It can happen to anyone, anytime -- without any rhyme or reason. Deserving has nothing to do with it. It can happen even if you haven't earned it -- or at least, not earned it in human terms.
I know this is true, because it happened to me.
In my case, I was certainly not someone who had earned an encounter with the Divine. I am as ordinary as you can possibly be, maybe more so. I have made countless mistakes in my life. I still do.
Nevertheless, on one particular day-- following a moment when timeandspace turned its face to the wall-- Something Unearthly crossed my path.
There is no point in asking why. That there is a reason, I am certain -- but I am equally sure the reason is not one that can translate into human language. So, as with all imponderables, I assume the reason will unfold itself later, when I have reached a more expanded level of consciousness.
Since I have absolutely no explanation for this occurrence, there is no reason for you to believe it happened; in fact, if you are skeptical about spiritual matters in general, you probably won't. But there are many of you, I know, who have touched base --more than once-- with things Unseen but There. You are the ones who will sense this encounter was real.
In plain language what happened was that some years ago I was lying in bed woefully ill from something or other. Woefully. I recall I was having trouble breathing, in fact. I also recall the word "Help!" issuing from my heart as a general SOS to the universe.
I didn't believe help would come, I was simply asking for it.
Then I remember a deep huge breath suddenly emerging from Nowhere and entering my lungs. It was an immense breathing, and the sheer force of it invested my entire being with fuel. Immediately afterwards, my inhaling and exhaling became even and regular and sweet. And from across the room, I felt a vast borderless wave of warm Light advancing toward the bed. It rolled over me, over the bed, over the whole room in a kind of torrential sweep, incorporating everything in its wake. For a few minutes my body was swimming in this sea of what, for lack of a better word, seemed to be Love.
But I was more than swimming in it, really. I was irrevocably connected to it. The vast wave and my little self were not two. After several numinous minutes the wave receded, and I was left there on my bed, stunned, aghast, uncomprehending. And completely healthy. This immeasurable energy had swept away all pain, illness, discomfort. It had also swept away a thousand everyday concepts stored in my mind, and left me alight with wholeness.
The impact of this experience was so deep and so real that I was never the same again. Fortunately. Previously a person who had tiptoed around on spiritual ground, I was now committed to full steps. And it's easy to see why. After all, you can't encounter a stunning new dimension and then remain content with the same old three dimensional universe. Moving forward becomes a given.
Before this moment happened, I was, as I say, an ordinary person with ordinary human beliefs. No strange mystical gifts lay hidden under my surface. A little poetry, perhaps, that's all. So long before this Visit occurred and pushed me onto the path towards Home, I did what most beings do: I bumbled along wondering why life was so tough. Like everyone else, I believed that the three dimensional world was the realest thing around; but a hard place to live in. As for God, my guess was He some kind of dessert you got after you died.
I was wrong.
God is not some kind of dessert. God is the entire meal: the entree, the potatoes, the wine, the salad, the broccoli and the banana cream pie. And more: God is the table, the restaurant, the chairs, the street, the city, the universe. God is the parking meter.
God is All There Is.