I’ll never forget the first time I experienced Adoration. I went into the room not really understanding God or what faith was truly about.

I had been going to church since I was a child, I’d gone through a Catholic school and been at regular youth groups, but for me, it was a ‘community thing’ not a ‘spiritual thing’. I knelt in this room as everyone else did, and I look up at the altar. Music starts to play, some worship song I’d heard before.

But something was different about this night. I was there for other reasons I wasn’t there to pray I was there to socialise with my friends afterwards. But something was different.

I remember saying simply as the Eucharist was exposed, “Jesus if you’re real I want you to show me.” I closed my eyes and something over took me. The feeling I had was as if all the good feelings in my life were happening at once. I was overwhelmed and moved by something I hadn’t experienced before.

That’s when I heard the Lord speak to me and say, “I love you, and I forgive you.” Tears erupted from my eyes as the feeling of being truly loved and valued by God settled upon me.

I was kneeling, arms out stretched, crying like I never had before, and I was unashamed. God stepped into my life and changed me that day. He stepped in and moved the course of my life, and I am so glad he did.

Since then I have always loved Adoration. It is this beautiful opportunity to come face to face with Jesus. An old man who went to adoration regularly was asked one day “what do you say when you are in Adoration?” his reply was simple, “I just let him look upon me as I look upon him.” 

Written by Odyn McInnes from Ignite Youth, he will be presenting at this years Ignite Conference.