While he was still speaking,
a bright cloud covered them,
and a voice from the cloud said,
“This is my Son, whom I love;
with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”
–Matthew 17:5 (NIV)–

These signs will accompany
those who believe…
the Lord worked with them
and confirmed His Word
by the signs that accompanied it.
–Mark 16:17, 20 (NIV)–

They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire
that separated and came to rest on each of them.
–Acts 2:3 (NIV)–

Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!
–Mark 9:24 (NKJV)–

According to your faith let it be to you.
–Matthew 9:29 (NKJV)–

It was summer-time: a great battle was raging in France. A friend wrote me that my husband was up in the very foremost part of it. I heard no word from my husband; weeks passed, and still the same ominous silence. At last the day came when the shadow of these two fearful years rose up and overwhelmed me altogether. I went up on to the wild lonely hill where I so often walked, and there I contended with God for His help. For the first time in my life there was nothing between God and myself—this had continually happened with Jesus Christ, but not with God the Father, Who remained totally inaccessible to me. Now, like a man standing in a very dark place and seeing nothing but knowing himself immediately near to another—so I knew myself in very great nearness to God. I had no need for eyes to see outwardly, because of the immense magnetism of this inward Awareness. At one moment my heart and mind ran like water before Him—praying Him, beseeching Him for His help; at another my soul stood straight up before Him, contending and claiming because she could bear no more: and it felt as though the Spirit of God stood over against my spirit, and my spirit wrestled with God’s Spirit for more than an hour. But He gave me no answer, no sign, no help. He gave me nothing but that awful silence which seems to hang for ever between God and Man. And I became exhausted, and turned away in despair from God, and from supplication, and from striving, and from contending, and, very quiet and profoundly sad, I stood looking out across the hills to the distant view—how gentle and lovely this peace of the evening sky, whilst on earth all the nations of the world were fighting together in blood and fury and pain!

I had stood there for perhaps ten minutes, mutely and sadly wondering at the meaning of it all, and was commencing to walk away when suddenly I was surrounded by a great whiteness which blotted out from me all my surroundings. It was like a great light or white cloud which hid all my surroundings from me, though I stood there with my eyes wide open: and the cloud pricked, so that I said to myself, “It is an electric cloud,” and it pricked me from my head down to my elbows, but no further. I felt no fear whatever, but a very great wonder, and stood there all quite simple and placid, feeling very quiet. Then there began to be poured into me an indescribably great vitality, so that I said to myself, “I am being filled with some marvellous Elixir.” And it filled me from the feet up, gently and slowly, so that I could notice every advance of it. As it rose higher in me, so I grew to feel freed: that is to say, I had within me the astounding sensation of having the capacity to pass where or how I would—which is to say I felt freed of the law of gravity. I was like a free spirit—I felt and knew within myself this glorious freedom! I tasted for some moments a new form of living! Words are unable to convey the splendour of it, the boundless joy, the liberty, the glory of it.

And the incomprehensible Power rose and rose in me until it reached the very crown of my head, and immediately it had quite filled me a marvellous thing happened—the Wall, the dreadful Barrier between God and me, came down entirely, and immediately I loved Him. I was so filled with love that I had to cry aloud my love, so great was the force and the wonder and the delight and the might of it.

And now, slowly, the vivid whiteness melted away so that I saw everything around me once more just as before; but for a little while I continued to stand there very still and thoughtful, because I was filled with wonder and great peace.

Then I turned to walk home, but I walked as a New Creature in a New World—my heart felt like the heart of an angel, glowing white-hot with the love for God, and all my sorrows fled away in a vast joy! This was His answer, this was His help. After years and years of wrestling and struggling, in one moment of time He had let me find Him, He had poured His Paradise into my soul! Never was such inconceivable joy—never was such gladness! My griefs and pains and woes were wiped away—totally effaced as though they had never existed!

Oh, the magnificence of such splendid joy! The whole of space could scarcely now be large enough to hold me! I needed all of it—I welcomed its immensity as once I was oppressed by it. God and my Soul, and Love, and Light, and Space!

–Lilian Staveley, The Prodigal Returns—

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John Wimber, Power Healing (HarperCollins, 1986).

Dr. Craig Keener, Miracles Today (Baker, 2021). Medically verified organic healings.

Dr. Jack Deere, Surprised by the Voice of God, ch. 17: “Confessions of a Bible Deist.”

Dr. Kenneth J. Collins, Wesley on Salvation (Francis Asbury Press, 1989).

Dr. Randy Clark, Power to Heal (Destiny Image, 2015).

Joan Carroll Cruz, Mysteries Marvels Miracles (TAN Books), chs. 11, 22.

Herbert Thurston, The Physical Phenomena of Mysticism (Henry Regnery, 1952), ch. 5: “The Luminous Phenomena of Mysticism.”

John Paul Jackson, Naturally Supernatural (Streams, 2003).

American Gospel: Spirit and Fire, Season 1, Episode 4: “Bethel Redding: The Attraction.”