The book that compelled me to stop everything and write.

I've started reading a remarkable book today. It's called Rees Howells: Intercessor and is written by Norman Grubb. The book is a biography about Rees Howells, a man from Wales who was born in the late 19th Century.

I glanced at a review of the book that Google pulled up and the reviewer described the book as "a mess-up-your-life kind of book." I've only read five chapters and I am beginning to see why she said that.

I just finished chapter five and was so compelled to stop and write about it that here I am now. I never do that with books. I always read them completely before feeling released to make more than small comments about them. This is certainly a unique situation.

I'm going to first quote and summarize what I feel are the pertinent parts in this chapter, then I will give my own commentary. In this passage, Howells is talking about and to the Holy Spirit (all bolded phrases are ones I wish to emphasize):

"'He made it very plain that He would never share my life. I saw the honour He gave me in offering to indwell me, but there were many things very dear to me, and I knew He wouldn't keep one of them. The change He would make was very clear. It meant every bit of my fallen nature was to go to the Cross, and He would bring in His own life and His own nature.'

It was unconditional surrender. From the meeting Rees went out into a field, where he cried his heart out, because, as he said, 'I had received a sentence of death.... I had lived in my body for twenty-six years, and could I easily give it up?...Why does a man struggle when death comes, if it is easy to die? I knew that the only place fit for the old nature was on the cross.... But once this is done in reality, it really is done for ever. I could not run int0 this. I intended to do it, but oh, the cost! I wept for days. I lost seven pounds in weight, just because I saw what He was offering me. How I wished I had never seen it! One thing He reminded me of was that He had only come to take what I had already promised the Saviour, not in part, but the whole. Since He died for me, I had died in Him, and I knew that the new life was His and not mine. That had been clear in my mind for three years....and I saw that only the Holy Ghost in me could live like the Saviour. Everything He told me appealed to me; it was a only a question of the loss there would be in doing it. I didn't give my answer in a moment, and He didn't want me to.'

It took five days to make the decision....

'Nothing is more real to me than the process I went through for that whole week.... The Holy Spirit went on dealing with me, exposing the root of my nature which was self.... Sin was cancelled, and it wasn't sin He was dealing with; it was self - that thing which came from the Fall. He was not going to take any superficial surrender. He put His finger on each part of my self-life, and I had to decide in cold blood. He could never take a thing away until I gave my consent. Then the moment I gave it, some purging took place, and I could never touch that thing again. It was not saying I was purged and the thing still having a hold on me: no, it was a breaking, and the Holy Ghost taking control. Day by day the dealing went on. He was coming in as God, and I had lived as a man, and "what is permissible to an ordinary man," He told me, "will not be permissible to you."'"

He then goes on to list the specific desires of his nature that the Holy Spirit started coming in to replace. First was "the love of money." Next was a desire to make a self-absorbed life. The Holy Spirit would always be reaching out to the world, so Rees would have to as well. Next was ambition. All desires to make something of himself, particularly above another, were not congruent with the life of the Spirit. On the last day of this process, the fifth day, it says that "his reputation was touched." "As the Saviour was despised, he must be willing to be the same."

"By Friday night each point had been faced. He knew exactly what he was offered, the choice between temporal and eternal gain. The Spirit summed the issue up for him: 'On no account will I allow you to cherish a single thought of self, and the life I will live in you will be one hundred per cent for others. You will never be able to save yourself, and more than the Saviour could when He was on earth. Now, are you willing?' He was to give a final answer.

...'I have been dealing with you for five days: you must give Me your decision by six o'clock to-night, and remember, your will must go.' ...It was the final battle on the will.

'I asked Him for more time,' Rees continued, 'but He said, "You will not have a minute after six o'clock." When I heard that it was exactly as if a wild beast was roused in me. "You gave me a free will," I answered, "and now You force me to give it up." "I do not force you," He replied, "but for three years have you not been saying that you are not your own, and that you wanted to give your life back to the Saviour as completely as He gave His life for you?" I climbed down in a second.... "I am sorry," I told Him, "I didn't mean what I said." "You are not forced to give up your will," He said again, "but at six o'clock I will take your decision. After that you will never get another chance." It was my last offer, my last chance!'...

'Once more the question came, "Are you willing?" It was ten minutes to six. I wanted to do it, but I could not. Your mind is keen when you are tested, and in a flash it came to me, "How can self be willing to give up self?" Five to six came. I was afraid of those last five minutes. I could count the ticks of the clock. Then the Spirit spoke again. "If you can't be willing, would you like Me to help you? Are you willing to be made willing?" "Take care," the enemy whispered. "When a stronger person than yourself is on the other side, to be willing to be made willing, is just the same as to be willing." ...It was one minute to six. I bowed my head and said, "Lord, I am willing."'

...'Immediately,' said Rees, 'I was transported into another realm, within that sacred veil, where the Father, the Saviour and the Holy Ghost live. There I heard God speaking to me, and I have lived there ever since. When the Holy Ghost enters, He comes in to "abide for ever." To the Blood be the glory!

'How I adored the grace of God! It is God who goes so far as to give us repentance. It was God who helped me to give up my will. There were some things He had asked for during the week that I was able to give, because I was the master of them, but when He asked me to give up my self and my will, I found I could not - until he pulled me through.'"

Whoa.

Before reading this, I don't think I had ever read or heard someone describe an experience such as this. What about it that impacts me so is not just how profound it is, but the fact that I have felt a similar thing happening in my life (!), only not nearly as dramatic nor as fast. Yet I have felt in many ways like I was a lone island in my experience. I have come to learn that no one is ever a lone island in anything, but as I hadn't encountered a story like this I was still searching for one that could confirm my non-solitary state. I seem to have found it.

I have mentioned in recent posts how I have felt like the theme of my life recently has been "you have no control over your life." Rees's experience here was certainly a confrontation with that, and for whatever reason that God ordained, it was very abrupt and final. While similar, my experience has been slightly different. There has been no five days holed up with God in heightened anguish. There has been little dramatic dialogue. No strict time limits. Nor do I feel as if my life has been devoid of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit before this point.

What I do feel like has been happening is that the Holy Spirit has been reminding me of the commitment I made. "Have you not been saying that you are not your own?," he asks. Yes. I have. Every time I've said it has been sincere, albeit I didn't know to what extent my sincerity would carry me. But God gives grace. And every time I have been challenged recently the Holy Spirit has brought that commitment to my mind. And just like Rees described my will is never taken from me, but whenever I remember that commitment, I relinquish it again, or, more often than not, allow God to help me to be willing to do so.

The section that describes which of the desires of Rees's nature the Spirit started touching and replacing was particularly poignant to me, with the challenging of ambition being the part that I see most in myself. I feel certain that my ambition has been directly and specifically affronted in the past few months. I've noticed ways in which it has also in the past, but never so as intensely as recent times. While I have never been cutthroat in my actions, I am not one to sit and let opportunities pass. I even go so far as to find opportunities when there are none present. In more practical terms, this translates into I am not the kind of person to graduate and then stay home. That's a ludicrous notion. Yet what have I done? Graduated and then stayed home, not desiring anything more than to be faithful to attend the whos and the whats in front of me. I never thought I'd be okay with that, even for just a short season as this one has thus far been.

I do also feel like God has been holding me in the place where I am now in order to allow this time to settle within me. He did the same with Rees in a short span of five days. I'm not sure why my experience has been so much more lengthy and slow than his, but I trust God has his reasons. Regardless of the difference in time and intensity, though, I do connect with Rees's story on that level and am slowly waiting until the time when this is over, which I do trust will come, perhaps in the not-so-distant future, if my feelings are correct.

When asked by a friend recently how I have been, the only answer I gave was to quote a few lines from one of my favorite songs by the band downhere:

"Love's breaking me down

Like waves to stone, over and over

Love's breaking new ground

Changing my every way"

Indeed it has, and my ways have been changing dramatically.

If I have gotten all of this from only 44 pages into a 280 page book, I'm eager to see what will come from the rest of it.