On Saturday, March 12th 2011, I embarked on a journey that changed my life forever. Age 42, I had been a Christian for 29 years, suffered from depression for 35 years and was now on the verge of a mental breakdown. Being a Christian had not saved me, neither had praying and my version of trusting in God. Counselling had helped but it had not freed me and anti-depressants by the churches standards were public enemy number one.
On March 12th 2011, I took two months out to be alone with God, I was desperate. I was not looking for the God of church, rituals or routines, I was looking for the God I had encountered on a similar trip back in 2005 when I had taken 3 months out to be alone with Him.
In 2005, He had requested my company, fast forward to 2011, I was desperately requesting His. What happened on both trips was a far cry from the usual Sunday service, prayer meetings or church conference. Alone with God in a solitary quiet place I would become acquainted with what it meant to be still and know that He was God. I would come to understand the simplicity and amazing experience of encountering spiritual intimacy with a God of unconditional love. What started in 2005 was completed in 2011 and changed and saved my life.
My book God’s Romantic Getaway, journals my story and the impact coming away with God had and continues to have on my daily walk and my relationship with Him. My experiences were, deep, intimate, supernatural, amazing and phenomenal. There are not enough words in the English dictionary to describe my encounters.
Since 2015 I have hosted numerous 7-day getaways, entered on intimacy with God. The getaways impact the lives of those who attend them, in the same way, my time away with God impacts me. In 2018, it was impressed on my heart to host a monthly Away Day, a taster version of the 7 day getaway, where individuals could come away from the distractions of life and practice and make use of the teachings and more importantly have time to be alone with God in a way that would be impossible to achieve at home.
The bible speaks of Jesus frequently retiring to quiet places to be alone with His Father. If Jesus, who was part of the Trinity, the Son of God was unable to live on earth without carrying out this practice, what makes us think we can? We are two components, flesh, and spirit, living in one shell, our body. God is a spirit and those who desire to worship Him must do so in spirit and in truth. In order to do that to its fullest, our spirit needs time, quality time to connect with God, away from the things that cause the flesh to be easily distracted. This is known as spiritual intimacy, the essence of which is summed up in Psalm 46:10 – Be Still And Know That I Am God. The power is in the knowing.
I would love to put into words what happens in those moments, but it is hard to find words in our vocabulary to fully explains such encounters with God. We spend our lives rushing around, giving God short spouts of time here and there, surrounded by the clutter of our everyday lives, unaware of the blows our spirit is taking. God is fine with that, Jesus Himself was busy working and ministering. But like Jesus God expects us to frequently pull away to be with Him so that He can communicate with us spirit to spirit in a place where the flesh has limited power over us.
My desire and vision is to bring greater awareness to the world of what it truly means to be intimate with a supernatural God whose ways, thoughts, presence and encounters truly surpass anything you could think or imagine. Unless you have sat in God’s presence and heard Him speak and converse with you as clear as day in a place of rest, unless you have been still enough to surrender completely to His divine presence, unless like Jesus you have made taking time out and frequent retiring to a solitary place a priority in your life, you have no idea what it truly means to be intimate with God, no idea at all.
After 29 years of being a Christian, praying, attending church, singling on the choir, teaching Sunday school and more, on March 12th, 2011, I embarked on a journey that introduced me to true spiritual intimacy with God and I’ve never looked back!
Welcome to GRG Experience, we look forward to seeing you on one of our 7 day GRG Intimate Seclusion Retreats and our Away Day GRG Experience
