The Lord has always been good to me these many years. Wish I could say the same of my treatment of Him, but He loves me and continues to lead me gently along. As much to encourage others as to remind myself of His kindness, I am recording these stories. Each major heading is like a chapter in my life.
God is real!
Matthew 9:36 says,
And he took a child, and set him in the midst of them: and when he had taken him in his arms,
I have only a very few early memories, as I suppose most people do. Now don’t laugh, but my first memory is of the mobile in my crib. It was one of those wind up contraptions that goes around and around to keep an infant interested, and therefore quiet. Nowadays, they make these things of bright balls, Pooh bears, cars, sporting equipment, and all sorts of things. Mine was metal birds, and I can remember watching it spin above me. I’ve tried looking for them online, but have never seen the type that I hold in my memory.
My other early memory was when I was just over two years old. Mom used to have my brother, Chris, and I kneel with her beside our couch to say our prayers. On this occasion, Mom had told us that we were going to have another baby in the family. I prayed and asked God for a “baby sister.” My brother asked for a teddy bear.
Well, a few months later my sister was born. And at that point, just shy of being three years old, I knew that God was real! And I knew that He answers prayer!
As far as I know, there have been only a handful of days have gotten by without me spending some time in prayer, and, even at the ripe old of age of 42, I often hearken back to when He first took the time to make Himself known in answered prayer to a toddler.
Jesus does indeed love the little children…I know it firsthand.
Saved!
One night, when I was about 6 years old, I was lying in bed. My brother and I shared the large upstairs bedroom. My bed was a twin bed made out of wood that could, with a couple dowels, stack on top of my brother’s bed to make a bunk bed. It was fire engine red. On this particular night, I wasn’t really sleepy; so, I just stared up at the very dark ceiling. I got to thinking.
Because my brother had made a profession of faith, Mom had gotten so excited about the prospect of children getting saved that she started to hold Neighborhood Bible Clubs in our living room. One thing that we had learned was that everyone lives forever.
So, as I lay there on my fire engine red bed, I got to thinking about living forever. Tomorrow, I’ll get up and go to school. Then, I’ll come home, watch TV, eat supper, and go to bed. And the following day would be the same thing: Get up and go to school, come home, watch TV, eat supper, and go to bed. It wasn’t long before I was several hundred years out in the future getting up and going to school, coming home, watching TV, eating supper, and then I’d go to bed.
It really started to frighten me. The future, now a million years out, was so unchanging. How could I be happy living forever? There must have been a mistake.
The next morning, I shared with Mom my scary thoughts of the previous night. Probably the wisest thing my Mom ever told me came next, “If that happens again, just talk to God about it.” I’m not sure if she knew God was at work, or what, but her counsel was perfect.
Sure enough, the next night it only took about 5 minutes before I was again on the very edge of eternity–getting up, going to school, coming home, watching TV, eating supper, and going to bed. I was actually sweating and shaking with fear, but I couldn’t stop my mind from taking me down this never-changing eternity of days. Then, like a bolt of lightning, I remembered Mom’s words to “talk to God about it.”
So, I prayed something like this, “God, I’ve been thinking about this living forever thing, and I can’t see how it could work for me. There might be some changes, but after a million years, it would just be the same old thing; so, if it’s okay with You, I would like to just blink out of existence right now, like I’d never even been here. That way, we wouldn’t have to continue this game any longer.” Quite a prayer for a six year old, I’ll grant you, but I was desperate to avoid the future that I had imagined.
“You forgot one thing.” It was the first time that the Lord had ever ‘spoken’ to me, and it pulled me up short.
“What?” I asked.
“You won’t be living that forever getting up, going to school, coming home, watching TV, eating supper, and going to bed. You’ll be on fire in Hell.”
Now, to have God Himself tell me that I’d be in Hell forever and ever and ever without end moved me from being scared to a full-out panic. Adrenaline was rushing. My body was shaking, and I think I might have been crying.
I actually thought “What do I do now?” and the way of salvation taught to me by my Mom in the Neighborhood Bible Club came flooding into my head: “Ask Jesus to come into your heart and save you, and He will.”
So, I did. It was nothing fancy, and it was hurriedly spoken with a trembling voice. “Jesus, come into my heart and save me.” And He did!
Instantly, all fear of forever was gone. I mean GONE. God flooded my heart with an assurance that the future, although lasting forever, would be fine because He loved me so much and He would be there with me. Since then, I haven’t worried about Hell or forever. They’re in His hands, and I will be, too.
When I’ve been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, I’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when I first begun.
P.S.- When I opened my eyes, I saw a white form of ‘Jesus’ rising up through the ceiling and up and up and gone. I mention it because it did happen, but it could have been my mind playing tricks on me. As cars would go down the street, their headlights would hit the ceiling in a similar fashion, but this time seemed different. Take if for what it’s worth. When I get to Heaven, that’s one of the things I want to clear up with Him.
Get Real
I mentioned that from the time God granted me my prayer request for a baby sister that rare has been the day when I haven’t spent some time in prayer. At first, my prayers were what you’d expect from a child. I would pray for Mom and Dad, my grandmas and grandpas, aunts and uncles, cousins, etc. By the time I was ten years old, my prayer life was a perfect pattern of “vain repetitions.” I don’t think I hardly deviated a sentence or two from my routine.
That is, until I was about twelve or thirteen. I started into my bedtime prayers as usual, and somewhere toward the middle, there was a very distinct interruption to my train of thought. There was no ‘voice’ like when I got saved, just a very strong feeling of “This isn’t how friends talk to one another. I want to know you, your thoughts, your desires. Just repeating yourself over and over in my direction is kind of insulting to our relationship.”
There was such a desire for real conversation that I was suddenly struck by how many years I had not been real with God. The very real God who loved me, who had invaded my reality to save me, had been mistreated, but also I had short-changed myself because I had fallen into a religious prayer routine. Once He pointed it out to me, it made me a little sick. I wish I could have that time with the Lord back.
It was only later that I read this verse in Matthew 6:7,
But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen [do]: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
Another verse along that line that has been a great help to me is Psalm 62:8, where God invites,
…pour out your heart before him…
The Lord loves us so much!
I’ll tell you another story about “getting a real prayer life,” this time from my early twenties. My one friend was going through a very difficult time in his life. He was a new Christian. He started to pray about what was going on. I’m sure it started off cool and composed, but it wasn’t long before he was crying. Then, he moved to yelling and carrying on.
Well, in the middle of all this yelling and fussing at God, my other friend came to the apartment. He heard the noise and the shouting, and when he could make out what was going on, he turned and hurriedly left the apartment. Later on when he was relating the story, he confessed, “I was afraid lightning was going to strike him down.”
My brother said, “Why? He was just having a heated disagreement with his Father.”
Ha! Sad to say, but I suspect there are many folks who have not learned this skill. They are too pious, or their relationship with the Lord just hasn’t developed right. They cannot say with the Psalmist,
I poured out my complaint before him; I shewed before him my trouble.
“Mr. Personality”
I grew up a bit of a bookworm. Books were easy to relate to, and I enjoyed their unjudging company. Through them, I could escape to amazing worlds and meet amazing people doing amazing things. Science fiction and comic books were my preferred reading material, with some sword and sorcery mixed in for good measure. I also loved academic books. There was a sale at the local library once, and I brought home a nice mathematics textbook and a primer on logical thinking.
I couldn’t tell you when, but my GrandDad mentioned off the cuff one day about “filling your head so much with that stuff (fiction) that you’ll have no room for reality.” That made a lot of sense. I had not completely abandoned reality, but I had definitely built a preference for the realities found in my books and in my brain. But, hearing his wisdom, I wanted to “reach out” more. I just didn’t know how.
I remember one time in the school library thinking, “When I am old and grey, I don’t want to say, ‘I built bridges or buildings.’ I want to be a blessing to people.”
In the 10th grade, I started my experiment in socialization. It did not go well.
It turns out that I have a natural gift for sarcasm and innuendo. And I mean cutting sarcasm, the kind that tears people down. Mom even called me “Mr. Personality” on more than one occasion. I was at a loss of what to do about it. The harder I tried to relate to people, the more I stuck my foot right into my mouth. And I did it regularly. It was so bad that my friends would come to me for sarcasm guidance. I was miserable at being known as that kind of person.
Then it happened again–the Lord invaded my little life. I was walking home from school one day. Chris must have been sick, because he wasn’t with me. I was loaded down with my book bag and my violin case as I walked along thinking about what a Grade-A jerk I had become. I can take you to the exact spot on Myrtle Avenue where I was. I whispered a silent prayer in desperation, “What should I do?’
“Three things.”
Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I had prayed not really expecting an answer. I mean, how many times have I prayed and not heard anything in return? Maybe a thousand.
I was really torn about how to respond to the obvious question left hanging in the air, but I was pretty desperate, so I hazarded to ask it anyway. “What three things?”
“Please. I’m sorry. Thank you.”
Wow. A divinely simple prescription for fixing my “Mr. Personality” issues. You wouldn’t think that these would be difficult to put into practice, but for some of us, like me, this was a huge deal. Still, I was willing to obey God’s voice.
When I got home, Grandma was sitting at the kitchen table. Mom was standing by the sink.
“I’m sorry I’m late. May I please have something to eat?” I actually was tickled inside to try out my God-given recipe for success.
As I went into the living room, I overheard Mom say something like, “Who was that?” I just smiled. It was working already.
Thank you, Lord, for these three words! They changed my life.
P.S. I love you
It was a few years later that the Lord added a new phrase to my repertoire. I was sitting in church- I have no idea what the sermon was about because my mind was wandering, and when I came back to reality I was thinking, “‘I love you’ needs to be another phrase that I say.” Not to family members, either, but to friends and hurting people.
It wasn’t until later when I was discussing my four phrases with a friend that they pointed out that what made them so difficult was that each required a kind of death of self:
“Please” requires me to come to somebody else and admit a need that I have.
“I’m sorry” required me to admit that I had wronged someone and to confess it to them.
“Thank you” was like the first in that I had to admit that someone had somehow blessed me.
“I love you” was the hardest to get out because it’s like saying that “I want to put your needs ahead of my own.” Think on that a moment. Not some flippant “I love you,” but a real heartfelt surrendering of self to another person’s benefit even when it costs you something.
By this shall all [men] know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
Nothing
This was a big one for me.
I know I was still in my early twenties because Chris and I were still living at home. (Didn’t know that, didja?) I had just finished falling in love for the however many-eth time, and it didn’t go anywhere…again. No reciprocity at all, if you know what I mean.
So, there I was completely heartbroken and miserable. Fortunately, the Lord had taught me pretty early on that He is my hiding place and my best Comforter and Counselor. My friends and family might have made fun of me or worse, but the Lord was my faithful confidant.
Have you ever moved while you prayed? As I poured out my heart, I moved from lying on my bed to kneeling beside it. I know that I prayed a lot of things, but I only remember the last part. I was beat up, cried out, and tired of banging my prayers against the ceiling.
“What do you want me to do?” I had practically whispered it.
“Nothing.”
It was full of peace.
I got so mad, that I practically jumped up without finishing the conversation. No “in Jesus name, amen” or anything. God had “dissed” me, my day had been awful, and I was done with it. DONE with it!
It was a terrible two weeks. The Lord and I talked every day of my life, but not for those two weeks. Every time I thought about praying, I just kept hearing that “Nothing” ring in my head. Why “nothing” was what I was good at. No girlfriend, no college, no future, nothing to look forward to, and not much to live for.
As the weeks passed, I partly avoided prayer because I was still mad, and to be honest, probably more because I was afraid. What if He didn’t give me any more answer than that? What if I had to go another five or ten years before hearing from Him again? What if I had made Him mad by dropping the conversation?
But I knew that I couldn’t stay away. Talking with God was a big part of my life. So, reluctantly, and very humbly, I knelt down beside my bed, aiming for pretty much exactly the same spot where I had been that last time.
“What do You mean, ‘Nothing’?”
And clear as a bell and loud as one, too:
“For without me, ye can do nothing.”
I was floored.
The truth was that I was so full of myself, and that wasn’t getting me anywhere. My biggest problem is me, not God. This is a lesson that I’ve had to learn a couple of times and probably will have to learn again. But right then and there, it was completely liberating to know that God 1) cared enough about me to invade my life again and 2) with Him I could do more than nothing.
Amen and Amen!
John 15:5 remains one of my life verses:
I am the vine, ye [are] the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
Pleasing in His Sight
So, I got this crazy idea when I was about twenty-nine years old to go back to school…
I had dropped out of college when I was twenty-three without finishing my degree in mechanical engineering. I went to work at a department store and was pretty much just hanging on. But a friend of mine went off to Bible college. He was doing very well there. The next year, another friend also started to go to that same Bible college. He was also doing well. The next year, my brother went.
In the mean time, I was just working, but I was still going to church and trying to serve the Lord. I had no idea which way to go with my life, though, so I just kept doing what I was doing. “Keeping body and soul together” as Granddad used to say.
And along the way, I started to memorize the book of First John. My friends had decided to all start memorizing books of the Bible in case our Bibles were ever taken away, and I chose this one. It’s a beautifully written book, deep in its simplicity, broad in its scope, and jam-packed with the Lord Jesus Christ. I just love it.
One of the verses that really jumped off the page at me is I John 3:22:
And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.
Do you know why that was so great to me? Because I had been waiting for a call…a divinely-placed arrow in the sky pointing out the direction that I should go. It never came, and I was paralyzed with indecision. This revelation that I was allowed to “do those things that are pleasing in His sight” freed me from a lot of mental bondage. If Choice A was pleasing and Choice B was also pleasing, I could do whichever I wanted, as long as the Spirit didn’t lead me differently.
So, I decided to go back to college at the ripe old age of 28. I did, however, ask the Lord for one request– that I be allowed to be valedictorian of my class. Why? Well, I had been first in my high school class…for myself. Now I wanted to do no less for the Lord. I did not know if He would allow it, and it really didn’t matter, my goal was to be pleasing in His sight. My desire to be valedictorian was secondary and was not a condition of my going.
But the Lord Jesus Christ was much kinder than I expected. He goes above and beyond our desires, and on the first day of class registration I met the young lady that I would later marry. You cannot “out-please” God.
Oh, and through a series of events, I was selected as valedictorian of my graduating class. Another crown to lay at His feet!
God is good
Bible college was an amazing time. I was living from paycheck to paycheck, and there were a number of times when it was more like paycheck to payche–, if you get my meaning. But the Lord was very near. How does a guy who can barely make his rent pay $500 a semester for college? I’ll tell you. He doesn’t. I never paid for a single semester; Jesus paid it all!
Just as one example, there was one time in school that Chris and I were pretty much living on Ramaan noodles. Hey, they’re tasty. Then one day, we came home to find our freezer full of bags of frozen chicken wings. We ate like kings for almost a week! Another time, we came home to find the refrigerator loaded with two deep catering pans full of rigatoni. After a few days, we started to understand this verse in Numbers:
But now our soul [is] dried away: [there is] nothing at all, beside this manna, [before] our eyes.
In all of this, God was more than faithful and so very good to us! Praise His name for rigatoni from Heaven.
I don’t need this!
In college, I learned to hate my Brother Word Processor. Sure it was cutting edge technology at the time– it even had a 4 1/4″ floppy disk! — but I spent way too much time on it. It had been a gift to me, and many a class paper had been successfully pounded out on it.
But this paper was different.
My New Testament Survey professor had taken a different approach to our learning. We were to read through the Gospels during the course of the semester. At every chapter, our instructions were to stop and pray, asking the Holy Spirit to open up our understanding before reading anything. Then, we were to record our observations in a final paper.
It was the end of the semester, and the paper was due the next day. I did my normal deal that day of going to school until noon, then work, and then home to type. Long hours were part of the Bible college life. I typed for hours, trying to get the wording just right and working on the punctuation as I went along. Typing, typing, typing.
There’s a saying in the computer world today that grew out of those early times. It goes like this…”Hit SAVE often.”
It was three in the morning when my screen flickered. I don’t even think the thing turned off; it just flickered. And all my work on the screen was gone. Gone! I was almost done, and now it was all gone. All my work, my work that was due at 8 AM at a college that was an hour away, was GONE. Now there was just a little blinking cursor showing that the machine was ready for me to start all over again.
Then my stomach knotted up. My eyes teared up. And I sat down…stunned.
Then I got mad. I moved to my bed, and I let the Lord know that I was angry and frustrated and spent and tired and mad.
“I don’t need this!” I complained. “I don’t need college. I don’t need papers or staying up late or crazy teachers. I don’t need any of it. I just want to know You…”
“And the fellowship of my sufferings?”
I stopped whining and sat up. I hadn’t expected that.
You know, the Lord is like that. When you want Him to talk to you, it seems He doesn’t say a word. But when you’re in a cave under your juniper tree, He just calmly interjects a sentence or two and messes up a good pity party.
Of course, I had no idea what He meant. But I whispered out loud dutifully, “Yes, ‘and the fellowship of Your sufferings.'” Whatever that means.
If you’ll recall, the Lord had first told me “Nothing” and the then He had told me “For without me, ye can do nothing.” He was quoting Scripture to me. So, I got out my Bible and my concordance, and there in my apartment I read this:
But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.
Yea doubtless, and I count all things [but] loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them [but] dung, that I may win Christ,
And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:
That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;
I cannot describe what this meant to me, or means to me. Like clouds being blown away, I understood that all of the troubles with this paper and the hard work of college and seeing miraculous provision were not about me learning about the Lord, but they were about me knowing Him. One day, I will die, and one day I will know the power of His resurrection. And it will all be so that I can know Him. And death will be my souvenir.
The Ugly
My first real pastor used to get up before the crack of dawn on Sundays and drive out to a hill that overlooked the city that we live in. From that position, he could look over half the populace. And he would pray and pray for them. I only had the privilege of joining him there a couple times, but I was always moved by the force of his relationship with God and the earnestness of his prayers.
I wanted a relationship with God like that; so, I “followed him as he followed Christ.” I knew that his main time on The Hill was Sundays, so I started to head over there during the week. Not every day, mind you, maybe once or twice a month.
Let me interrupt my own story to just say that these were amazing times. From this spot, there were rolling hills covered with trees in the foreground and the city itself was more toward the background. At 5:00 AM on different days, I saw these hills take on some amazing characteristics. One week, they looked just like a Japanese painting, especially when the sun hung low and the valleys between the hills were covered in mist. Another time, it was like a Norman Rockwell painting; everything was covered in snow and ice. And my favorite was on one particular winter morning, again before dawn, and the grass was covered in frost. As I paced to stay warm, I could imagine walking in frozen Mongolia from one tent to another. And the times in prayer were always rich.
So, there I was, maybe 4:30 AM in the morning. The dark sky had only just started to lighten up in anticipation of the sunrise. From that perch atop the city, I started to pray, but I wasn’t sure what to pray about; so, I decided to confess my sins. There was nobody within ear shot, so I just prayed out loud. Of course, it took a little time to get through the list, but I felt pretty good to have done it.
When I had emptied that bucket, I was reminded of Paul listing all his goodness in Philippines Chapter 3 and counting them as dung. I decided to follow suit; this was something that I’d never done before. I started with my accomplishments at school and moved through everything that I thought was good and right about me and my life. You know, it was humbling to say over and over “and I count it as dung” when these were the things that I took the most pride in, things that I had worked hard at and like to use to showcase ‘me’. But in comparison to having Jesus Christ, they are dung.
There are so few things that most of us are really good at, that we tend to hold on to them. We build our lives around them. They define us and guide us through life. We are taught from the time that we’re children things like, “Oh you’re good at drawing, maybe you’ll be an artist.” Or, “You’re good with people, maybe if you work hard you’ll be President of the United States.” And here I was thumbing my nose at these things in comparison to what the Lord was to be in my life. My flesh was not happy with this confession. The inference was that if my best was worthless in comparison to Christ, then so was I. Amen, but that’s not the way to satisfy the pride of life, is it?
Eventually, I got through confessing my so-called good points. I had been imaging that I was in a hallway. I had walked up to the door labelled “Bad” and I had opened it to invite the Lord in. Next, I had opened the door labelled “Good,” and I had taken the Lord through my treasure house to make it plain to Him that I am but grass, and my righteousness as filthy rags. Whew! I glad to have that over.
What about the ugly?
Clear as a bell, the Spirit was prompting me. I was cold and ready to go back to bed. I was done with my confessing, wasn’t I; so, I asked aloud, “What ugly?” I had gone down my hallway and opened the doors labelled “Bad” and “Good.” But the Holy Spirit moved me to think,
You know, the “Ugly” door. The one that you have wallpapered over and like to pretend isn’t there.
Oh, that one.
And immediately, the Spirit brought one of the ugly things to my mind. Now, remember, up until now, I’d been confessing out loud to the hills and the trees. It wasn’t that difficult to do that with the Good and the Bad, but I wasn’t sure I could even frame my mouth to say the Ugly, much less speak them.
I went and the checked the bushes…twice. Nobody was there.
Okay, Lord, here you go–my Ugly things. It was definitely the shortest list, but it was no doubt the hardest one to get through. Just when I would think I was done, and the Spirit would prompt me with another. He was merciless in His memory stirring. But finally, I was done.
And then the coolest thing happened. I felt like God just reached down from Heaven and squeezed me. He had looked me over inside and out, had fully examined the height of my pride and the depth of my shame. And then it was just like He said,
I’m so glad that you brought those things up so we could get past them. I love you so much, and all those things were hanging over our relationship. I forgive you, and I love you.
My brother told me the story of a scarred orphan boy. He always kept that scar covered. It was his shame. When a man finally came to adopt the boy, he first asked the boy to uncover his scar. At first the boy refused, not knowing if the man would still want him if he could see the scope of his disfigurement. But the man continued to press him, and the boy at last complied. With hands trembling, he removed the covering and allowed the man to see his scar. The man drew him near and stared very hard at the scar. Then, he smiled and said, “You can cover it up if you want to, but you will be my boy nevertheless, and I will always love you.”
Like the boy, I thought that it was by me keeping my shame covered that God was able to love me. Now, after this sweet time on The Hill, I knew that God’s love for me had nothing to do with how well I covered my shame. He loves me because He loves me.
My walk with the Lord took on a new brightness that morning. Our relationship has been closer. “Nothing between my soul and the Saviour!” If you’ve never shown God your Good, Bad, and Ugly, I would encourage you to do it today.
His Healing Hand
I was engaged to be married, and my job at Sears was failing miserably. Management liked me, I knew that; I’d been promoted from the hardware department to the computer department to the major appliances department. But I couldn’t sell the Maintenance Agreements that they’d asked me to. After about a year in that area, I came in to see that I had been given zero hours on the following week’s schedule. No work means no money.
The next week saw the same thing happen. And the third. My family was counseling me to tell them to fire me so I could claim unemployment. There was a lot of pressure to keep on the route that I was on, but I truly believed that God was at work on my behalf.
After about four weeks of no work, I showed up and asked to see my manager. I could tell by looking at him that this wasn’t his idea; we were fairly close before this. I proposed that rather than fire me, I would like a transfer to the office. He loved the idea, and instantly made it happen.
I worked there for about six months, loving the change of pace from sales. Then, one of my co-workers got a job at Allstate. She was a Mormon, but God was using her. She challenged me to follow her to the new company, and I did.
It was a phone job. The pay was good for the work, but I had to type all day long. My wrists started to swell. This was very bad timing because Kara and I were now engaged. But this one thing I knew – The Lord had gotten me this job, and He would have to be the one who kept it. I called my pastor, and made an appointment.
I explained to my pastor that without a miracle, I was going to lose my job. He grabbed some anointing oil, and prayed for me. And from that day on, my wrists got better and better. Praise God!
His Healing Hand…again
Our wedding anniversary was quickly approaching, and I had not yet purchased a gift for my wife. She deserved the best, but I was working at a job that did not allow for extravagance. Don’t get me wrong, the job itself was a blessing from the Lord, but it did not permit much more than our everyday living. I wanted to do so much more for her.
But for you to understand to understand the rest, I need to tell you about my headaches. From the time I was six or so, I had terrible migraines. They only lasted about eight hours each, but they were horribly painful. Sleep from exhaustion was my usual escape. As I got older, they became more frequent, and when the Lord gave me the job that allowed me to get married, I was getting five to ten of them a month. In fact, I used all my vacation days my first year to cover absences, and many a day I just showed up and tried to fight through it. Migraines were destroying what God had given me.
I worked hard, and my results proved it. Then a friend of mine who was in a higher position started to throw me some spare work to do. His boss liked my work, and he let me keep doing it for, oh, maybe a year. I was just enjoying the fact that I was doing something different, but the Lord was at work on our behalf.
So, back to our anniversary. I was on my way to work, and I was pretty early. My plan was to spin by the mall and get my wife some jewelry. No, I didn’t have the money for it. But I went to one of those jewelry stores and started to look in the glass cases, anyway. She deserved something nice.
Then, I saw it. A pretty little ruby set comprised of a necklace and earrings. And only $90. Ha! Might as well have been $1000, but I had a strange peace from God that I was supposed to get them for her. So, I pointed them out to the lady at the counter, and she wrapped them up for me. After placing them in the bag, she punched it into her cash register, turned to me and said, “That’ll be $194.”
“But the sign said $90.”
“Yes, $90 for the earrings and $90 for the necklace.”
Again, inside my heart, I just felt a peace from the Lord that I was supposed to get them. This type of thing never happens to me, I mean this feeling; so, I told her that I’d take them both. I charged it, and left the store.
When I got into my car, I started to pray. My nerves were on edge. How was I going to pay for these? What had I just done? What to do now? I started to pray.
I don’t know if the Lord is where you hide, but He’s where I go when I need bailed out, and, after all, He had gotten me into this situation. “Lord, you told me to get these for my wife. Now, I need you to pay for them because I can’t.” I prayed like that all the way to work…over and over again.
I walked into the building where I work, still praying. This is how good the Lord is–I never even made it to my desk! I was still carrying my lunch bag and my jacket, and my friend’s boss stepped out of a side room and grabbed me by the arm, “Can I talk to you a minute?”
We both went into the room that he had just come out of. We were alone, and he asked me to sit down. “I won’t beat around the bush. I want to offer you a promotion, BUT, only on one condition…no more migraines.”
As I told you, I was getting five to ten migraines a month…debilitating migraines. What kind of request was this? But, I didn’t get mad, I got really, really excited. Let me see if I can explain why.
My faith logic went like this– God had led me to a gift for my wife that I couldn’t afford. Then, He had given me a perfect peace about buying it. Then, I had been praying for a way to pay for it. And, now, this man was offering me a job on the condition that I had no more migraines. Put all that together, and I got excited!
“Yes, yes, I accept.”
“Alright, but no migraines.”
As soon as work let out, I called my wife and told her what had happened. Then I told her that I had to run over to visit our pastor, and I would be home late.
I called our pastor, and asked if I could come right over to see him. He agreed to meet me…I never asked for stuff like this. The drive over was a good thirty minutes. He was in his office when I arrived, sitting behind his cluttered desk.
“What can I do for you?” What a man of God. A good Baptist preacher, and one who had prayed down Heaven on many occasions. I had a lot of respect for him and his ability to “get ahold of God.”
I explained what had transpired during the day, then I told him that I needed him to pray for me that God would take away my headaches.
He said, “Alright, I’ll add that to my prayer list.”
“No, Pastor, I mean I want you to pray right now for me.”
You should have seen his face! Ha. It was like I had just put him on the spot to move a mountain or something. But he didn’t say anything discouraging. He just reached into his desk drawer and pulled out some oil. Then he prayed a simple, heartfelt prayer for me. When he was done, I thanked him and left.
And in the next six years that I did that job, I can count on one hand the number of migraines that I had…AND not one time did I have to miss work because of them. I got them on the weekends or on vacation days, but never at work. Praise the Lord! Thank You, Jesus!
As a P.S., I’ll just say that I got another promotion after that one (another story for later on), and every now and again I’ll get a headache, but my days of moving from migraine to migraine are over. Exodus 15:26 ends with,
“…for I am the LORD that healeth thee.”
Chocolate Ice Cream
This is probably out of order, but here goes. After Bible college, my wife and I were attending a local church. We were of course anxious to find out how the Lord would have us to serve Him with the rest of lives. But in the mean time, we were involved in a number of different ministries there at the church. I had the opportunity to preach a few times from the main pulpit, teach a Sunday School, and a few other things. God was blessing, but not really pointing to anything.
Then one day, one of our friends approached us. He had pastored a church in Pennsylvania a few years before, but had left it to fulfill another calling. The new pastor had stayed up until this time, and now he, too, was leaving. He asked us to consider candidating for the pastorate there. I was honored, but scared. I’d never done that before, and this would entail a big step of faith.
So…like Gideon, I put out a fleece. I thought long and hard about it before doing it, too. You shouldn’t be casual with your fleeces. First, I had to make sure that I was willing to do go, if the Lord said to. After a while in prayer and soul-searching, I was pretty much surrendered to either way. Now, for the fleece.
It had to be something that normally didn’t happen, but I didn’t necessarily want a dry cloth on dew-soaked earth. I decided to have the Lord lead my pastor to say something in the pulpit on a certain Sunday…He was a Spirit-led preacher. “Chocolate ice cream.” He would have to say “chocolate ice cream.” Once my decision was made to trust the Lord with this, I told my wife. She agreed that this was a good fleece. You’d have to know him, but it was very rare for him to mention food and when he did, it was usually hamburgers. In ten years, I’d never heard him talk about ice cream.
Well, until that Sunday.
He stood up and began to to preach about how knowing Jesus Christ was like going to a birthday party. He spoke on the guests, the decorations, the feeling for joy. I couldn’t believe it. Neither could she. She was squeezing my hand…and I was squeezing hers. We were both on the edge of the pew as he listed each element of a birthday party. Ten minutes went by. Then, twenty. Then, thirty. Then, forty minutes.
As he approached the end of his sermon, our pastor moved in on the centerpiece of every birthday party–the birthday cake. He verbally painted a word picture about the “chocolate cake,” and how great it was going to taste. I can’t tell you exactly what he said, because I was busy sweating and squeezing my wife’s hand. It’s all a blur. After what seemed like forever, he raised the volume of his voice, swept his hands upward and said, “Yes, there’s nothing like a great big piece of chocolate cake…(he paused dramatically)…with CHOCOLATE FROSTING!”
I almost died! Then, I heard my wife sigh a heavy sigh, and I let out one, too. Then, we started to giggle. And giggle. That was one of the longest invitations that I’ve ever heard.
But, you know what? I came away knowing that the Lord had heard me. That near miss was on purpose, so that we would know that He had attended to our prayer. And, that left no doubt in our minds that we were not supposed to go pastor that church. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for such a clear answer to prayer!
A Reverse Calling
As I mentioned before, sometimes my brother or I would be asked to preach at our church. I am grateful for these opportunities. Pastor said both of us did a good job, but it was the Lord, not us. It was a pleasure to be challenged to seek God for something for His people on these occasions.
After a number of preaching opportunities came in rather rapid succession, we heard a terrible rumor that some of the older folks thought we were trying to “take over the church.” This was a crazy accusation; We never preached or spoke or served in any capacity except at the pastor’s request…but they didn’t know that, I guess. What was even more terrible is that the rumor had some of them “rooting” for us. It never amazes me to know how much wrong people can think up. Lord forgive them.
But a strange thought hit me that “there is always some truth in a lie” and, again another principle, “Believe half the bad that people say about you, and none of the good.” What if there were some truth in the rumor? What if it were my heart that was so twisted up, and not their’s? Maybe some part of me was seeking this. I doubted it, but I took it to the Lord in prayer.
It was not many days after that I was reading the Bible, and this verse just jumped off the page at me,
[Seemeth it but] a small thing unto you, that the God of Israel hath separated you from the congregation of Israel, to bring you near to himself to do the service of the tabernacle of the LORD, and to stand before the congregation to minister unto them? And he hath brought thee near [to him], and all thy brethren the sons of Levi with thee: and seek ye the priesthood also?
God had indeed allowed me to stand before the congregation and to minister to them. And He had blessed it. Now, I felt clearly a “reverse calling” from this verse. I am not to seek the pastorate, and I haven’t.
There was the time that I was asked to fill the pulpit in another city after their pastor left. Things went very well there for a whole month, with many coming to the altar. Meantime, they had a few fellows candidate, but not me. When it came time for them to vote, the head deacon called me to ask, “I have to know…are you in or out?” I told him that the Lord had not told me to, and so I couldn’t be.
Now, if they had voted me in, I would gladly have served, but knowing that I had not sought it out. In the mean time, I go by my other calling verse,
And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly [is] plenteous, but the labourers [are] few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.
When I read this, my heart was moved that our Lord Jesus Christ had such compassion on the people. I prayed to be one of His laborers. So, now I look to serve. If He should open up a different door, then that will be up to Him. Amen.
And he dreamed a dream
It was completely the Lord who led me to the job opening at Allstate, now 18 years ago. And I’ve already shared how the Lord promoted me to the Core area, and healed my wrists and migraines.
In the last Summer of 2008, Allstate’s Home Office announced that our site would be closing. Pretty much immediately, we lost a couple of managers…they jumped off the sinking ship. I had been working at Core for about 5 years at the time.
During that time, I had the strangest dream: Our site leader, Michele C., called me at home and said, “I need you, Nat (to be a manager).” The offer caught me off guard. I argued, “But I haven’t been through leadership development.”
“That’s okay,” she replied, “We’ll work around that. But there is one thing…it means working Sundays.”
Uh-oh. I hadn’t worked Sundays since being at Allstate. In fact, I had voluntarily worked every Saturday for three or four years in return for not working Sundays.
“I will have to pray about it. I’ll let you know what I decide.” And we hung up the phone.
And I woke up.
It was about three days later, that one of the young men new to Core, got called to a meeting. When he came back to our area, he said that he had just been offered a manager position. “What?! That’s my job,” I complained. Then, I told him about my dream. We had a laugh about it.
About a week went by, and I got a call at home. You guessed it – It was Michele C. And we had the exact, I mean exact!, conversation that was in my dream. The funny thing is that I didn’t remember the dream at the time of the call. It wasn’t until after we’d hung up that my mind connected the dots.
Long story short, I got godly counsel, took the job, and only had to be on Sundays for a couple of months. Then, our hours were truncated as part of the office closure timeline. We came off Sundays altogether. Thank you, Lord!
As far as I know, this is the only “prophetic” dream that I’ve ever had. It was amazing.
Leave a comment