Mike Parsons –
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Pursuit, Priority and Intimacy
Lives of the Mystics
Most people in history who have had a mystic, intimate relationship with God have been those who were able to dedicate the time to it. Julian of Norwich lived in a cell attached to a monastery, or whatever it was. She lived in a small place with no TV or things to distract her in the same way as we do today. She did not have modern conveniences to make things quicker either, but that was her life. She focused on that.
Looking through history, the mystics are those who have gone and lived in a cave or whatever, and they have this relationship with God because they have not lived what we would call normal everyday life. But I do think it is possible to have an everyday life and live that from the relationship that we prioritise with God. So that everyday life is so much better than it would be without it.
Priority and Discipline
You are never going to have an intimate relationship with God if you do not pursue it as a priority, even if it is a small measure of time. For me, I always wanted to give God the best of my time. That would be when I got up, because nothing had happened in the day. I had slept all night, and I was ready to engage with God for the new day: new mercies every day, fresh mercies. Some people find the end of the day better. For me, it never was. So I chose to give that time at the beginning.
There is a sense of discipline in saying, “I am going to make this happen,” but not because I have to, or because I fear not doing it. That would be the wrong motive. It was because I wanted to, because I desired that relationship and intimacy. So for me, I would get up early and spend time with God before the house got busy with all the children and everything happening.
When I was a child, I was never a morning person. If I got up at eight o’clock, it felt early. But as I became an adult, I trained myself to be a morning person. When I wake up, I wake up. I do not stay in bed for another hour. I get up, alert and ready. I would go downstairs, find a quiet, comfortable place, sit in a chair, and engage with God. At the beginning, that looked like reading the Bible, praying, doing the things I had been taught. But God used that time to transform it into an intimate time of relationship, communication, and conversation.
From Discipline to Encounter
I started where I started, but that discipline served me well. When I then encountered heaven and began to engage God from a heavenly perspective, it was like, “Wow, I want more of this.” At first, I tried to record everything I was experiencing, which doubled the time it took. Until I learned to journal as I was going, I would finish and then write it all down.
So in the beginning, I thought, “I am going to get up an hour earlier.” I was not going to cut the time short. I was not going to lose the time I was having with God. So I got up earlier. As I learned to journal during the experience, I did not need to double the time anymore, so I did not need to get up quite as early.
The time I had with God reached a natural limit. An hour, or an hour and a half, was about as much as I could contain in terms of the revelation, the conversation, and what was happening. Three or four hours would have been too much. Having a mystic relationship where you spend five hours with God—there is so much happening, especially if heaven operates on a different timescale. How do you absorb all that? For me, I was able to engage within an hour and a half to two hours, depending on the day.
Pursuit Is the Evidence of Desire
But I had to pursue it. I think that is the key. A friend of mine used to say, “Pursuit is the evidence of desire.” You can say you desire something, but if you do not do anything about it, you do not really desire it. You might wish for it.
A true desire is a motivating force. With the right motive of heart, that desire led me to pursue it, and I experienced it. And that experience changed me.
That pursuit created a dynamic where I could live in the consciousness of that relationship without needing to spend all that structured time. It became a constant dwelling, an indwelling, an abiding presence: me abiding in that spiritual reality, learning to dwell in a multi-dimensional sense. That came out of pursuit.
Now I spend less time in what would traditionally be called a quiet time, but I have a deeper, more intimate relationship with God, because it is a constant awareness and sensitivity to His presence. That has meant I am enjoying life in its fullness, in its abundance, in a way I was not before.
If you do not pursue something, you are not going to find it. Why you pursue it is the key. Do not do it out of duty, obligation, fear, or performance. Do it out of desire: “I desire intimacy with God. I desire a deeper relationship.”
That desire led to radical decisions.
Surrender and Transformation
“God, do whatever you need to do in my life to bring me to that point. Get rid of everything that needs to be got rid of. Change my thinking. Heal my heart. Do whatever you need to do. I present myself as a living sacrifice. You prepare me.” And He did.
Every day, I would say, “God, I do not want my will today. I do not want to do things because I want to do them. I do not want a free will. I want to outwork Your heart.” For years, I would say, “I do not want a free will today. I do not want independent choices. I want to be intimate with You.” That shaped what I did, but it took a long time.
It is not like the Matrix, where you plug something into the back of your neck and suddenly you can do kung fu. If you want to learn kung fu, you have to train. You have to practise. You need a teacher. You go through a process. It is the same with God.
My desire meant I gave myself to whatever the process would be to bring me into a place of intimacy and identity, knowing who I am. But that is not why I went into it. I did not pursue God to find out who I am. That was a consequence of discovering who God is. Because in the mirror of His face, I began to see a different person from who I thought I was.
I did not pursue Him thinking, “I want to find my identity” or “I want to fulfil my destiny,” because that would be motivated by me. I just wanted Him.
A Normal Life, Not an Exceptional One
I do not believe I am out of the ordinary. I am a normal person who likes normal everyday things. I like sports. I like movies. I like making things. I like the garden. I enjoy normal life. I am not a mystic living in a cave somewhere. I have a very normal everyday life.
If I can do this, coming from the background I came from (which did not believe in the gifts of the Spirit, and had no real intimacy with God, or even a concept of what that might be), then I believe it is possible for everybody.
I am not more special than anyone else. We are all special to God. We are all created in His image. We are all His children. He wants all of us to enter into the fullness of our relationship with Him as our Dad.
No Excuses, Only Possibility
I do not think anyone can say, “Well, I cannot do that.” I believe all of us can pursue it to the degree that is possible within the circumstances of our lives, or make changes to how we use our time to prioritise it. I understand that people have different circumstances, different seasons of life, and different pressures.
But when I first started to engage heaven, I said, “God, I want to do this every day. I do not want this to be a one-off. I do not want to be telling the same testimony twenty years later about one experience.” I asked Him, “How do I live this? How does this become my life?”
He said to me, “You do it the way everyone else would have to do it.”
Because as a church leader, some people might say, “Well, that is easy for you. You can do whatever you like. You can sit in your office and pray all day.” But God said, do it in the same time that they would have to do it, before they go to work, so no one could say it was easier for me.
I did not develop that personal, intimate relationship in my office. I did it at home, in my chair. I outworked it in the office, but I did not develop it there. That was wise, because it removed the excuse that it was easier for me.
When It Feels Difficult
Some people say it is dry, it is hard, it does not seem to work. It was like that for me at times. There were times when I was trying to hear God’s voice and I could not hear anything. I was trying to meditate and did not know what I was doing. But I did not give up.
There was something inside me that wanted more. I always felt there must be more than this. That desire kept me going.
392. Training Your Spirit | Practical Steps to Engage with God
Learning to Hear
It took years to learn how to hear God’s voice. There were months where I was not hearing anything, but I kept going. Eventually, I learned to tune in, to listen, and to recognise His voice.
I am quite tenacious, and I do not give up easily. Some people give up too quickly if it does not happen straight away. We live in an instant, push-button culture: people want immediate results but with God, it is not like that. You cannot have an instant relationship with God. It is not a takeaway meal. You have to make it from scratch.
Some people find that difficult, and I understand that. But ultimately, there is no excuse. I started from a place that was quite disadvantaged when it came to anything mystical. I had no expectation, no emotional experience, no sense of intimacy with God. I believed it was true, but I did not feel anything.
The Turning Point: Encounter
That changed when I was baptised in the Spirit. Suddenly I began to feel—love, acceptance, connection. I remember thinking, “How did I live all my Christian life up to this point without feeling this?” But I had come from a background where feelings were frowned upon. People would say, “Do not go by your feelings, brother. Go by the Word.” That was the culture.
There were a few people who were emotional. There was one man, Howard, who was in the same men’s choir as me. He would cry and become emotional when singing about God’s love and grace.
People would say, “That is just Howard.” But actually, he was experiencing something real: the rest of us were just singing the words.
In the Methodist church, I did not see much emotional expression. In the Brethren church, even less, so that was not normal for me. But God overcame all those obstacles and barriers. He brought me into an emotional relationship with Him that went deeper and deeper and deeper.
So I do believe it is possible for everybody.
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Sons of Issachar 