Glorious Discomfort

You could tell by their faces. At certain moments during each service you just knew by looking at people that they felt uncomfortable. 

Nobody looked mad. Certainly nobody looked indifferent, for Dan Bohi's preaching - better said, the Spirit's movement - created an atmosphere in which it was impossible to be bored or inattentive. When God really shows up it is impossible to avoid reckoning with and sensing his Spirit even if he is rejected. While somebody listening to Dan would have to work hard at not being affected by him (that is, his instant recall of scripture, his passion for God, his size, his humor), it is virtually impossible to avoid knowing that Another is in the room with him, even speaking to him as he speaks.

So at first it is easy to be captured by Dan. He resembles my images of Jeremiah, Daniel, Amos, Hosea, and even John the Baptist: by turns unconventional, intuitive, forceful, broken, loud, silent - and remarkably transparent, even like a child in his belief that God can do anything. Dan is paying a price; he reads the Bible completely through every month, spends much time listening to God and memorizes scripture. 

But soon enough, in every service, Dan just melts away and you are left with God and his Word on your hands. This is the remarkable thing: Dan shows up to preach, and then God shows up in such a way as to be unavoidably present. And when you know you are in the presence of God it creates a specific discomfort. Dan is only Dan. Prophets come, prophets go. But God - he is something Else, something Other and, while introduced by his sometimes meddlesome, irksome, troublesome prophets, you get the feeling that God is just hanging out waiting to be acknowledged. You have the weird feeling that you can easily dismiss Dan if you just don't like something about him like his lack of credentialing and formal theological training. It does not exist. It probably didn't exist in many of the Old Testament/New Testament prophets either. You also have the weird feeling that he is representing Someone who cannot be dismissed without paying a price.  That is what creates discomfort.

Such as the services when he asked if anybody wanted to be either saved or sanctified or reassured of their place with God and three fourths of the church, who at least know something of these states of grace - including ministers, stepped forward to the altar.

Such as the services when he asked if anybody wanted to be healed, and hundreds of people asked for deliverance from physical, emotional, mental, and relational illness.

Such as the services when he asked for people to confess in their heart any sin or bondage that was separating them from God and creating brokenness in their lives. Some went immediately to the altar to pray. One person stood, and with arms raised, stated openly that the memory of being sexually abused as a child had been carried for over 40 years. Dan momentarily stopped preaching and asked people to surround her in prayer. Someone else began shouting in praise. While public confession was not requested, this very public statement created an unsettled feeling, and, judging by the looks on the faces of others, left us wondering what was coming next. It was a glorious discomfort considering what God was doing in healing.

So is all this real? Is it fabricated? Is it mere emotionalism? Like Gamaliel's response to the Pharisees who wanted to put Peter and the apostles to death, "If their purpose is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God you will not be able to stop these men." Whatever it is, it is unlike anything I have seen in well over a half century. When has it been that the Church of the Nazarene in the U.S. has witnessed God in such expression?

Don't be afraid. God will show up wherever there is great faith and obedience. And God of necessity brings conviction, which, if the shoe fits, is very uncomfortable just before it is gloriously liberating! God was doing a new work on the Illinois District.