Clarity
Taking a break from CS Lewis and reading AW Tozer instead. What I just read seems to tie in precisely to the last discussion on what it means to be a Christian.
You can go through the whole routine of the church and never have an experience at all like this. You can learn to say "God is love" when you're a wee little thing; you can get a Bible for passing from one grade to another; you can get big enough to make a speech in a Sunday school program; you can get old enough to sing in a choir, join a church and be baptized. You can teach a class, entertain missionaries and learn to tithe, giving of your money to the work of the Lord. You can be faithful and yet never have an experience of the great God breaking in upon your consciousness, but living always once removed from God.
In the Old Testament, when Absalom returned from exile, he went for two full years without ever seeing the king's face (2 Samuel 14:28). And that's what happens in the churches. But when God becomes real to us, we are affected; we are touched by what is called the mysterium tremendum - a tremendous mystery - that is, God.
I can say with certainty that I have been touched by God. He is as real to me as the three boys that I kiss and hug every night. I don't think I articulate it very well nor express it clearly in the way that I live my life. But I am trying....