- Home
- Nancy Ravenhill
Touched by Heaven Page 2
Touched by Heaven Read online
Page 2
But still I knew, somehow, that the answer to my hurt would be found in Jesus. One of the Bible verses we had learned in Sunday school was a promise from Him: “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” I loved to hear my mother quote those poetic words from the King James Version to me. “Lo, I am with you alway. . . .” I clung to the hope that those words were true, that He was somehow with me as the Bible said.
Filled with loneliness, barely able to whisper, I mouthed syllables of a prayer to the One who was the only answer to my broken heart. I told Him about the good changes I had seen in my father. I explained that I did not know what I had done to provoke such a whipping. Even as I spoke those words, though, I knew that I was not really to blame. Not really. I told God that He was the only One I could trust, and the only One who could help me.
After some time, I tried to calm down. I had stopped hoping that I would hear a kindly step on the stair. I glanced sadly at the door, then more positively around the room. The ceiling slanted down on one side, meeting the yellow, pink and green striped wallpaper that rose halfway up the wall. This was a wonderful feature, for it felt closed-in and protective. Two little windows on the opposite wall looked out over the redbrick street.
Then, my eyes were caught by movement—something appearing. . . . Was it possible? I scrunched my face to focus more clearly. Yes, there stood a man in a white robe! Incredibly, I had no doubt that what I was seeing was real. And then I knew, somehow, that God had heard my prayers. Not only that, the true living God had come to help me and was standing in the corner of my room.
I was not afraid, and looked at Him steadily. I had learned about the Trinity at church and wondered which Person this one might be—the Father? the Son? the Holy Spirit?
As He looked down at me I sensed in my innermost being that this was Jesus. He had brown hair touching His shoulders, and His face was serious, but kind. His whole presence was serene and quiet. In my amazement, the tears slowly stopped spilling out of my eyes.
Though He wore a robe, He looked very natural. I had seen Sallman’s famous Head of Christ, everywhere present in churches and Christian homes, and I thought how He resembled the depiction offered in that gentle brown painting.
With Jesus there, I was in no hurry to get up from the side of my bed. I watched Him for what seemed like ten or so minutes. Then I looked away for a second, and when I looked back He was gone.
I had never heard anyone say that Jesus would come and visit this way, but at that moment, His love went deep into my soul. I could not comprehend how the Lord could be there with me, or even how I could sense the Spirit of God, but one thing was clear: Jesus was with me, and I was His. The Holy Spirit had filled my room. I wanted to live for Jesus the rest of my life.
Another thought rose in my mind, equally difficult to comprehend: What would His presence in my heart mean for me? What difference would it make in my world of arguments and isolation and pain?
That day as I knelt by my bed, battered and bruised, I did not know the answer. Both of my parents had shattered any hope of the world as a secure place. I was in a tiny boat on the vast sea, with turbulent and angry waters threatening to drown me. I could do nothing on my own to reach the safety of shore. How would Jesus help me navigate through the overwhelming feelings of rejection and worthlessness?
Perhaps you, like me, learned early in life that pain is not a one-time experience. If so, then I want you to know this truth: God is with you as you walk out the hard times, the times you cannot make it unless He helps you.
I could not imagine it that afternoon as I knelt on the floor, but God was going to allow me to taste the powers of the world to come. Jesus would appear to me multiple times on earth and in eternity—and He would even show me the second heaven, the realm where evil resides.
Why? So that I could know in my own heart and share with you that the supernatural is very real. Help is at the ready from heaven for you and for me.
Jesus does not have to appear physically to do that—although sometimes He does! God even answers our requests to see more visibly into the supernatural realm. We cannot force a vision to occur, but we can walk in deep intimacy with Jesus so that experiencing the supernatural is the natural outcome. More and more, people all over the world are finding this to be true. Jesus is always with us, and we see Him most clearly in the difficult times.
The Bible says, “Your own ears will hear him. Right behind you a voice will say, ‘This is the way you should go,’ whether to the right or to the left” (Isaiah 30:21 NLT). As you become attuned to the supernatural in your own life, you will see that the world to come is the real world.
Heaven exists—and it can touch your life.
2
Demons in the Second Heaven
And what shall I more say? For the time will fail me if I tell of [those who] from weakness were made strong [and] turned to flight armies of aliens.
Hebrews 11:32–34 ASV
Days and then weeks passed from that experience of seeing Jesus, and I wondered if the dark cloud might lift from our home.
I had learned not to stay around my father too much, and certainly not to irritate him. Even when I tried to help him, he would rebuff me. I longed for him to care about me, but my attempts at affection—once I offered a timid kiss on his cheek—were not returned. I cannot remember any time that he showed me real love.
Sometimes he would sit me in a chair and practice preaching. Though I was careful not to swing my legs and held my hands clenched together in my lap, I did learn much about the Bible. Other times he would lift his heavy accordion to his chest and play beautifully the hymns that we sang at church or a complicated classical piece. His desire to be on the mission field with his accordion consumed him.
One night, like any other, I listened to my parents argue. Mother had come home tired from teaching school all day. Daddy had cooked supper and generally kept house. Though he loved to cook, he always looked frustrated with this arrangement. He would grumble once again that he could get a good job if we moved, but she was adamant.
To make things worse, she kept emphasizing how dependent we were on her income. They had lived in rented rooms for years; this was the first home they had owned. Once a month, he left the house saying that he was going to go pay the mortgage, and she paid for the food and car and utilities—and splurged on me. I knew that finances stirred up his anger and kept them in a tug of war.
Daddy had a round face and dark hair—in fact, he had had aspirations of becoming an actor, but parts never materialized; he was always scowling and looking irritated. Sometimes darkness would come over him. This night, I was to see that evil with new eyes.
Their voices escalated and I was not able to slip away to my room in time. I gasped as he grabbed my arm roughly and pushed me into the corner. I watched, shaking and mute, as he took off his belt, and the blows began. This time my mother wept, but once again she did not come to my rescue.
I hung my head and took it. When finally his fury was spent, I slowly made my way up to the sanctuary of my room. Their arguing resumed, but I shut my door and the bedroom walls blocked their voices. As I knelt slowly and painfully by the side of my bed, the only sound evident was my sobbing.
I cannot explain how I knew at age six that the change in my heart when Jesus appeared to me some months earlier was real. I see now that I stood at a crossroads this night, and that my future would be shaped in part by how I responded to the pain. There on my knees, I responded in a way that, I believe, opened the door to receiving His ministry through the supernatural.
That action was simply to cry out to the Lord with my whole heart and soul.
It is possible that I got this concept of bringing my pain to Jesus through a godly pastor and his wife who would come and have Bible studies with my parents, praying and weeping before Jesus long into the night. They pastored a Church of God congregation in the Midwest, and their kind and gentle natures modeled what I thought true servants of God
must be. There was a little register in my parents’ bedroom floor that they could open, allowing heat to rise up from the living room below. Whenever this couple came I could peer through the grate and actually watch their prayer meetings.
So now I turned to Jesus with every ounce of my being. I did not look anywhere else for solace—not in toys or a book or a distraction or anger or any other person. I talked to Him straight.
“You are real, Lord Jesus,” I said, “and I am going to come to You with my whole heart.” I held nothing back. I told Him that I felt cheated by the way my parents treated me, and how they did not care about me.
Taking a breath, I said through my tears, “Lord Jesus, my father doesn’t drink or smoke now, but he is mean to me. I don’t like my parents anymore. I don’t know what to do. Please help me.”
I did not see Him this time, but knew He was there. The presence of the Lord was all around me.
Then, quietly and quickly, I felt myself going up into the atmosphere. I thought that every part of me had gone up into a heavenly place, but I realized later that my body had remained beside my bed. I hung suspended in midair. Even though I could not see Jesus, I knew He was there.
“Where am I?” I asked.
This is where Satan and his demons live.
“But where am I?”
This is the second heaven, He said. This is the place I gave them where they live and work.
Everything moved around me in slow motion. I was not afraid because I was with Jesus. I did not look back to see my physical body on the floor, and I never looked down to see what this spiritual body looked like. I still felt like “me.” I simply stood there in midair, looking at whatever came in front of me.
Odd creatures glided slowly in the distance, and then one or two would slide toward me, floating around me. They were grotesque beings that I never could have imagined. One or two looked as if their bodies were box-shaped—either rectangular or square. One was like a pyramid. The boxes looked to me like cardboard—white, gray and silver, all subdued colors. Their heads and necks stuck out of the boxes, as did little legs. Even their hair was grotesque. It stuck out like matted straw from a gray scarecrow, dry and stiff, and covered the tops of their heads.
They looked like combinations of part animal, part human. Some had tails stretching out but eyes that looked human. Some had scales. I knew they were alive.
These days, on television and in movies, demonic beings are readily visualized. But that was not the case when I was a child. I had never seen anything like these creatures.
They moved close enough for me to see them clearly. They projected evil. At least twenty of these beings wafted around me, circling and looking back at me.
They stayed a good six feet away; a boundary separated us. I think the Lord was telling certain ones to come, as He was controlling everything. They were not scaring me. It seemed as if they knew they were being told just to let me see them. They did not make faces or talk to me.
As I said, I was not afraid. I was just observing. And all this time I knew I was not in heaven, but up in the atmosphere, which amazed me. There was quietness and peace because Jesus was there. Although Satan did not come into view, I knew it was his realm.
Then the Lord took me back. I was just suddenly back in my body by my bed after what seemed to be three or four minutes.
Jesus wanted to teach me something through this, but what was it? Clearly, He wanted me to see this realm and understand it, but what effect would this aspect of the supernatural have on me? If these beings were real, and I had no doubt they were, did they have influence on my life? It made sense to me that they did. It made sense because the feeling I got from them was the same feeling I got from my father when he was so angry and thrashing out.
And that, I realized, was the point. I think that Jesus was showing me that this was the reason my dad was the way he was: He was being harassed by these demons. When he began arguing with my mother and got so frustrated, these evil beings came into the house—the blackness, the darkness.
I had the sense that the teachers in our church would not endorse the conclusions I was coming to. They did not believe that a Christian had anything to do with the demonic realm. You “got it all” when you were born again—salvation, deliverance. Everything was taken care of.
But my dad was disproving that doctrine for me. When he was born again, he changed in many good ways. Overnight he stopped drinking, smoking and swearing. He read Scripture and got up in the early hours to pray. He even got on his knees and wept. Still, darkness would come over him, and he would not resist it. He would shout at my mother and whip me brutally. I think a spirit came on him—or in him. He needed deliverance.
It was sobering to think of this demonic realm, of such evil. But that is what I think God wanted me to understand—that I was facing darkness.
And you are, too.
Nothing I have experienced throughout my life has caused me to doubt this. These beings are real. They target us, driven to earth full speed ahead at the behest of Satan as his ambassadors. They are not slacking off at any point in plotting our destruction.
How do they operate? Demons, I believe, are allowed to whisper to us, to attack our minds. They seem to be trained to break down the Body of Christ. Their goal is to grip hearts for an eternity in hell.
But we can resist them and their evil power. How grateful we can be for the blood of Jesus Christ! Through His death and resurrection, Jesus conquered evil and death, and when we belong to Him we need not fear.
You and I are spiritual beings. If there is a presence of evil, we will sense it—and God expects us to resist it. The outcome for us in times of attack, then, can be determined in great part by how we respond.
By God’s mercy that day, my response was a good one: I turned to Jesus. I did not focus on the demonic.
Nor over the years have I focused on any one-two-three system for combating evil. Jesus will show us how to follow Him whenever the enemy tries to distract us by fear or pain. Still, there are a few biblical principles that can help us keep our eyes on Jesus as we walk through the hard times when it seems as though evil will win.
If you are under attack, the first thing to do is to get on your knees and pray with everything you have. Be hungry for Jesus’ presence. I think that suffering actually does this for us—it increases our hunger. If things are occurring in your life that you cannot deal with, that you do not have an answer for, realize that it is only the living God who can help. The enemy will often send confusion to distract our minds from looking to Jesus. Rebuke the darkness that you feel, whatever is overwhelming you.
The next thing is to realize that you are not alone. So many people in the world today feel lost. They have no one who really loves and cares about them. There is Someone who cares, and He will never leave you.
Then, pray the blood of Christ over that situation. That is all we have. The blood of Jesus protects us from all demonic activity when we avail ourselves of the armor the Lord has provided for us to wear (see Ephesians 6:11–18).
Finally, give Jesus the glory. He is the victor.
We need to remember that Jesus defeated the enemy, Satan, through His work on the cross. Colossians 2:15 says: “He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets” (MESSAGE). The Phillips version says: “Having drawn the sting of all the powers ranged against us, He exposed them, shattered, empty and defeated, in His final glorious triumphant act!”
Let me give you an example of how this looks. This incident might seem like a little thing, but it shows how the enemy wants to disrupt even the smallest details of our lives.
The other day, after visiting a shopping mall near our home to pick up a few things I needed, I went out into the parking lot and, my head down against the blustery wind, walked toward my car.
That, at least, was my intention. The car was nowhere in sight. I looked up and down the rows of vehicle
s, certain I had left it in that section. I gripped my packages more tightly as the wind blew me along. I never lose my car; this was absolute confusion. Soon I was certain that someone must have stolen it. I simply could not find it.
I made my way back to a bench outside the entrance door and sat down. I knew I had to anchor my heart in Jesus. Composing myself, I got my keys out—which were not electronic, so I could not flash the lights on the car—and prayed to the One who is always with me. I told Him that I was distraught—that I could not see the car. “I belong to You,” I said. “You have to help me.”
I rebuked the confusion I felt. I continued praying and asking for God’s peace, and peace came. I got up and began walking again. This time it did not take more than a minute to locate my car once the confusion had gone.
The enemy is ready to attack at any moment. That is why it is particularly important not to open any doors for him to gain access into our lives. Some of these choices include certain television shows, movies, books or music. Demons can gain entrance through these things. Paul warned the believers in Ephesus not to “give place to the devil” (Ephesians 4:27 NKJV). Any sense of conviction from the Holy Spirit that we should not look at something or go somewhere should cause us to listen and obey.
As 1 Corinthians 6:19–20 says, we are not our own:
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.
Why, then, if God is in charge, do His people suffer at the hands of evil? All I can say is that God had a plan for my life—and He has a plan for yours. When we have nowhere else to turn, we can believe that Jesus will help us. He is always there. We can trust Him.
The Bible says that the heroes of the faith “from weakness were made strong” (Hebrews 11:34 ASV). Second Corinthians 12:10 says that the same is true for us: “I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”