What is a Quest?

So you want to know what a Quest is?  I understand, been there done that, got the tee-shirt.  A Quest is a spiritual adventure!  It is literally a life-altering God encounter!  A supernatural experience with the living God!  If you hear or read some Quester testimonies one recurring theme is that it is a life-changing experience.  A Quest is where you personally go to a place with God where you have never gone before. 

Father says that if you seek Him you will find Him.  A Quest is about teaching men how to seek God like they have never sought Him before. 

I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me.  Prov 8:17 KJV

Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. James 4:8  KJV

Father says that His children know His voice and a stranger they will not follow.  A Quest is about teaching men how to hear, discern and obey the voice of the Lord their God and receiving the blessing that comes from obeying.

 “… and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice.  And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.”  John 10:4-5  KJV

Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse;  A blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you this day:  Deut 11:26-27  KJV

To ask what a Quest is, is like asking “What is God”?  How can a mere man begin to effectively communicate God?  It is like asking how a spiritually saved man could ever fully communicate who God is to an unsaved man?  The truth is, it is impossible in the natural.  The natural man (mind) cannot receive the things of the spirit. 

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.  1 Cor 2:14  KJV

Not because he doesn’t want to but because he can’t.  It takes a revelation in the spirit similar to Peter receiving the revelation that Jesus was the Son of God.  Jesus said that man (flesh and blood) had not revealed this to him, but His Heavenly Father. 

17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.  Matt 16:17  KJV

To explain what a Quest is or what happens on a Quest is a futile attempt to reduce the Almighty God down to mere human words or another way to put it is to endeavor to communicate the supernatural to the natural.  It is called “SUPERnatural” because it is so far and high above our ability to comprehend in the minute human mind.

Sometimes it is easier to begin to try to attempt to answer the question “What is a Quest” by determining what a Quest is not.  By definition a Quest is anything but a retreat.  The root definition of “retreat” is from an old military term:

1. The act or process of withdrawing, especially from something hazardous, formidable, or unpleasant.

2. The process of going backward or receding from a position or condition gained.

So a Quest is anything but a treat.  It is about advancing not retreating, it is about advancing in God, in His Kingdom and advancing on the kingdom of darkness.  I believe anyone having attended a Quest would whole-heartily agree that a Quest is anything but a retreat by that definition.

The Christian world has coined a new definition of the word retreat and the world has embraced it “as a shelter or place affording peace, quiet, privacy, or security or a period of seclusion, retirement, or solitude.  A period of group withdrawal for prayer, meditation, or study: a religious retreat”.  But even with that new Christianeeze definition, the true root definition is one of “running-away from” not running to something and a Quest is about running to God to Quest after the heart of God. 

Now that we have determined what a Quest is not lets at least look at what a quest is by definition.

Quest  n.

1. The act or an instance of seeking or pursuing something; a search.

2. An expedition undertaken in medieval romance by a knight in order to perform a prescribed feat: the quest for the Holy Grail (and in our case a Holy God).

A huge part of a Quest is about trust, more then likely you are inquiring about Quest as a result of one, if not several people, sharing their experience and encouraging you to go on a Quest.  The reason I say a huge part of a Quest is about trust is because of this question “do you trust the people that are encouraging you to Quest or adventure after God”?  If the answer is yes, you need to understand that they love you and want you to experience a heightened level with God that they have experienced.  Part of the problem they have, is the same problem that I have with this article, they can not and will not ever be able to fully explain their “mountain top experience” with God in mere finite human words.  You just need to ask yourself, “Do I trust so and so and do I believe they love me enough to receive what they are saying to me or not saying to me by faith”?

A fairly deceit way to try to explain what happens on a Quest is to look at Moses and his mountaintop experience.  Moses on the mountaintop received the Word of the Lord and came down glowing with the presence of God to the point that he veiled his face.  The man had encountered the living God.  Another testimony from the spouses of men and women that go on Quest is that that they could see a change in the countenances (faces) of their spouses when they got off the bus.

And the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face shone: and Moses put the vail upon his face again, until he went in to speak with him.  Ex 34:35  KJV

You know what?  I’m not so sure that part of the reason he broke the first set of the Ten Commandments was so he could have an excuse to go back to have another mountaintop experience.  It happens all the time at Fellowship of the Sword.  Men go on Quest and then return to serve as voluntary staff.  In my humble opinion one of the greatest testimonies to FTS is the fact that for each Quest or HeartQuest there are about 6 to 10 men or women that take several days of their personal vacation time away from their families to go back and serve (work) to be a part of what God is doing through FTS.  What a testimony to the goodness of our God and what he has done in their lives!

A Quest is a spiritual adventure!  It is literally a life-altering God encounter!  A supernatural experience with the living God!  It is where you personally go to a place with God where you have never gone before.  Some people have commented on the secrecy aspect of a Quest.  This is true.  There is a Fellowship of the Sword saying that “What happens on a Quest stays on a Quest”.  There is a very high level of loyalty and confidentiality that takes place between the men that go on a Quest together.  So not only does “What happens on a Quest stay on a Quest”, but the question arises should “What happens on a Quest, be happening to you”.  Register for your Quest for the heart of the living God>>>

Take the high ground,

Frank Lugenheim