John Wesley had been an ordained Anglican minister for over a decade by 1738. He had sailed to the American colonies as a missionary. He had fasted, prayed, studied, and served the poor with a discipline that impressed everyone except himself. By his own admission, he was a man who knew everything about God except what it felt like to actually trust him.
The Walk to Aldersgate Street
On May 24, 1738, Wesley almost didn't go out. He was in London, tired, and described himself as feeling spiritually flat. A friend convinced him to attend a small meeting on Aldersgate Street, where someone was reading aloud from Martin Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. Wesley sat and listened.
The Physical Sensation
At about 8:45 in the evening, Wesley felt something he had never experienced in all his years of ordained ministry. He described it with unusual specificity: "I felt my heart strangely warmed." Not a vision. Not a voice. A warmth — a physical sensation in his chest that he recognised as the presence of God in a way that bypassed his intellect and landed in his body.
The physical act here was not dramatic — it was the simple act of being present, of sitting in a room, of allowing his body to be still long enough to receive. After years of rigorous activity and spiritual striving, the breakthrough came when Wesley stopped doing and simply sat.
The Aftermath That Changed the World
That moment on Aldersgate Street launched the Methodist movement. Wesley went on to preach over 40,000 sermons, travel 250,000 miles on horseback, and establish a network of small groups that would grow into a denomination of over 80 million people worldwide. He credited it all to the night his heart was "strangely warmed" — the night his body caught up with what his mind had been trying to understand for years.
What This Means for You
Sometimes the physical act is not grand. It is the act of showing up — walking through a door, sitting in a chair, staying in a room when everything in you wants to leave. Presence itself can be the physical act through which everything changes.