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encouragement, eros, experience, God's love, intimacy, Jesus Christ, joy, knowing God, light, Longing for God, my journal, peace, prayer, the fear of God, the promised land, walking by the spirit
I just decided to translate, edit, and publish another part of my spiritual diary in which I described my everyday experiences with God in the Spirit about seven years ago. The following excerpt can be read in direct succession of Susanne Schuberth’s Spiritual Diary (Part 4) – “A Dream Come True…” Below you will find my try of describing these seemingly contradictory experiences of the love and the fear of God, affecting and smiting you at the same time. If that is not confusing to a human being, I don’t know…
02 June 2010
I have been missing Jesus terribly! But alas, I cannot move Him to stay with me if He decides to leave. Yet I should not complain about it since except for this longing I have been doing pretty well recently.
03 June 2010
It keeps raining in June. Almost all the time. As it was in April, in May, and… But it doesn’t matter. I do love these many raindrops, though. 🙂
Jesus came back in a way that confused me completely. Suddenly, against any expectation, He stood in front of me in a very bright light before my inner, spiritual eyes. I have never seen Him before so majestic and transcendentally beautiful! There is nothing in this world that could make me as happy as His mere presence does. While writing on the computer, I perceive Him standing in the Spirit closely behind me. My heart is trembling timidly like a little bird that has just fallen out of its nest. It is truly an incredibly wonderful feeling to know that it is actually HIM. I missed Him more than I would admit. After all, a whole lot of tears keep rolling down my cheeks. I am sooo grateful that He is back, finally.
Later…
Something has changed in my attitude toward Jesus. As long as this strong fear of God grips my heart, I am hyperaware of the fact that He who is Almighty God and I, a weak little human, are worlds apart. Without Jesus telling me to approach Him, I am neither able to do so on my own accord nor am I able to utter any wish or desire.
I have become silent, most happily out of fear. As inconsistent as this might sound, it is the truth. My heart keeps trembling and fluttering steadily out of the fear of God and adoring love. I have never been that bewildered before, not knowing whether I should weep, shout out loud, lament or moan. It seems to me that my heart is torn into pieces, ripped up by a longing for this unique, incomparable Christ who more and more sets my heart aflame without quenching my thirst – ever. This is torment!! Flashes of yearning are ripping through my whole being, leaving behind them a painful afterglow and burning desire. He lets me feel His endless and ardent longing of which I, now, even sense a similar expression in my own heart and soul, too.
This is as new as it is unbearable to stand for a longer time…
Only now I realize how quiet it had been in the Spirit lately. That was even more pleasant to me since I did not want to feel this torment of yearning any longer. But still, I do not want that it stops at the moment, anyway. Contradictory again, I know. Today it has even been stronger than the last time as I had great difficulties during my prayer walk in the woods to NOT scream out loud for Him to come down from heaven immediately 😉 when He tormented my soul by firing flaming arrows of His eternal love right into my very heart. To be honest, I hardly dare to speak his name out loud today because whenever I have done so, though, I felt much worse due to the fires flaring and blazing up.
Pheeeeeew!!! Oh my God, oh my God … ❤
9:45 pm
I have just come back from an extended evening walk. My foot soles often burn since I’m still out and about with boots in June due to the ongoing cold this year. If I wear sneakers, instead, I get no pains from these long marches.
“At first she pants for God like a fiery doe and now she talks about the weather and the health of her feet. That is VERY interesting, indeed!” 😊
Agreed. I really do not know whether I’m coming or going. Starting over.
I usually do not just go for a walk unless I sense an inner pull or drawing from God to do so. Since I did not dare to approach Jesus in my silent prayers at home any longer (pains! torment!), I drove to my regular parking lot out there in the woods. I cannot quite remember exactly what happened on my way through the forest. At first, I could scarcely look at Jesus like a shy deer, still. Although He tenderly asked me to come closer, I had great difficulties to do so since my bird-like, fluttering heart trembled like an aspen leaf.
To cut a long story short, eventually He had mercy on me and pulled me into His arms with His irresistible love. However, I only thawed at that moment as He would make me laugh heartily again. As soon as Jesus had caused me to giggle over I-cannot-remember-what, I was not so afraid anymore. But still, there is a great deal of the fear of God left behind, which feels very good. I know that it is mainly this reverence for God that keeps me safe on the right track.
All images by Paul and Susanne Schuberth 2017
Susanne, thanks for sharing this. I have never known anyone who has had such an intimate relationship as you have with Jesus and the Father. Yet, this is the very thing that Jesus prayed would happen to those He has chosen…
“And I have declared unto them your name, and will declare it: that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:26, KJ2000)
Yes, Jesus came declaring God as Our Father just as He is Jesus’ Father so that the love that the Father loved Him with would be in us and that Jesus would be IN US as well. May it be so and may we not sell short this heavenly gift He has for us and no longer be distracted by the things of this world and miss this heavenly relationship IN the Father and the Son. Amen.
Michael
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Amen to your prayer, Michael.
You might remember these Scriptures you often quoted, too, verses that hint to the truth of God’s wonderful love in the Spirit.
Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away.
But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory.
None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—
these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.
And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. (1 Cor 2:6-13 ESV)
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Oh, by the way, I love your and Paul’s photography! What is the significance of the heart shaped hole in the board fence with another fence behind it? Hmmm… It symbolizes to me how often Jesus opens up our hearts so He can flow through them only to have the screen of our traditions blocking most of what would normally pass through.
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Thanks for the compliment, Michael. Will tell Paul about it! 🙂
Your explanation of the ❤ shaped hole in the fence makes a lot of sense to me. Although I simply thought of a peephole through which we might be able to see ‘something’ spiriual, yet not all of it at the same time (this would be too overwhelming for our spiritual senses). And we cannot enter this heavenly realm until this other fence behind (symbolizing our old nature) keeps pulling us back into this earthly realm.
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I think your last paragraph is saying what I was sensing as well. 👍😇❤️😇
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You’re right. It was not what had been on my mind before… only after reading your comment, it occured to me… somehow… 😇 ❤ 😇
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Hi Sue–Loved your explanation of your experience with our Lord and it is confusing with the good feelings and the scary ones but your story reminds me of a saying that I have always liked–Beholding is Becoming–May you Become as you have Beheld.
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I like that saying, Ken. Thank you! 🙂
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