You are blessed, my brother! During one of my agonies, after I laid hold of God but couldn't understand what was happening to me, I searched through the lives of Godly men whom God used and came across Charles Finney's writing from one of his Revival Lectures - On Being Filled with the Spirit. Here's an excerpt of what lightened my heart (a bit lengthy):
"So it was when Christ was on earth... if you are filled with the Spirit of God."
"You must expect very frequent and agonizing conflicts with Satan. Satan has very little trouble with those Christians who are not spiritual, but lukewarm, and slothful, and worldly-minded. And such do not understand what is said about spiritual conflicts. Perhaps they will smile when such things are mentioned. And so the devil lets them alone. They do not disturb him, nor he them. But spiritual Christians, he understands very well, are doing him a vast injury, and, therefore, he sets himself against them. Such Christians often have terrible conflicts. They have temptations that they never thought of before, blasphemous thoughts, atheism, suggestions to do deeds of wickedness, to destroy their own lives, and the like. And if you are spiritual, you may expect these terrible conflicts."
"You will have greater conflicts with yourself than you ever thought of. You will sometimes find your own corruptions making strange headway against the Spirit. "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh." Such a Christian is often thrown into consternation at the power of his own corruptions. One of the Commodores in the United States was, as I have been told, a spiritual man; and his pastor told me he had known that man lie on the floor and groan a great part of the night, in conflict with his own corruptions, and to cry to God in agony that he would break the power of the temptation. It seemed as if the devil was determined to ruin him; and his own feelings, for the time being, was almost in league with the devil."
"But you will have peace with God. If the church, and sinners, and the devil oppose you, there will be one with whom you will have peace. Let those who are called to these trials, and conflicts, and temptations, and who groan, and pray, and weep, and break your hearts, remember this consideration: your peace, so far as your feelings towards God are concerned, will flow like a river."
A. W. Tozer shared a similar message in his sermon on the same topic:
"It is loneliness for God. You will want God so badly you will be miserable. This means you are getting close, friend. You are near the kingdom, and if you only keep on, you will meet God. God will take you in and fill you, and He will do it in His own blessed and wonderful way."
God bless you, my brother! Numbers 6:24-26.
