Holy, Holy, Holy - sure?

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that I want & we should want more of God's presence - by this I mean His manifest presence (accepting, but not referring to the fact that He can (if I allow Him to) constantly dwell within me by the Spirit).

Now to my dilemma - I'm not sure we know what we're asking for when we ask for this. I've sat in too many meetings where people with correct motives have invited God's presence to come amongst us. I haven't sat in many meetings where that has been introduced alongside a sober judgement of what that might look like. Let me illustrate

The first few verses of Isaiah 6 give us an insight into what it's like to be in God's perfectly Holy presence

• angels who themselves are pretty holy are using 4 of their 6 wings to protect themselves
• 2 for their face
• 2 for their feet
• they call back & forth to each other (Holy, Holy, Holy) so loud that the foundations of the building tremble
• paraphrasing Isaiah himself, his take on matters is...'oh crap, I'm about to die', admittedly having "looked God in the face"

At the beginning of 2010, Christian Centre (Nottingham) sat under some great teaching around being presence carriers & from this came a season during which there was an intensification of God's manifest presence.

There were two occasions during this period when I was genuinely scared to step into the building, in case we had an Isaiah 6 moment. I'm not sure we should live in that place all the time, I'm not even sure whether 'scared' is the appropriate word. I am convinced however, that we need to have the correct attitude when we ask Him to join us.

May we all experience more of God in every way possible & have the awe that goes hand-in-hand with approaching Him.

Jonathan