You’ll Never Forget This

He told us to bow our heads and close our eyes.  I sat there staring at the floor.  There was no carpet in the little camp chapel, just dirty plywood.

“Young people, Jesus is here in this place and He wants to touch you with his spirit.”

As he said that, something deep inside of me knew it was true.  I could feel Jesus.  I knew he was there.  

“What you’re feeling right now is real. If you’re sensing something, I want you to come forward for prayer”

No one was responding. I was thinking there was no way I was going forward, but I couldn’t get away from what I was feeling.  Jesus was right by me and I knew it, and I knew I needed to go forward.

I stood and began to walk towards the front.  A boldness began to rise in me that didn’t even care what anyone thought.  When I got to the front, others were there too.  We all knelt together.  A moment later I felt a hand on my head, and could hear someone praying for me.  I started to cry.  Then a person whispered in my ear,

“You’ll never forget this”

I haven’t.  I’ve gone back to that moment in that little chapel at Camp Crestview in Corbett, Oregon a million times.  I was only 12 years old, but it was there that I learned how to sense God’s presence and to respond to the leading of the Holy Spirit, to have courage when he’s telling me to do something that’s out of my comfort zone.

It’s amazing how many people tell me of similar experiences at camp.  It’s something about being somewhere remote, away from their families, surrounded with other young people, hating the food, and not feeling necessarily spiritual, that they encountered God in way they’ve never forgotten. 

Certainly God can and wants to reach people of any age, but he particularly loves to reach people while they’re young.  Before their lives are marred with sin and futility, he wants them to hear his voice calling them.  He wants to soften them with his love and energize them with his destiny. 

“While he was still young, the Lord came and called, ‘Samuel! Samuel!’ And Samuel replied, ‘Speak, your servant is listening.’  Then the Lord spoke to Samuel…As Samuel grew up, the Lord was with him, and everything Samuel said proved to be reliable.” (1 Samuel 3:10, 19)

 God is still calling young men and women today.  I’m praying whoever reads this would consider helping, encouraging, even paying for a young person(s) to go to camp.  Not any particular camp, but just a place that is welcoming God’s spirit to come and touch their lives in way they’ll never forget.