In 1994 I was told by the Spirit to preach. Preach what? I asked earnestly God to show me Father and Son and Holy Spirit, after searching my soul to be sure I was loving Jesus enough to be obeying Him as far as I could, considering the promise of Jesus of He and the Father showing themselves to the obedient. The answer came quickly over the space of weeks. A dream of God Himself came first where the appearance of God stood there before me saying "I am God" then telling me a sign for the next day and what to do. Weeks or days later, in January 1995 I was learning from scripture that the Lord presides over the floods and these floods come as judgements in the last days and there was a local severe flood in progress and torrential rain was falling. I read "Come and see the works of the Lord, the desolations He has wrought" so I went to a footbridge over the river nearby to see it in flood, standing in awe of God, and on the way back it rained in torrents without relenting. Cars drove past on the road and my huge umbrella kept me dry. A voice came clearly "Put down your umbrella!". I did not hesitate and as soon as I put it down that torrential rain stopped dead and not a spot touched me. "It is the Lord!" I told myself certain it was Jesus. (He came like that on the lake shore to see His disciples after His resurrection.) Later before sleeping I asked for a certain unlikely thing to happen by the morning to show me it was indeed Jesus. Halfway through the night He made it happen and unspeakable peace came over me. Days or weeks later a local preaching leader heard I had asked about any churches where the Holy Spirit was manifested like in the scriptures with gifts of the Spirit. He told me to come with him to an out of town church where I would certainly witness this. The leader there spoke a message in tongues that sounded angelic in beautiful sentences and each sentence became English in my head as I heard it. "Consider the trees how they put forth buds and leaves - they do this by the authority of the name of Lord Jesus Christ" was what I heard. There followed more about planets but I cannot remember it. Then the speaker himself said those very words in English. So now God had shown me Father and Son and Holy Spirit so I can speak to others confidently about what I have seen and heard. Praise God.
