Basking in His Presence (1)

Basking in His Presence (1)

Human beings were made to love, and most of us spend our lives looking for a love that will satisfy. But there is only one love relationship that will do that, and it's not talked about very much. In this book Bill Volkman talks about it. He calls Christians to "intimate, on-going love affair" with the Lord, our Lover. He says that human beings are called "to experience the ecstasy of being in love with our Beloved. Life is a call to be. It is a call to become totally lost in our God. Our focus must shift from what we get out of life to offering ourselves as a gift to our Lover. s stop spending all our time learning about God and working for Him. This is a challenging book -- even for people who have had a long-term relationship with the Lord -- and is for anyone who is seeking a deeper relationship. Why read this book? Because it is a joyous book. It is a practical book. It points a way to fuller cooperation with God through the practice of centering prayer. It is wonderfully encouraging, helpful and hopeful. I hated to come to the end of it, because I found myself longing for God as I read it and settling into deeper trust and expectation of God's love in me. This book invites believers to deepen their relationship with the Lord, and to participate ever more authentically in life. -- Jeannette A. Bakke, PhD, D.Min. Born in 1925 in the western suburbs of Chicago to an immigrant German family, Bill Volkman is the youngest of three brothers (one is his twin). After four years as an instructor of navigation in Naval Aviation in World War 2, and five years at Northwestern University Business and Law Schools, he started his career as a tax attorney with a national accounting firm in Chicago. His training to be a CPA and attorney opened a wide range of doors in the years that followed C including ten years as an Associate Professor of Business and Economics at Wheaton College (Illinois), a private law and accounting practice, as well as broad experience as a real estate broker, insurance broker, general contractor and real estate developer. Raised in a family of devout Baptists, Bill' s early years were filled with family prayer, Bible study, church attendance and evangelism. His search for a deep and meaningful religious life took him on a journey that included a number of years as a charismatic, followed by a few more years with a ministry that developed an intensive system of Scriptural principles to live by. When these principles proved as inadequate as anything else he' d tried to live by, Bill discovered that the essential truth of the Gospel that he had for so long proclaimed was simply "Christ in you, the hope of glory." Thrilled with this new insight of the Christian' s union with Christ, in 1974 Bill immediately began the bi-monthly " Union Life" magazine to share this liberating secret. In 1983 he published his first book, "Wink of Faith," chronicling his story up to that time. It went into a second printing in 1988. Over the next few years, Bill's experience of reading, writing and publishing from the deeper-Christian life perspective led him to the writings of the people of faith throughout the ages, especially those from the contemplative tradition. In 1990, he found in the works of the monastics what he had always been seeking: the promise of intimacy with the creator God, an awareness of his belovedness, a new way of seeing, and the gradual healing of his soul. The vehicle for this was the simple prayer of silence -- contemplative prayer which he immediately made his daily practice. In 1995 Bill felt it was time to begin work on his second book, " Basking in His Presence" #(c)C to share, from his new perspective, the good news of unconditional love. Published in 1996, this book reveals that, until 1990, Bill had never grasped that the Gospel was intended to be experiential so that he could know God intimately, and know that God loved him unconditionally. Through the simple faith practice of silent prayer this man who had sought God all his life discovered what he had been seeking. From the Epilogue Basking In His Presence" is my call to the Church to return to the prayer of silence. It's a call to contemplative prayer; a call to centering prayer; a call to behold Christ within; a call to practice His presence; a call to be still; a call to wordless prayer; a call to experience Christ praying through us; a call to a tryst with our Lover. One of the most well-known and loved hymns of the Church is "In the Garden." I frequently preface my times of basking in His presence with these personalized words from that song: And You walk with me, And You talk with me, And You tell me I am Your own, And the joy we share, As we tarry there, None other has ever known. And as I have practiced the prayer of silence, this has been my experience Cincomparable joy, joy unspeakable. Lovers through the ages are convinced that their love is an incomparable love. They have written and sung about that love. Most of us