"Winter Break"

I was blessed to spend a few days in Florida last week, attending Iris Ministries’ first missions conference, “Love Them To Life,” hosted by The Harvest of Sarasota, with lodging & meetings at Christian Retreat Center in Bradenton.*

The following are a few thoughts and experiences I brought back from this wonderful vacation:

1. Renewed Gratitude & Awareness of God’s Stunning Goodness

The first conference session was scheduled to start at 7:30pm on Thursday evening, so I was able to go to the beach on Thursday afternoon. On the way, I stopped at Starbucks, where a woman in line ahead of me was clearly upset that her venti cappuccino was too dry? not dry enough? I didn’t catch the specifics, but noticed her frustration as the cheerful barista also failed to remake the drink fast enough to please her. I know how it feels to pay $4 or $5 for coffee – at those prices, we want what we ordered the way we like it. But all day the Lord seemed to be impressing on me how blessed I am in so many ways, how many wonderful things He has provided, so later I couldn’t help remembering this poor lady and how unhappy she was at that moment. I do it, too: complain, focus on things that are not to my liking, and so often miss His amazing goodness in the process.

Siesta Key has a beautiful public beach south of Sarasota, but the only public parking I saw had a sign at the entrance: “LOT FULL.” Nevertheless, cars kept entering and circling – I drove around town looking for alternative parking, but didn’t find any (there’s a municipal lot a few blocks over, I just didn’t know it that day). So I updated my Facebook status via cell phone, “Gina White needs parking at Siesta Key beach!” – part joke, part prayer (a lot of my Facebook friends are Christians). I drove back to the FULL LOT and waited in a line of cars; within minutes, an older couple carrying beach chairs passed right in front of my car to get into theirs, so I was closest to the spot they were leaving. I’ve been a Christian for 29+ years and I have to admit – I used to pray for parking places, but lately I probably thought I was too “mature” for that :) What a joyful reminder that God cares for us, even in “small” things – it was the one afternoon I had several free hours to really relax, too.

Moments later, I was on the beach at Siesta Key, surrounded by white sand like powdered sugar, Gulf wavelets and breezelets lapping all around me, Alberto Rivera’s “Yearnings” on the iPod. I was stunned all over again by God’s goodness to me personally – the freedom I have to enjoy Him and His creation, His amazing provision, and peace. What if we lived every day in thankfulness?

2. Trusting God & The Bible is 100% All True

Rolland Baker spoke Thursday night, followed by his friend, Indonesian-born evangelist, Mel Tari, on Friday morning. Rolland tends to “play around” before he gets to the heart of his message, which can make people uncomfortable at times as he jokes about serving God with joy and power, contrary to what many have come to expect in North American church services. I was excited to hear Mel Tari for the first time, knowing his history with the Bakers dated back about 30 years (he was best man at Heidi & Rolland’s wedding) – I knew God had a message for me about trusting Him in a deeper way, as the Bakers flew to Indonesia on a one-way plane ticket with $30 in their pockets when they started ministering overseas with Mel. (A friend of mine, 19 year old Jodi Jacob, is currently blogging from Japan on the 2nd leg of a “faith journey,” so God has already been speaking to me about radical faith and deeper levels of trusting Him in & for everything.) I don’t believe God asks all of us to leave our jobs and travel overseas, but I do believe He is challenging us to look beyond “the American dream” and dream His dreams, and live His way.

The basic premise of Iris Ministries, the foundation of everything Heidi & Rolland have done, Rolland says (& Heidi echoes in later sessions), is that “The Book is all true.” The Bible, all of it, is 100% true and means exactly what it says. They have proven this by going to one of the poorest countries in Africa (Mozambique, when they arrived, was one of the most desperate nations in the world), with no financial backing or big name church support, sharing and living the gospel through the love of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. At present, they oversee about 10,000 village churches – many planted as villagers respond to God’s miraculous power in the Name of Jesus Christ – and feed approximately 10,000 children per day, with vision to reach one million.

As a student of trust in this season of my life, I was especially blessed by Rolland’s comment: “The problem with Christianity is, there is nothing to worry about.” LOL! This struck me deeply, as I’ve heard the Lord tell me, day after day, “Don’t worry...” I realize the scripture also says, “Be anxious for nothing” (Phil 4:6) and “Do not worry about your life…” (Matthew 6:25), but this hit me right in my “spiritual solar plexus” – there is nothing to worry about. Rolland & Heidi & Mel tell story after story of God’s amazing faithfulness, & miracles if needed, for those who will trust God completely.

3. A Burning Heart of Holy Passion for God

Heidi spoke on Friday & Saturday evenings (as well as Sunday morning at The Harvest church), and I chuckled as I got in line at 5:40 p.m. (doors opened at 6pm for 7:30pm meetings), trying to remember the last time I saw people lining up that early for church (it was in July 2008, at the Lakeland revival).

Worship was awesome in every service - the atmosphere of this conference was a burning heart of holy passion for the Lord. Anyone who knows Heidi Baker even a little knows that this is the kind of heart she carries and inspires in others all over the world. It was fun to meet people who were hungry & thirsty for more of God – I prayed with a dance worship teacher, and a young married couple who’d been radically saved out of crack cocaine addiction a few years ago, who wanted to “see God’s face” like that again and be filled with His Spirit, not just religion. YouTube versions of 3 favorite worship songs here:

My favorite rendition of Chris Tomlin’s song “How Great Is Our God” is this one, from Jesus Culture’s CD “Everything.” I really enjoyed that this was the first song of the conference. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE8DwOtKc7k

“Holding Nothing Back” (YouTube from Jesus Culture’s CD “Consumed”) was included at several worship services. (“I’m alive to live for You!”) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJsc2louPes&feature=BF&list=MLAYMcY2vx8GSddApVhJjUKbxpLp4uDZJq&index=5

“Burn” from Dave Fitzgerald’s CD “Hope of Heaven” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZo-tK0nVHw Dave’s team from Bethel Church in Redding, CA, led worship on Friday night & Sunday morning. (“Take my heart, make it burn for You!”)
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(CD/downloads available at http://store.ibethel.org/)

4. Sweet Surrender, No Matter What It Costs

I wish the Sunday morning service had been recorded (all the other sessions are available on the Christian Retreat Center website*), as Heidi shared her testimony of being filled with the Holy Spirit in a Pentecostal church at age 16 – how her family responded at first to her passion for Jesus (her mother took her to psychiatrists, her father said, “my daughter is dead,” her sister promised to hate her forever), although later in life each of them asked her to pray for them and yielded their lives to God.

Heidi spoke from Luke chapter 1 about how the angel came to Mary and pronounced her “highly favored by God,” and how this must have looked to others when an unmarried teenage Jewish girl claimed to be pregnant by the Holy Spirit, carrying the Son of God. Are we willing to be greatly inconvenienced, perhaps subjected to ridicule or even hatred by those we love, because of the way God asks us to carry Christ in this world?

I’m the first one out of my seat to an altar call like that – Heidi’s life message has impacted me that much by now :) Somehow, even with several hundred people at the front of the room, a place on the carpet right in front of her opened up for me like that parking spot at the beach on Thursday. Maybe it sounds silly, but my tears ended up on her Bible, and I liked that - right around Luke 1:38, which I prayed with all of my heart:

And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.

P.S. When my plane landed in Virginia's ice and snow, I knew for sure I wasn’t at the beach any more, but I tried to remember to be thankful for God’s goodness & how blessed I really am.

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*links to ministry websites:

http://www.christianretreat.org/television *search Christian Retreat Center video archives (or email me holy1fire@aol.com for DVD copies of Friday 2/18 & Saturday 2/19 - 7:30pm services)

http://www.irismin.org/ Heidi & Rolland Baker are founders/directors of Iris Ministries, which oversees about 10,000 village churches in Mozambique and other nations, feeding & caring for approximately 10,000 children daily (so far).

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http://www.harvesttab.com/ The Harvest is the church in Sarasota that coordinated this event.

"God As He Really Is"

Note to readers: this week I'm posting a favorite excerpt from Eugene Peterson’s Foreword to “Growing Deeper,” a series of small books (published by Zondervan) including Peterson's The Wisdom of Each Other (on spiritual friendship), and Philip Yancey’s excellent, Church: Why Bother? I felt this passage tied in beautifully with last week’s posting (2/12/11) – a few more thoughts on being willing to know "God as He really is"...


We humans, somewhere along the way, seem to have picked up the bad habit of trying to get life on our terms, without all the bother of God, the Spirit of Life. We keep trying to be our own gods; and we keep making a sorry mess of it. Worse, the word has gotten around in recent years that “spirituality” itself might be a way of getting a more intense life without having to deal with God – spirituality as a kind of intuitive bypass around the inconvenience of repentance and sacrifice and putting ourselves at risk by following Jesus in the way of the cross, the very way Jesus plainly told was the only way to the “abundant life” that he had come to bless us with.

The generic name for this way of going about things – trying to put together a life of meaning and security out of God-sanctioned stories and routines, salted with weekends of diversion and occasional erotic interludes, without dealing firsthand, believingly and obediently, with God – is “religion.” It is not, of course, a life without God, but the God who is there tends to be mostly background and resource – a Quality or Being that provides the ideas and energy that I take charge of and arrange and use as I see fit. We all of us do it, more or less.

The word “religion,” following one possible etymology (not all agree on this), comes from the Latin, religere, “to bind up, or tie up, again.” The picture that comes to my mind is of myself, having spent years “getting it all together,” strolling through John Muir’s Yuba River valley, enjoying the country, whistling in self-satisfaction, carrying my “life” bundled in a neat package – memories and morals, goals and diversions, prayers and devotion all sorted and tied together. And then the storm comes, fierce and sudden, a gust tears my packaged life from my arms and scatters the items every which way, all over the valley, all through the forest.

What do I then do? Do I run helter-skelter through the trees, crawl through the brush, frantically trying to recover all the pieces of my life, desperately enlisting the help of passersby and calling in the experts, searching for and retrieving and putting back together again (rebinding!) whatever I can salvage of my life, and then hiding out in the warm and secure cabin until the storm blows over? Or do I follow John Muir to the exposed ridge and the top of the Douglas fir, and open myself to the Weather, not wanting to miss a detail of this invasion of Life into my life, ready at the drop of a hat to lose my life to save it (Mark 8:35)?

For me, the life of religion (cautious and anxious, holding things together as best I can so that my life will make sense and, hopefully, please God) and the life of spirituality (a passion for life and a willingness to risk identity and security in following Jesus, no matter what) contrast in these two scenarios. There is no question regarding what I want: I want to be out in the Weather! But far more often than not I find myself crawling around on the ground, gathering up the pieces of my life and tying them together again in a secure bundle, safe from the effects of the Weather. Actually, the two ways of life can coexist; there is, after all, a place for steady and responsible routine – John Muir, after all, didn’t spend all his time at the top of the Douglas fir; he spent most of his time on the valley floor. He also had a cabin that he had built with his own hands in which he received guests and prepared meals for them. But if there is no readiness to respond to the living God, who moves when and how and where he chooses, it isn’t much of a life – the livingness soon leaks out of it.

We cannot, of course, command Weather. It is there; it happens. There is no question of managing or directing it. There is no recipe for concocting “spirituality” any more than there is a chemical formula for creating “life.” As Jesus most famously put it to that expert on the religious life, Nicodemus, “You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it’s headed next. That’s the way it is with everyone ‘born from above’ by the wind of God, the Spirit of God” (John 3:8 THE MESSAGE).

The best we can do is to cultivate awareness, alertness, so that when the Wind blows we are there, ready to step into it – or not: when the absurd command comes to distribute the meager five loaves and two fish to the crowd we are ready to obey – or not; when direction is given to wait with the 120 for the promise, we are ready to wait – or not; when the invitation comes to “take…eat…drink,” we are ready to come to the supper – or not.


Eugene H. Peterson
James Houston Professor of Spiritual Theology
Regent College
Vancouver, B.C., Canada

Testimony, Part 6 - “God As We Understood Him”

(Note: this posting is another “chapter” in my personal story of relationship with God, continued from last week 2/4/11 and previous postings 8/17/10 through 10/13/10.)

“3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.” [Step 3, Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous]

“11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.” [Step 11, Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous]


Who’s your “Higher Power?”
As I mentioned last week, I met some interesting people in AA. Tara, for example, was a former socialite in her 30’s or 40’s (hard to tell), who lived like a bag lady at the York Street Club while detoxing from a serious valium addiction. I found out at my part-time job in a rehab center that valium takes a lot longer than alcohol to leave the body; most in-patient treatment centers operate 28-day programs, which is barely long enough for someone like Tara to even start thinking clearly.

Like most of us at York Street, Tara was desperate to stay clean & sober, so she was trying, in her own way, to work the 12 Steps. She, too, had been told she needed to be “willing to believe” in a Power greater than herself, and she was also told it didn’t matter who her God was, as long as she had one. So, if you sat down for coffee or conversation with Tara, she would pull a little clay frog pepper-shaker out of her purse, set it down firmly in the center of the table, and say, smirking, “This is Pepper. He’s my Higher Power.”

Tara was mocking something AA members told us, that even a doorknob or a light bulb could be your Higher Power. While I’m thankful the doors of AA were wide enough to include those of us who didn’t know what to believe at first, ultimately a person needs more than a rabbit’s foot (or a pepper-shaker) for spiritual strength and guidance. For example, a friend who knew former UCLA basketball Coach John Wooden (1910-2010) told me recently that Coach Wooden always carried a small cross in his pocket, and would reach into his pocket to touch or hold that cross during difficult moments. I didn’t know Coach Wooden personally, but everything I’ve heard or read about him suggests that cross was not a “good luck charm” – it was a personal connection to the power of his Lord & Savior, Jesus Christ. Much has been written about how Coach Wooden’s life expressed his faith – his moral integrity and honest, loving behavior (e.g., his harshest curse words under stress were reportedly, “Goodness Gracious, Sakes Alive!”). At some point, we need to know God as He really is, and what He wants for us.

Progress, not perfection
The truth is, we’re all “in process,” and even mature believers are continually growing in their understanding of God – who He is, what He’s like, what He’s doing and what His will is for us. AA promised that those of us who were willing to be honest and work the 12 Steps would have a “spiritual awakening.” The AA program helped me to get started seeking and surrendering my life to God daily, with practical spiritual tools like the “3rd Step Prayer” (from p. 63 of AA’s “Big Book”):

God, I offer myself to Thee- To build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always!

AA’s primary purpose is sobriety, so they don’t specifically mention Jesus; however, as I prayed that prayer sincerely – submitting my will to His - God led me to the truth about salvation and relationship with God through His Son.

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

[John 14:6 NIV]

“Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”

[Acts 4:12 NIV]
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Some people find that too narrow, but the way to God through Jesus Christ is available to all.

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This is how much God loved the world: He gave His Son, His one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in Him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.

[John 3:16 MSG]

Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.

[John 1:12 NIV]
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If we are sincerely seeking God with all of our hearts, the Bible says that we will find Him.

“You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.”

[Jeremiah 29:13 NAS]

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. [Matthew 7:7 NAS]

Knowledge of His Will for us
AA taught me to pray for knowledge of God’s will instead of my own. Things we do in ignorance may be well-intentioned; God knows our hearts, but He also says, “My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.” [Hosea 4:6a] Ignorance is better than malice, but choices and actions outside His will have consequences. God wants to lead us into all truth by His Spirit [John 16:13].

God’s Word is “a light to our feet, and a lamp to our path.” [Psalm 119:105] After I gave my heart and life to Jesus Christ, I still had a lot to learn about God’s truth. For example, I had played around with tarot cards in the year between getting sober and getting saved – as I felt God’s presence, a sense of His existence, and a desire for guidance regarding my life, I saw the symbolic interpretation of those cards as a form of spiritual insight. One day I was walking along York Street with my future husband – a Christian who had backslidden into alcoholic drinking and was trying to get sober, while I was two years sober and only 3 months in Christ – talking about something I’d “seen” in those cards. He answered, simply, “I don’t think those are of God.”

I chattered on a little further, and he spoke one or two more sentences – something about occult practices being forbidden in the Book of Leviticus. I thought he was just being close-minded, but when I got home, God opened my eyes: suddenly, as I laid out those cards, it was very clear to me that they were not a source of God’s guidance at all, but a source of confusion in my life! I was so thankful he told me the Bible truth about those cards. I might have never have known, if someone hadn’t been willing to tell me where God’s scriptural boundaries were. I tore up the cards and threw them away immediately. God’s Word and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit have continued to guide me more and more clearly since that day.

The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance. [Psalm 16:6 NIV]
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God loves everyone and His way is open to all, but it is not “anything goes.”

"Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

[Matthew 7:13-14 NKJ]
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Jesus said that He is the gate which leads to eternal life [John 10:7-10] – the only true way to a personal relationship with God [John 14:6]. He also said that He would not turn away anyone who came to Him. [John 6:37]. As mentioned above, I was glad for the “broad doors” of AA at first – they let me know I needed God, and gave me lots of practical support for sobriety – but the world is full of people who talk about “God” in all kinds of ways, just as people wear crosses for all kinds of reasons. Some are sincerely seeking truth, and will eventually find God’s way of salvation and a personal relationship with Him. Others have their own agenda or hindrances, something they want more than God Himself, falling short of God’s will as they insist upon their own. I believe that Jesus is the way to God, yet I also remember how immensely patient He was with me through all my years of rebellion and unbelief, and as I continue to grow in understanding day by day.

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

[2 Peter 3:9 NIV]

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

[Romans 5:8 NAS]
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Through Jesus Christ I came to know God personally, developing friendship and understanding just as any other personal relationship develops over time through shared experiences and progressive knowledge. I learned the importance of reading His love letters to humanity – the Bible – and following the Spirit of Truth, which always glorifies Jesus. [John 15:26, 16:14]

I think the AA principles of surrender and submission to God’s will, as well as sincerity - rigorous honesty with ourselves and others - are key factors in finding God as He really is. We may pray for parking spots and provision, success and self-fulfillment, but mature Love will ask God what He wants for us, seeking Him “in spirit and in truth.” The boundaries of His Word may sometimes be uncomfortable to our flesh, but they are the only true path to spiritual blessing and fulfillment.

God is so patient with us as we learn to walk with Him – He is merciful and kind, tender as a Father with His children. If we sincerely seek to follow Him in truth, He will show us His way.
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"I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; He will speak only what He hears, and He will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.”
[John 16:12-15 NIV, words of Jesus]

Asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you might grow in your knowledge of God. I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the wonderful future He has promised to those He called. I want you to realize what a rich and glorious inheritance He has given to His people.
[Ephesians 1:17-18 NLT]

Testimony, Part 5 - "Balaam's Donkey"

(Note: this posting is another “chapter” in my personal relationship with God, continuing the story I shared in previous postings from 8/17/10 through 10/13/10.)

Then the LORD opened Balaam's eyes, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the road with his sword drawn. So he bowed low and fell facedown. The angel of the LORD asked him, "Why have you beaten your donkey these three times? I have come here to oppose you because your path is a reckless one before me.”

[Numbers 22:31-32]
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The Bible story of God speaking to the prophet Balaam through the mouth of his own donkey is often used to illustrate God’s ability to communicate by any means necessary – to speak, in unlikely or unusual ways, a significant spiritual revelation through a source that is normally considered “unspiritual” or mundane.

Balaam, God’s prophet, is on his way to see the king of Moab, who persistently tries to hire him to curse the Israelites, God’s people. Balaam has some things right – he knows he should obey God and only speak what God gives him to say – but he is surrounded by influences that oppose God’s plan and His people, whom he is being tempted to betray. So God sends an angel to block his path, and then speaks through the mouth of his own donkey to get his attention. Balaam, like most of us who don’t “get it” immediately, resists the message of his circumstances by beating the donkey, until God opens his eyes to spiritual reality, and he repents of his wayward folly.

Below are three "ordinary" or unlikely situations in which, I believe, God “spoke” to me and confronted the “recklessness” of my ways and my ignorance of Him – for which I am extremely grateful!

At the Movies
I moved to Denver to start a 4-month paralegal training program in September 1981, because I felt that my relationship with Mario deteriorated through not having a strong enough sense of identity or life of my own. In Colorado Springs, I’d been working for minimum wage at a local bookshop – I loved to read, but the work itself wasn’t very challenging, and trying to find my self-worth in relationship to another human being wasn’t working either. I wasn’t committed enough to law or academia to undertake the expense of graduate school, so I thought earning a paralegal certificate might be a good intermediate step toward finding a more fulfilling career path.

One weekend in September, I went to the movies to assuage the loneliness of the break-up. In the opening scene of “Only When I Laugh” – a comedy/drama based on a play by Neil Simon – Marcia Mason portrays a recovering alcoholic who has just been released from rehab. After a particularly difficult day of fruitless job-hunting, she stumbles along a New York City avenue, barely sober, and all the neon signs in the bar windows seem to be taunting her. She tries to call her therapist on a pay phone, and when she can’t reach him, she slams the receiver down – hard – again, and again. It was an unforgettable moment of self-recognition: somehow I knew very clearly that whatever was wrong with her (that character on the movie screen) was also wrong with me.

As soon as the movie was over, I found a pay phone and called the 24-hour phone number for Alcoholics Anonymous. I’d been sober for almost 2 years on one piece of information I’d heard in an AA meeting years before: “It’s the first drink that gets you drunk,” i.e., if I never took the first drink, I’d never have the 6th or the 8th or whichever one it was that eventually got me into all that trouble. But I’d never really understood what the rest of the program was all about. The lady on the other end of the phone that night understood immediately: “Oh, honey,” she said kindly, “You’re a dry drunk!” She went on to explain that although I’d stopped drinking, I needed recovery. All of those things I’d never learned because I’d used alcohol and drugs to cover up my fears in social situations, or to boost my confidence, or just to feel better instead of dealing with real life situations – I needed a process of recovery to (re-)learn a whole lot of things about life.

AA Meetings
So I started attending AA meetings, and found out that God can even speak through scruffy people who smoke cigarettes and live, well, sometimes a lot like they did when they were drinking except without the alcohol. I met quite a diverse group at the York Street AA Club – a wealthy politician’s wife, a former Hell’s Angel, businessmen, street bums and college graduates (like me) – who taught me about AA’s “12 Steps” by sharing their personal stories and advice, along with plenty of coffee.

I could relate to the concept of personal powerlessness and unmanageability described in “Step One:” We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable. In spite of my upper middle class education - and even though I hadn’t had a drop of alcohol in almost two years - my life still felt like a jigsaw puzzle with all the pieces mixed up: if there was a way to put everything together sensibly, I was pretty sure I didn’t know what it was.

“Step Two” spoke of coming to believe in a Power greater than ourselves that could bring recovery and put those confusing pieces into some kind of healthy order. I’d already sensed there was something “bigger than me” the day I stopped drinking, but – as I wrote in my 8/24/10 posting (“Magnificent Mercy”) – I’d turned my back thoroughly on (what I thought were) archaic religious forms when I started using drugs and alcohol as a teenager. I couldn’t even say the word “God” without wondering if my family and all my old college friends would think I’d really gone crazy.

People in AA said I didn’t have to believe in any particular God – they knew that people coming out of alcoholism have often parted with religion on less than friendly terms. They simply told me that, if I didn’t want to go back to the hell of addiction, I needed to be “willing to be willing” to believe. They told me I had an empty place inside that would either be filled with God or alcohol. Further, they said, if I went back to drinking, I could count on eventually being imprisoned, mentally ill, or dead. (And I thought waking up with a hangover after embarrassing myself in a blackout was bad enough!) I knew I didn’t want to “go back” but, I thought, these are the 1980’s – do we really believe in God? So one night I looked up at the stars and prayed: “God, if you’re real, show me.”

That’s a prayer I believe God is willing to answer, if you really want to know the truth. And He did answer me: suddenly all kinds fortunate “coincidences” – favor, provision, open doors at the right time - began to occur in my life. Not least among them was the uncanny way those rooms full of ragged strangers seemed to know in advance what kind of day I’d had, as if they’d planned the evening meeting topics specifically with me in mind. My face literally hurt from smiling – I hadn’t used those muscles much before! Something was happening. It seemed too amazing not to be Divine.

Boxcar George
After a few months in AA, God used the words of an unlikely person to lead me into a powerful, scriptural experience of salvation in January of 1982. I started dating a backslidden Pentecostal bum who talked me into letting him move into my apartment by promising to marry me. I was 24, desperate for love, and incredibly naïve. He was 45 (although he looked both older and younger than that), with silver hair, smiling blue eyes, and a charmingly boyish grin. “Boxcar George” (as he was known in AA) was alternately funny, wise, spiritual, and crafty; he’d lived as a con artist much of his life, and most people would describe him as “a character.”

George didn’t have a steady job – he was working on a mathematical system to beat the odds at blackjack and strike it rich someday in Nevada. He went up to a little third floor room at York Street and prayed in tongues every evening (which is not to say “tongues are of the devil,” as some believe – only that false spirits exist, and even people with the genuine Holy Spirit can backslide into sin due to weaknesses of character). George was not a good choice for a boyfriend or a husband even by worldly standards, much less according to God’s Word – but I was a spiritual ignoramus at the time. It still astonishes me that God used this incredibly wayward man to tell me about salvation.

George showed me Acts chapter 2, verses 37-38, in the Bible. After the apostle Peter had fully explained the gospel of Jesus Christ, in light of what was happening on the day of Pentecost, he told the listening crowd exactly how to be saved:
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When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

[Acts 2:37-38 NIV]

George showed me a Pentecostal church in my neighborhood, although he didn’t accompany me to services. Ironically, the first sermon I heard the pastor preach there was that, according to the New Testament, sex outside of marriage was a sin; so, when I got home and George asked what the sermon was about, I told him he needed to move out. (I was a novice, but sincere in my desire to find and follow God.) The next and last thing I heard from George was a drunken phone call from a casino bar in Reno, Nevada – he’d lost all he had at blackjack. I was no longer naïve enough to send him money, and by then I'd experienced a powerful Acts 2:38 encounter with God at that church. (To be continued)

Conclusion
What’s my point? (The smart aleck side of me wants to joke, “Don’t be an ass!” LOL – hey, it’s a Bible word… King James Version!) Although God doesn’t author or approve of sinful behavior, He is fully capable of working in and speaking through any situation on earth. In His great Love for us, He will use whatever means is necessary to draw us to Himself. So… pay attention! :)

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And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

[Romans 8:28 NAS]

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Then the eyes of those who see will no longer be closed, and the ears of those who hear will listen.

[Isaiah 32:3 NIV]

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Then Jesus said, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”

[Mark 4:9 NIV]