was surprised by this, for the praise was not preceded by any emotional buildup, I was not overpowered by God, I was in no ecstasy, and I was in complete control of my speaking - but the words themselves seemed supplied as I spoke them.

These experiences I felt to be part of my private devotional life with God. I did not then feel they were to be shared, realizing that only God knew their true meaning and significance, and that my telling of them would probably only offend or confuse my friends and brothers in the Church of Christ.

I had planned for several years to return, as a teacher, to York College, in Nebraska, where I had been a student for my first two years of college. I knew the people there were open-minded, serious Bible students, and I felt there would be a chance to study and grow with my brethren. But I was resolved not to discuss the Holy Spirit in any way that might cause controversy. In spite of these resolutions, I ended up teaching an adult Sunday school class on the subject of the Holy Spirit during my first summer in York. The class was profitable, I believe, and I found that the people really were sincerely seeking to know more of the Biblical teaching on the Holy Spirit. It was the next year, after several of our students who had gone on to Abilene Christian College returned on a visit, witnessing to their having received the baptism in the \Holy Spirit, that people in York began to be afraid of the implications of their study and their openness.

On the evening of Thanksgiving, 1967, two of these former York students were in our home, telling of how God had entered their lives in a deeper, richer way. No present York students were at this meeting, but one other faculty member and several faculty wives were there. After a brief prayer together the meeting broke up, and my wife, Linda, and I retired for the night. About 2:00 a.m. I awoke and soon felt compelled to pray, sensing an inner emptiness. Linda joined me, and that night we both received, in a fresh encounter with the Lord, deeper blessings than ever before - blessings of faith and assurance as the cry "Abba" rose up within our spirits. I knew that night that God’s gift of praise was within me as a sustaining, edifying devotional language, and Linda yielded her life to the infilling of God’s Spirit and received a rich and abiding faith in her Lord.

Since that evening our lives have never been the same. Our walk with the Lord continues into new pasture lands of light, joy, and peace. The Lord’s disciplining has taught us gently, yet firmly, to look only to Him, not to His gifts or blessings, for while these are His instruments, He is the source.

We have been led to churches filled with people, who, even when they have disagreed with us, have accepted us in the love of Christ. So many of these children of the Lord Jesus long for a deeper walk with Him. His Spirit is leading us all on a pilgrimage home, and He leads us to sing His spiritual praise as we camp here. The light guides us, and as we approach we cry more and more, from the ever deeper levels of being which the Lord reveals:

"Maranatha"—"Come, Lord Jesus !"

William E. Epperson is Associate Professor of English in Oral Roberts University, Tulsa, Oklahoma.