Dear Theophilus,

He desires to encounter you here and now.

His Presence is made available and He desires to be with you here and now.

Because we have a jealous God: a God that desires to be with you in every moment, to love you, to fight for you, and to have every good thing for you.

And as someOne in love, He longs to be with you in every moment. To be in the day to day, to be at your side in all that you do, and to be a part of everything that you are.

And just as any relationship, the more that you spend time with someone, the more that you get to know them and the more you become like them.

He is spending time with us so that we can become more like Him and so we can be loved by Him.

He longs to be with you, and for you to be with Him.

This is something that the Lord has been working in a new way in my heart, and it has made life so much more exciting and new. I know that He wants to be with me, but in a new way He desires to encounter me every single day.

ENCOUNTER: to meet face-to-face with.

He doesn’t want His encounter with you to be an interaction, something that happened by random chance, or a one-night stand. No, He desires to meet face-to-face with you, to come so close and to lock eyes with you; He never wants to look away.

And in encountering Him, we are changed. Whether you can see / feel it, every time that you encounter Him, He does something new and so beautiful and different.

And yes, He wants to meet us in churches and chapels and services, but He also wants to encounter us in the grocery store, in public bathrooms, in a classroom, at concerts, everywhere.

Who are we to say where we can encounter Him and where we cannot?

He is an omnipotent Person that transcends time and space, yet is so intentional and intimate that He would meet us here and now, in a way that speaks directly to you so that you would know how loved you are by Him.

Because when people encounter a Person that truly sees, knows, and loves them, authentically and wholly, they are forever changed. Because the thing, the One, they have been looking for has been found and there is such intimacy and beauty there.

He wants to woo and romance you, He wants to get close to you so that you would feel His breath, know His Heartbeat, and to be with Him.

And He wants to meet you and encounter you right here and now.

This has been a prayer on my heart that I would be ‘interrupted’ by His Presence so that I could encounter Him in a new way. No matter the hour of the day, or the moment, or the conversation, I just wanted to know Him more.

About 2 weeks ago, I went to an Ed Sheeran concert with one of my friends. The Lord spoke so clearly to me that we were going to encounter Him and be a vessel for others to encounter Him. I laughed a little bit: really? You’re showing up at an Ed Sheeran concert? But He spoke in power and gentleness and I had the opportunity to trust.

Fast forward, my friend and I have standing seats on the floor, so we are about 30 feet away from the stage. We are surrounded by 100s of other people. But behind us, there is a sweet mother and daughter, about 50 and 30 years old. We get to talking with them and having fun with them, and then they began to share how they were fallen away Catholics. They saw the way that we as Catholics living faithfully were having free, pure fun and they were thrown off a little by it. They saw the way that we intentionally sought after them in conversation and loved and celebrated them. I believe that they encountered Jesus through us that night.

The Lord wants you to know that it is so possible that when people encounter you that they will encounter Him. That is why He has given us the Holy Spirit and has commissioned us: so that we would be His hands and feet and so that others would know Him by us knowing them. What a gift and a privilege.

Anyways, further into the concert, the Lord was just speaking to me so clearly that He was so close and wanted to encounter me. He told me to look at my hands, and I saw that my hands were covered in gold dust and oil (a heavenly manifestation that God’s Presence is here and close). In between Khalid and Ed Sheeran sets playing, in a crowd of 60,000 people, in the mess and sweat and drunkenness of others, God chose to show up and to encounter me, for His Presence to come in a huge way.

I walked away from that night, knowing that Jesus wants to encounter me in every moment, but I am so often choosing to put my head down and do the life thing by myself, that I forget to look up and to see the Man with eyes of fiery love looking at me with such intentionality and pursuit.

Theophilus, He wants to encounter you right here and now: while you are reading this, while you are with your kids, while you are doing whatever.

He wants to encounter you because He wants to love you.

It’s just that simple.

And sure, it can be a huge and extravagant thing, but it can also be a simple whisper of His love to you.

Theophilus, I don’t want you to miss the millions of encounters that He has for you each and every day. I want you to receive and know and live in all that He has for you in each and every moment