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God is in heaven and we are on earth. He exists in an infinitely higher sphere than we the members of his creation. Yet, it is in his character to ‘visit’ with us. It was on one such visit that “the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (Genesis 3:8).

For the New Testament believer, God does more than just visit —he dwells on the inside of us by his Holy Spirit. In this way, we can have continuous fellowship with him. Nevertheless, God still ‘visits’ us and we encounter him. Sometimes you may engage in a period of spiritual activity like prayer and fasting where you have a deeper experience of the presence and power of God. It may be in a period of deeper study of the word, the Bible, where you may hear God speaking to you like never before. In such moments, you may hear God address matters in your life or give you a word from scripture that may provide lifelong direction for your life. At other times, it may be during organized Christian meetings like conferences and retreats, where there is fervency in worship and sweet fellowship with God and the brethren, where the word of God also comes very sharply, in accents clear and still. You leave such meetings with your heart burning afresh with zeal and passion for God and his things. Many such meetings are held at the end of the year or the turn of a new year and the new year is met with much enthusiasm and hope for a closer walk with God.

The downside, however, is that these encounters are not always sustained; the much hoped-for effects do not always turn out as hoped; what was a definite visitation from God ends up being like a mere excitement of the emotions. When these happen, a great opportunity is missed. The reason may be that the recipient of such an encounter or visitation from God did not respond correctly to what God did.

If we are to sustain our encounters with God and bear the fruit that befits such an outpouring of the grace of God, how should we respond to him?

Two Encounters, Two Different Outcomes

Two popular characters in the Bible embarked on journeys of their sanctioning, but were both mercifully encountered by God. They each got up with a definite knowledge that they had been dramatically encountered by God, yet their responses to their encounters with the Divine were vastly different and their life journeys turned out differently. I speak of Jacob the patriarch and Paul the apostle.

JACOB

Jacob, with the help of his mother Rebekah, deceived his father Isaac and collected the blessing intended for his elder brother, Esau. When Esau’s plan to avenge himself by killing his brother Jacob became known, he was forced to flee to Haran, where his uncle Laban, dwelt (Genesis 27-28). When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night and lay down to sleep. There he had a dream in which the LORD appeared to him and said:

“I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” —Genesis 28:13-15

The promise that God made to Jacob was cosmic in size. It included the promise of salvation for you and me coming through his offspring. The size of that promise had worldwide and eternal ramifications. You would expect that Jacob would surrender to God, ask for forgiveness and seek directions as to what steps to take going forward. Instead, he arose to empty religious activity and jargon. Empty, not because the words in themselves were hollow, but empty because the words he professed had no impact on what he set out to do. Hear him: “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven” (Genesis 28:16-17). What did he do next, following those lofty-sounding words? ‘Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. He called that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz’ (Genesis 28:18-19). What is the use of a house of God (Bethel means ‘house of God), if there are no persons in it to worship and fellowship? The man who so named the place was not willing to be a worshipper. He then went on to singlehandedly barter with God, the owner of his life:

“If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father’s house, then the LORD will be my God and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth” (Genesis 28:20-22).

“If” and “then”, are conditional and certainly not now. How disrespectful. What does the creator and owner of all things need from a mere mortal that Jacob was here offering him a tenth of his earnings at an indefinite future he had no control over? He missed an opportunity to respond correctly to a divine encounter and the consequences were dire. He went on to Haran and the man in whose loins was the salvation of all of humanity went on to mortgage more than 20 years of his life to marry a woman who was an idolater. On his way back home, she didn’t even arrive home with him but died on the way leaving behind two young children. Besides, he alone left his uncle’s house with three other women (one wife and two baby mamas). He was a swindler. When he arrived back, he did so with a dislocated hip that the rest of his generation decided not to eat the tendon of that hip in their animals. So disfigured was Jacob that when Joseph took him to meet Pharaoh, the first question that the King of Egypt asked him was an odd one: “How old are you?” He looked too out of shape for his age. He had to be carried and set in Pharaoh’s presence.

All of that can be traced to the fact that he failed to respond correctly to an encounter with God.

How many times have you also cried, and sang melodious hymns in seeming surrender but rose to go on to do your own thing, not surrendering in reality? Like Jacob’s words, your responses all turned out to be hollow and without substance.

How many times have you also cried, and sang melodious hymns in seeming surrender but rose to go on to do your own thing, not surrendering in reality?

PAUL

Paul was also a man of his way with strong convictions that were opposed to the cause of Christ. On his way to Damascus one day, to find “any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, [that] he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem” (Acts 9:2), the Lord encountered him. Saul (Paul) responded with two important questions. “Who are you, Lord?” (Acts 9:5), he asked. When the Lord identified himself, Paul asked a second question: “Lord, what do You want me to do?” (Acts 9:6). The Lord told Paul to “get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do” (Acts 9:6), and he complied. Paul got to know who appeared to him and he knew that the only correct response to an encounter with the Lord is to surrender and let him take the lead. Paul surrendered to the Lordship of the Lord and his life took a turn for the best. From then he no longer was the captain of the ship of his life but God was. Paul became all that he later became in God’s hand and that can be traced to his response to that divine encounter.

When Joshua, who at the time was the leader of the Lord’s people, was at Jericho, a Man appeared to him and his response was similar to Paul’s:

‘And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped, and said to Him, “What does my Lord say to His servant?”

Then the Commander of the Lord’s army said to Joshua, “Take your sandal off your foot, for the place where you stand is holy.” And Joshua did so’ (Joshua 5:14-15).

Anywhere the Lord visits, the only correct response is that of worship and surrender.

Anywhere the Lord visits, the only correct response is that of worship and surrender.

If Only

If only Jacob too had responded with, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” Imagine all the troubles he would have avoided. Thankfully, God was merciful to him and appeared to him again. He wrestled with an angel and the man who was rich from Laban’s house begged to be blessed. The Lord also changed his name and his identity (Genesis 32:22-30). The Lord told Jacob to return to Bethel, the place where he (Jacob) had encountered him (God). He put away all the idols from his household that were handed to him at his request and returned to Bethel. There, God blessed him with blessings that were incomparable with what he amassed from Haran (Genesis 35:1-15).

What Will Your Response Be?

Have you also had a divine encounter? Has that been on your self-made journeys through life; private moments of devotion and worship; or at a Christian meeting you attended recently? Wherever that has been, what has been your response to God’s visitation?

I urge you to follow Paul’s example. Recognize that it is none other than the Lord himself who, though been infinitely great, has graciously condescended to relate with you. Surrender to him and ask what next steps you must take to fulfil the purpose of his visit. Like Paul, you may need to meet with an ‘Ananias’ whom the Lord will use to make his purposes much clearer. Whatever you do, do not waste the divine moment; ensure you respond correctly to it.