Two Worlds (realities) Crossed My Path
Prologue
As I share my story be sure not to
set your ears ready to hear of a messed-up life. That is, personalizing
a familiar phrase of yesteryear:
“I never drank, smoked, nor chewed since a kid, Nor ran
around with those who did." Thanks to my church-going upbringing, And my
shyness even, Under emotional stress that may on me may press,
I give praise to Jesus—He keeps me singing.
I believe my story would not be
aired on the Unshackled radio program. I lived a
"good" life through the years, not a raunchy lifestyle. I don't even
recall ever uttering a foul word. The worse I ever said, I believe… ah, um, was
that word people would say when their dog got lost. But then, a mentor shared
with me that word is a minced oath[i] at
taking God’s name in vain; I never said it since.
Later, I learned that such a
"good" life doesn't make one good before God. Since Genesis chapter 3,
as was all humanity, I too was born a sinner, and in need of Jesus
(Yeshua), our help in this temporal time and our only hope for our eternal
future[ii].
Perhaps my story can be summed up as Psalm
40:2-3 (NASB) reads, personalizing, "[God] brought me [too] up out
of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, [out of my own good life]. And
He set my feet upon a rock, making my footsteps firm. He put a new song in my
mouth, a song of praise to our God…"
And so I share my story
in three parts: (1) My
Formative Pleasurable Years, (2) My Misstepped Years, and (3) My
Transformative Years.
My Formative Pleasurable Years: Birth thru the Eighth Grade
I was first born in Toledo, Ohio.
And God has known all about me—my steps
along my earthly way, even my missteps[iii].
I’m the youngest of four. (I have a
brother, a sister, and a second brother). I don’t know too much of Toledo, as I
was very young when the family moved east of Toledo to a rural area south of
Cleveland and west of Akron—to the village of Chippewa Lake in Medina County.
I was quiet (a shy guy) through the years,
speaking not much to anybody.
In my youth, perhaps too much of my time
was spent watching television. A shy guy, perhaps my TV viewing could have been
considered my "security blanket.” (In today’s time, perhaps with
some it could be likened to the internet, social media, or that smartphone.) In
considering it now, however, much of my time, spent in front of the television,
was my first misstep.
My siblings and I were blessed
to have been born to parents who took us to church and Sunday
school every week. We attended a Nazarene Church primarily. Going to church,
we learned of the Bible and Jesus all our lives.
And then at an amusement park—Chippewa Lake Park, as it was called—within walking distance from where we lived, I
met a Native American who in noticing the "double crown" (hair
swirls) on my head with which I was born, predicted that I would see
two worlds someday. I didn't give too much thought to that prediction
through the years if it met anything. For some reason, I guess
God wanted me to hear it anyway, and in His time, I had realized it again in my
coming to an understanding of it all—a realization of the two
realities: the temporal and the eternal.
Our church occasionally would have what
was called "Revival Meetings." At such meetings, I recall hearing
sermons of the world coming to an end. My young mind could not imagine such a
thing. The world coming to an end—what would happen to all the
trees, the tall buildings, and especially Disneyland[iv]?
My
Misstepped Years: the Ninth Grade thru Lackland AFB
I did reasonably well through school, for
the most part, but then into high school, came my second misstep: I had
to repeat the ninth grade. For one, my failing the ninth grade was due
to my introverted temperament—my shyness.
On through high school, but I never
determined what I wanted to do after I graduated.
My dad passed away when I was a junior in
high school.
My senior year, and graduation, and then
what? My Uncle Sam had that all figured out. I received a letter from Selective
Service ordering me to report for my armed forces physical exam. Afterward, I
contacted my friendly Air Force recruiter; one of my brothers was in the Navy,
the other was in the Army Reserve, I wanted something different, and not the
Marines.
Shortly after my physical exam, I received
my draft notice to be inducted into the armed forces. And so, it was off to Air
Force basic training at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas—my introverted
temperament followed me there as well. And also, there came my third
misstep—I was set back to an earlier flight in basic training.
But a meningitis epidemic had broken out,
and that returned me to my original unit and quarantined us. Having been set
back and returned, I missed much of the activities of basic training. My flight
even had to wait until the chow hall emptied of other units before we could go
in and enjoy our meals.
The epidemic finally cleared; we were then
personnel awaiting tech school. I was assigned to police tech school. But also came my
fourth misstep—I was "kicked out" of that school. After
waiting again for my next assignment, it came—ground transportation
at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida.
My Transformative Years: Patrick AFB to the Present
There at Patrick, I consider my spiritual
birthplace. Thanks to my church-going upbringing (for which I’m grateful) and
my shyness even, I wasn’t a carouser—sticking pretty much to myself much of my
life.
My second brother, who was in the Navy,
had contact with a ministry called the Navigators. He had book one of their Bible study series—Studies
in Christian Living—sent to me. A study
on the person of Jesus. At the end of that study was an invitation to receive
Jesus; I read, signed, and dated the invitation. I consider that my
"second birth”[v].
I continued that series on my own alone in my barracks room. I continued
attending base chapel services as well.
Some months later a Navigator
representative moved into the area to begin a ministry among those stationed at
Patrick. My name on the Nav mailing list he looked me up. We met in a cafeteria
on base. He shared with me the Steps
to Peace with God by the Billy
Graham Evangelistic Association. And again, I prayed the invitation
gaining me assurance of my salvation.[vi]
For the remainder of my time in the
military, I was involved with the Navigators—my then caring group—receiving
help in my new/real life of faith, primarily through Bible study, prayer, and
Scripture memory.
My first Navigator conference was an international
happening, held over a Thanksgiving weekend, 1968, in Estes
Park, Colorado—the "Whing Ding" as it was called. At the closing
of the last message of the conference, the speaker gave an invitation to answer
the call as Isaiah did, "Here I am! Send me,” Isaiah 6:8.
I stood with several others in so responding. I had no idea then all that would
mean.
Having received word from Uncle Sam that I
could get out of the Air Force eight months early, I
considered it. I could have re-upped, but I decided to get out. Having done so,
I stayed in Florida for another year or so, still in fellowship with the
Navigators. (I did have a cool job for a time—hmm, working for
an icehouse along U.S. Highway 1 in Melbourne, Florida.)
In a room where I was then living, I
recall a significant time in the Word one evening. Laying on the floor, I was
reading from the book of Exodus. At Exodus
4:10-12[vii], God
got my attention about my shyness in speech, as He had with Moses at the
burning bush.
Shortly after my discharge from the Air
Force, and two semesters at the then Brevard Junior College[viii], the
Nav rep suggested that I apply to a Bible college[ix] in Columbia, South
Carolina. Three of us in the Nav fellowship visited the campus. We all
three applied, but only one other, and I was accepted.
And I realized why the Lord
kept me in the military—for one, my expenses through Bible college were met via
the G.I. bill. I don't know how I could have afforded college otherwise—
I hadn’t been raised in a “well-to-do” family.
The summer before the start of my
freshman year of college, I was home in Ohio with my mom and sister; I
did have a job to put away money for the start of school. In the summer
of my sophomore year, I served a few weeks with the Missions to Military
Servicemen’s Christian Center in Norfolk,
Virginia. I worked at temp employment during the day and served with the
servicemen’s center each evening; that was my home that summer as well.
During the year-end break of my junior year of
college, I attended InterVarsity’s
Urbana Conference, at the University of Illinois. Returning
to school in January to continue my junior year, I learned of my mom's illness.
I took some weeks off from school and returned home and visited her; she was in
the hospital with leukemia. She had passed away a few days later.
After I graduated from Bible college in
1974, the Lord provided work for me with an office supply company in delivery
and shipping. Going about that job, I was conscious of peoples' faces—my
mind wondering if they knew Jesus.
My job had me in and out of offices making
deliveries. As I exited one office one day, for some reason, my
eye caught a plaque on a wall. It displayed a quote by Oliver Wendall Holmes
that's been "forever" etched in my memory. It read, “Man’s mind
stretched to a new idea will never return to its original dimension.” I
have realized: my going-to-church upbringing, meeting the Navigators, and then
on to Bible college, that my mind indeed has been stretched to the "new
idea" of the immortal world—the eternal reality.
I was a candidate with International
Missions[x] then in
Wayne, New Jersey. From that experience, I had learned of Open Air Campaigners’ means of relating Bible stories via sketch board drawing. I had
the opportunity to do such myself, sharing the story of blind Bartimaeus[xi] to
neighborhood kids.
A few years later, I ventured out west to Pasadena,
California, where I joined the then US Center for World Mission[xii].
There, I was pleasantly surprised to work as a staff writer for the Global Prayer Digest[xiii]
, writing short vignettes focused on unreached people. That
work helped me in developing my writing skills. On little support,
however, I left that job after about five years. Still in Pasadena, the Lord
provided paid employment with William
Carey Library Publishers[xiv]. I continued there for about ten years. Those 15 years out
west, having been employed in Kingdom work, possibly I can consider that my
"career" through this temporal time.
Epilogue
From Ohio, God brought me out of my old
life (a wilderness without Jesus), and roundabout my transient
life, with thanks to the Navigators, God brought me to Columbia, South
Carolina, particularly to Bible college where my life has been
transformed, and continue so yet through these days. Perhaps I can consider
my coming to Bible college my mortal “Promised Land,” and thus my continuing in
Columbia through this temporal time. (Columbia has been my home since the
summer of '73.) But then came my fifth misstep—my
hasty move back to Ohio. Perhaps as the prophet Jonah, so for me, I’d
considered those days back in Ohio had been as eight months in
a fish belly. (The story of Jonah has been in my heart, for some
reason, ever since a message I've heard when I was in Bible college.)
The coming of my unemployment (07/11/2008)
I believe has been the "defining moment" of my life;
the Lord had turned my focus more on the realization of the "greater
cause.” And less on the things of this temporal time[xv]. I have
realized that I had seen two worlds (two realities), as that
Native American in my youth predicted I would see. Apart from the
things of God, everything else here in this time has little or no meaning to me
now, particularly my TV viewing, the Hollywood craves, and sports fanaticism.
Here now, until my eternal home-going,
continuing my trek along this temporal way, I desire my life to be that of a
light-bearer and salt-spreader of God’s eternal truth[xvi], I having been spewed out of that “fish belly”[xvii]
Any other money-making job should
the Lord yet have for me in this temporal time, I pray that I won’t get hooked
again that it’s primarily for the making of money—the supplying of my
livelihood, even the fattening of a financial portfolio. As any job or
career should be, for the Christ-follower, as God's provision to enable us to carry on the more real
work for this time, in so realizing God, our Provider, and that’s the greater pleasure in this temporal time.[xviii]
How that greater pleasure is to
be, particularly now through these most unnatural changing times. The prayer of
my heart these days seems to be, since 2016 (and maybe even since the coming of
my unemployment), as the apostle John expressed it recorded at Revelation
22:20, “Come, Lord Jesus.” Reflecting upon Revelation 21:1-8,
I can only try to imagine that greater day in history—no greater joy will there
be than that day of Jesus’ return when everything will be made new.
And so, I cannot see now how I can
live my life as I had done through my pleasurable youth years, without regard
for the immortal. (See Colossians 3:1-3.)
As 1 John 2:16-17 (ESL) reads, “For
all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes
and pride of life [or pride of possessions]—is not from the Father but is from
the world. 17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever
does the will of God abides forever."
I had
noticed a book titled Your Best Life Now. Reflecting on that title. it
occurred to me that in Jesus it’s the better life now until our eternal
home-going (our upper taking) and then it’s the best life forever. And
thus, I composed the following poem:
[i] “A minced oath is a euphemistic expression formed by deliberately
misspelling, mispronouncing, or replacing a part of a profane, blasphemous, or
taboo word or phrase to reduce the original term's objectionable
characteristics,” Wikipedia
[ii] See
Romans 3:9-23; Psalm 14:1-3; 53:1-3) John 3:16-17; 14:6
[iv] Disneyland
was a fun time in the years of its founding—the Walt Disney show, Disney
movies, the Mickey Mouse Club—but with the changing of times and my heart, too,
brought a new thinking to the purpose of it all.
[vi] See
John 1:12-13; 1 John 5:11-12
[vii] See
also Jeremiah 1:7-8; James 1:19; 2 Corinthians 12:9
[xiv]
Now William Carey Publishing—publishing books on Christian missions
[xvi] See
Matthew 5:13-16
[xviii]
See Matthew 6:25-34; cf. Luke 12:22-34
