I can't exactly say when it started. Perhaps it was sometime during the reading of my last book called "Face to Face with God"? But, as of late, I have such a burning desire for His presence that consumes my every quiet waking moment.
Even when I am exhausted and ready to sleep as my head hits the pillow at night, I am awakened spiritually and hungry for His presence, asking Him to come. My first waking thoughts in the morning are prayers like, "God, please come".

From the reading I have done both Biblically and many other books, it seems to me that His presence causes people to feel like they will die. Many talk about a fire inside them that feels like it will kill them, others become like dead men and cannot move. Whatever the accompanying emotion, it seems His presence is both fearful and wonderful, and I want to know it.

Part of me wants to experience Him to know Him more, and part of me knows that I cannot encounter Him without many things in me dying. So I too desire this second effect. The death of, "things" that prevent me from encountering Him.

What one would call this experience I am not totally sure. I think in my small understanding I need to be baptized by the Holy Spirit or in the Holy Spirit. I believe I could experience God and not necessarily be baptized in the Holy Spirit, but I crave both. I feel like I do not want to carry on any kind of ministry without the baptism of the Holy Spirit as it seems absolutely essential in being effective in the kingdom of God. So much so that one man in the new testament, hungry for the power he saw, tried to buy it. During Jesus' baptism with John the Baptist, the Spirit descended on Him in the form of a dove. It seemed that this, "resting of the Holy Spirit" on him launched Him into His ministry.
That is what I want; the Spirit to descend on me!

I know I have experienced God in many many times of worship and prayer. I have seen Him move through me in these ways, but not really in the capacity of raising the dead and healing the lame and blind. So whatever is going on, I am consumed with a thirst for Him, and His presence. I am hungry for an encounter that will leave me shaking in holy fear and changed from the inside out. So if any of you are gifted in calling out to God for encounters such as these, I gladly welcome your prayers!