God has satisfied my spiritual hunger in a measure, but I am not perfectly satisfied yet. I am satisfied
that I have found the source of all life and truth, but I recognize that there is much more. There is yet
before us an expansive field of spiritual reality. We are to venture there with the Holy Spirit to make
our discoveries.
Our present field of spiritual life and experience is the place to which God has brought us as a
preliminary training school for the ages that are yet to come. It is in the “here and now” that we are to
make certain qualifications for our placement in the eternal ages. These qualifications will not be given
to us, spontaneously, when we get there. We must qualify for this future placement, ËÂÚÂ in time.
Then, in the eternal ages, that which has been acquired through discipline and training, through the
surrender of our old life to the resurrection of the new, all of this will be projected upon another plane
of living in ages yet to come. Whatever we acumen in our life here of spiritual vigor, strength, and
vision, that is all that God will take of us.
The method by which this is built will come through our reactions to the Word, our life circumstances,
and to the movings of the Holy Spirit. These are the mechanics. All this will be used to trace upon our
immortal spirit something even remotely of the image and likeness of His Son. This is the thing that
the Lord is after in the here and now.
We must have a correct perspective. Instead of moving toward objectives which God has not put
before us, we are to have our vision focused so that all this shall accumulate unto God, not some lesser
thing. God is very busy building His Body, training it, doing a thousand things with it, so that at the day
when it will be lifted up, there will be something glorious and beautiful to be presented.
All of us have a certain degree of spiritual hunger. Our hunger rests on certain levels of spiritual
development and growth. In the realm of the Holy Spirit, there is to be a continual, progressive
development in our spiritual living, moving us up from one place of discovery and life on to another
place of discovery and life, and on to another. This speaks of "The spiritual ascent of our being back to
the heart of God." We do not belong here; we are here on probation, for just a few fleeting years of
training and discipline, then we will be taken.
In this ascent of going back again to the heart of God, we continually move from one level of spiritual
understanding and experience to another. This is determined by the amount of spiritual life,
illumination, and response which we are able to gain and render back to God on the level upon which
He has projected us for the time being. We learn our lessons through these experiences, as we are
reacting agents. We were made this way in the structural law of our being so this might be possible.
I have some very real spiritual experiences in God. However, this does not make me less practical in
my daily pattern of life experience. I have discovered that I must order my steps as I walk with the
Lord. Then He guides my path; continually disciplining, training, and pushing me into a new order. Our
progress in this will be determined by the degree of spiritual hunger which is registered within us.
God can create this spiritual hunger; we cannot. The only thing that we can do is to hold up the
possibilities that God has for us. We become spiritually hungry on different levels. Sometimes we say,
"Oh, I know that, I have heard it before; tell me something new." We must come to realize that there
are a thousand facets of light in this glorious gem of redemption. Who can hope to ever think that we
will possess all of this light and illumination? No, we are yet very human, and our capacity of reception
has not been sufficiently enlarged.
As we hold the measure of spiritual hunger that we presently have before the Lord and allow Him to
accomplish within us all that this measure of hunger will allow, then He will be able to enlarge our
capacity. This will be repeated again and again until we have come to the place where we are able to
hear Him say to us, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few
things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord" Matt 25:21.
Now I understand why I had to go through these times of testing, discipline, and enlargement. He was
creating within me the capacity to enter into the vastness of joy. Finally, my hunger has found its
satisfaction.
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John Follette (1883 - 1966)
Follette was a gifted Bible teacher and author, who had both perspective and spiritual depth in his interpretation of the Word. He was an illuminated spirit in the field of spiritual reality, and had an unusual ability to impart “spirit and life” into those who sat under his ministry.He received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit in 1913 while a student at a Bible School in Rochester, New York, and later became a teacher there until the school closed. He also taught for many years at Southern California Bible College. During the later years of his life, he was called into a wider field, ministering in conferences and retreats which took him around the world. He passed into his eternal reward in 1966 at the age of 82.