The Answer

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Answer to My Childhood Yearning

I had always been a seeker. Even at a tender age, I would pray desperately at night: “Oh God let me know who You are!” But it wasn’t until my first year in college that I gave God an ultimatum: “If you haven’t got anything better than this [meaning the traditional religion of my upbringing] then just forget it!” Soon after that immature raging, I did pray to God with some believers. What a surprise! The Lord Jesus, the reality, entered my being and my life, and altered my destiny!

The original request of a child’s heart, however, still stood: “Oh God! Show me Yourself!” What I didn’t realize was that knowing God was a process that would take my entire life to experience. Yes, He had come into my spirit as Jesus the Lord (John 3:6); Yes, He had taken away all my sins as God’s lamb (John 1:29); Yes, He had kept His promise never to give me up or abandon me (Hebrews 13:5), but still, this was only the beginning of the fulfillment of my great yearning: ”OH GOD, Let me know You!”

In the fall after graduation, through God's providential arrangement, I got in touch with the ministry of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee through those who met in the local church in my city. It wasn’t long after that that I learned the wondrous practice that brought me into direct, intimate, and sweet enjoyment of the Lord Himself, calling on the name of the Lord Jesus (Acts 9:14); I also learned the healthy practice of praying over the Word of God (Eph. 6:17-18) to directly access the strength, shining, and speaking of the living Word Himself; and the incomparable nourishing and enlightenment from the opening of the whole Bible into one integrated vision by ministry messages from both Witness Lee and Watchman Nee.

Oh, how my depression faded; how joy rang through my being in every day’s contact with Christ as my indwelling reality! I realized from the ministry that God had a heart’s desire to express His invisible Being by putting Himself into man, His highest creation, and bringing a corporate man into full sonship (Romans 8:23,29). This revelation totally exceeded anything I ever hoped for in my life-long search for the intimate knowledge of God! And even now (after 25 years) I am in the process of its full consummation – by daily immersing myself in the divine fellowship of the Triune God and that of the Body of Christ through calling on the Lord’s name, pray-reading His Word, meeting with the church and singing with joy in my heart to God! In every detail of my practical living the God of detail is transforming my inner being–thought, feelings, intentions–into the image of the Firstborn Son, the Lord Jesus (1 John 3:2, Rom. 8:29).I now know my yearning for knowing God had been only an echoing response to God’s great desire to unveil Himself. I can only breathe a prayer each day: “Lord, expand and spread Yourself within me to express Your Wonderful Being. May Your rich Being fill and overflow my once limited virtues, vain intentions, greedy thoughts, and vacillating feelings. I know my weakness and sin can never stop You from completing Your heart’s desire in me. Lord, You’re my one essential need. You’re my everything. You’re my all in all.”

I now know my yearning for knowing God had been only an echoing response to God’s great desire to unveil Himself. I can only breathe a prayer each day: “Lord, expand and spread Yourself within me to express Your Wonderful Being. May Your rich Being fill and overflow my once limited virtues, vain intentions, greedy thoughts, and vacillating feelings. I know my weakness and sin can never stop You from completing Your heart’s desire in me. Lord, You’re my one essential need. You’re my everything. You’re my all in all.”

- Karen Belleci

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