My story with God, Part One
Due to my birthday last week, I want to glorify God for all that He has done for me during these past 49 years. As it is written, “Call upon Me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me.” (Ps. 50:15).
When I was 12 years old the Lord gave me a dream of His second coming. It was more like a nightmare. I saw bright light and blazing hail fall from the sky. It was so scary to me that I woke up and went downstairs to see my parents. They told me not to worry about it, since it was just a dream. But I think the Lord was keeping me on track so I would not fall away from Him. Sometimes He must do things that don’t make us feel good in order to save us in the end.
When I was 15, I was in our kitchen, watching the Dick Van Dyke Show. It was a funny show and I was enjoying it when suddenly a horrible feeling of anxiety came over me. It was so bad I turned off my favorite show and went outside, hoping for some excitement to get my mind off the suffocating depression. But outside there was nothing to help. For the next year I looked for school activities or sports or friends to help me feel better, but nothing helped. I eventually concluded that Christians had the answer to my dilemma. In my mind I saw a young man wearing nice clothes with a Bible. And somehow, I knew that he loved going to church, loved the Bible, loved Jesus. The Lord was in all of this.
Although I was going to church with my Dad, I found that all we had in church was church-goers, but not Christians, at least not Christians according to the criteria that came to my mind that day in my search for mental relief. Finally after about a year of not finding the kind of Christian that could show me how to have peace, I told my Dad I wasn’t going to church anymore. He talked me into going, but I wasn’t happy about it. The next Sabbath I told him again I wasn’t going to church with him, and he talked me into it again. Now I was really mad—especially at myself for not having the guts to stand for what I wanted.
That very Sabbath a young man came to our little church who fit exactly the criteria I had been led to find. He loved God, he loved his Bible, he loved to sing and pray, he loved the Spirit of Prophecy and the health message and everything Jesus gave Ellen White to counsel us, he loved people with a new kind of love I had never seen before, and he loved me. He was everything I had been looking for, and more! And for a year God had prepared me to meet him. I became his shadow, and he became my mountain and mentor.
That autumn, while going door to door, my Dad met another young man, Brian. And soon my new mentor, Richard, was giving him Bible studies. Brian had friends and soon they were studying the Bible with Richard, too. Suddenly we had a youth group based on the Bible, prayer, the hymns, fellowship, good dress and appearance, and on and on. We met 2-3 times each week, the Sabbath being a whole day of joy! I had friends like I had never known, especially my mentor! It was a spontaneous revival in our church like I had never seen and haven’t seen in any church since.
That experience has never been forgotten by me or by the others who have remained in the light we basked in in those days. It reminds me of Ellen White’s warm memories of the great preaching by William Miller.
“Of all the great religious movements since the days of the apostles, none have been more free from human imperfection and the wiles of Satan than was that of the autumn of 1844. Even now, after the lapse of many years, all who shared in that movement and who have stood firm upon the platform of truth still feel the holy influence of that blessed work and bear witness that it was of God.” Great Controversy, p. 401.
When I was 12 years old the Lord gave me a dream of His second coming. It was more like a nightmare. I saw bright light and blazing hail fall from the sky. It was so scary to me that I woke up and went downstairs to see my parents. They told me not to worry about it, since it was just a dream. But I think the Lord was keeping me on track so I would not fall away from Him. Sometimes He must do things that don’t make us feel good in order to save us in the end.
When I was 15, I was in our kitchen, watching the Dick Van Dyke Show. It was a funny show and I was enjoying it when suddenly a horrible feeling of anxiety came over me. It was so bad I turned off my favorite show and went outside, hoping for some excitement to get my mind off the suffocating depression. But outside there was nothing to help. For the next year I looked for school activities or sports or friends to help me feel better, but nothing helped. I eventually concluded that Christians had the answer to my dilemma. In my mind I saw a young man wearing nice clothes with a Bible. And somehow, I knew that he loved going to church, loved the Bible, loved Jesus. The Lord was in all of this.
Although I was going to church with my Dad, I found that all we had in church was church-goers, but not Christians, at least not Christians according to the criteria that came to my mind that day in my search for mental relief. Finally after about a year of not finding the kind of Christian that could show me how to have peace, I told my Dad I wasn’t going to church anymore. He talked me into going, but I wasn’t happy about it. The next Sabbath I told him again I wasn’t going to church with him, and he talked me into it again. Now I was really mad—especially at myself for not having the guts to stand for what I wanted.
That very Sabbath a young man came to our little church who fit exactly the criteria I had been led to find. He loved God, he loved his Bible, he loved to sing and pray, he loved the Spirit of Prophecy and the health message and everything Jesus gave Ellen White to counsel us, he loved people with a new kind of love I had never seen before, and he loved me. He was everything I had been looking for, and more! And for a year God had prepared me to meet him. I became his shadow, and he became my mountain and mentor.
That autumn, while going door to door, my Dad met another young man, Brian. And soon my new mentor, Richard, was giving him Bible studies. Brian had friends and soon they were studying the Bible with Richard, too. Suddenly we had a youth group based on the Bible, prayer, the hymns, fellowship, good dress and appearance, and on and on. We met 2-3 times each week, the Sabbath being a whole day of joy! I had friends like I had never known, especially my mentor! It was a spontaneous revival in our church like I had never seen and haven’t seen in any church since.
That experience has never been forgotten by me or by the others who have remained in the light we basked in in those days. It reminds me of Ellen White’s warm memories of the great preaching by William Miller.
“Of all the great religious movements since the days of the apostles, none have been more free from human imperfection and the wiles of Satan than was that of the autumn of 1844. Even now, after the lapse of many years, all who shared in that movement and who have stood firm upon the platform of truth still feel the holy influence of that blessed work and bear witness that it was of God.” Great Controversy, p. 401.
posted by David | 5:27 AM
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