As a college student I was desperately seeking the Lord Jesus Christ and His will for me. I was a straight A student and a member of several national honor societies. I had had a deep personal experience of the Lord the summer before while passing through a crisis experience in my life, and I wanted to continue to know and experience the Lord deeply.
I had been meeting with a campus Christian organization fairly regularly but now their meetings and literature seemed superficial and did not satisfy the spiritual hunger and thirst within me. I began going from Christian group to Christian group seeking the Lord and where He wanted me to be. I wanted God’s will to be done in my life above everything else. I attended campus Christian groups, fundamental Bible denominations, Christian “free” groups that met in homes, and Christian charismatic groups. At a Catholic charismatic group I saw on display some books by Watchman Nee. As I read them I was amazed at the spiritual experience and depth within them. What I read matched what the Lord had been speaking to me inwardly and through the Bible.
About the same time, a fellow student in the women’s honor dormitory in which I lived invited me to a meeting of the local church in the city where we were located, a group of Christians who had been helped very much by the ministry of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee, one of Watchman Nee’s fellow workers in the Lord. I met with them several times and saw they met together in the Lord according to the truth in the Bible and they loved the Lord Jesus deeply. My inward registration in the Lord was that my search had ended and that this was where the Lord wanted me to meet. The desperate seeking in me was satisfied and I felt peaceful inwardly for the first time in months.
As I listened to Witness Lee (a dear brother in the Lord who had loved and followed the Lord and His Word for years and had been a coworker of Watchman Nee until Watchman Nee’s death) expound the Bible, I received much revelation and spiritual nourishment from the Word. Things in the Bible I had never understood were being made clear. My love for the Lord and His Word and my desire to consecrate my life to the Lord and to serve Him increased. I began to see and continue to see matters in the Bible of tremendous import which I had barely noticed before such as: the Body of Christ, the building up of the Lord’s church in this age, the millennial kingdom, the New Jerusalem, the Lord’s second coming and our need to be prepared for it “as a bride adorned for her Husband” (Rev. 21:2) by being the wise virgins and faithful stewards (Matthew 24 & 25).
I thank and worship the Lord for bringing me to a group of believers who love Him deeply, love His Word (the Bible), desire His will to be done on earth, and enjoy Him personally day by day.
B.D.