WHo is THis?

My Encounter with The Author of Life! 

Let me tell you a bit about myself, only to put these posts into context.

I grew up in a military family and by the time I was a month old I began to travel. At thirty days of age, I was on an airplane and then a ship headed for Japan. Then upon returning and being sent where my dad was stationed, we lived in Virginia, Chicago, France and then finally planted ourselves in a small Alabama town called Ozark. There I went to high school, played football, sank my roots into the place went to college where I obtained a B.S. and an M.S., married the love of my life, graduated, worked professionally as a Psychologist for one year, pastored a church in Georgia and then… became a missionary.  I sure didn’t see that one coming! 

My wife and I left it all with great trepidation in 1984 and began language studies in San Jose Costa Rica.  Perhaps I will write of that in a future post but suffice to say here it was a most difficult time for both of us.  Leaving Costa Rica, we were invited to be a part of a team to start a Bible school in Quito Ecuador where we lived for four years.  Then in 1989 we moved to Mexico where we both direct a Bible Institute in Guadalajara until the present. 

Having been in a military family in my youth, my only exposure to any kind of religion was on those special occasions when it was expected for officers to attend chapel, you know, Christmas and Easter.  The services were pretty staunch and afterwards we would go to the Officer’s Club to eat lunch where I as a young boy, would see the chaplain who had just preached, get sauced at the bar.  It left an impression that would remain with me for several years.

The time would come when my dad got his orders to go to war.  Vietnam was in full swing and his orders came.  But before he left he wanted to build a home for his family in case he did not return.  Helicopter pilots statistically had a short life span over the jungles of Southeast Asia at the time.

During the year of his absence, I took an interest in football while in Junior high school. I loved it!  Excelled in it and found a “niche” where I could be accepted by my peers. Each evening my coach would give me a ride home. He was a COACH! But more so he was an educator, a congenial man who had a sincere interest in his players and students.  Every evening before dropping me off he would invite me to his church on Sunday. I would thank him but honestly, I had no interest of any of it until…

It happened to be a Sunday morning when I was awakened with a most peculiar desire to go to Coaches’ church. I knew where it was about a mile from our home, a tiny, red-bricked Baptist church that sat on a hill down the road from us.  I told my mom that I wanted to go to church but she was not prepared to take me so I got dressed and with her permission I began to walk to church. It was late August and in Alabama the temperature is still quite high and the humidity is enough to soak you in minutes.  By the time I arrived the humidity had done its job.  I was a like a sponge filled with water, but it didn’t seem to matter at all to the people who welcomed me.  I was received as though I had been their own son, Hugs everywhere, little old ladies with huge red lips would plant one on you leaving the marks for everyone to see.  Big men would thrust out their hand and swallow mine in their palms as they welcomed me. It felt different!  It felt good.

I took my seat on the last pew, that’s what you do when you come to a new church at least that’s what I thought, and the service began.  It was an ordinary Baptist service. The call to worship, announcements, music, offering then the message.  It was pretty ordinary or at least I thought so.  But the message!  O the message!  The preacher was a middle-aged man, rather rotund, balding and presented nothing in the natural that could attract a fifteen-year-old boy. There were no guitars, smoke machines, colored lights, nothing that seems so necessary to appeal to people today. Just a piano, an organ, a choir and THAT MESSAGE!  I was struck! 

I had never heard the Gospel before. For all I knew Jesus was that Mexican kid that lived down the street. But today, unknowing to me I would meet that One who died for me and for all men, every tribe and every nation!   I listened to the thirty-minute sermon, enthralled by what was said and then began to feel this unwelcomed discomfort in my chest.  It wasn’t heartburn! It was conviction and I had no doubt that I NEEDED A SAVOIR!

The invitation was given but I resisted. I wanted to rush out and cry but I held back.  Those thirty minutes in the light of the Gospel revealed the darkness that I had been living in. I had never taken drugs, was basically a good kid but I was LOST! 

Someone gave me a ride home and the rest of the day was terrible!  It was our custom to eat fried chicken on Sundays, (you do that in Alabama) and while we were eating I began to cry.  I just couldn’t hold it in any longer!

That afternoon I decided I would return for the second service.  I walked it again.  Arrived dripping wet like the morning and was once again received with open arms.  I took my place on the back pew and the service began.  It was very similar to the morning service albeit, many of the men had left their ties at home.  The music started the announcements were given the offering was collected and then the message.  THERE IT WAS AGAIN!  THE MESSAGE! But this time I could not ignore any longer what my heart was hearing.  When the invitation was given I rushed to the front, my eyes sobbing!  There stood in front of me was my coach!  He held me as others responded to this overpowering appeal of the heart and came forward.  The preacher came down and led me in a simple prayer that I can honestly say has transformed my life.

It was indeed the beginning of LIFE! I had been born again!

Afterwards I was baptized and eventually my whole family would bow their wills to this One who died for us all.  Incidentally my coach and my dad became best friends a friendship that today remains firm well into their 90’s. 

The years that followed were, well, years of a kind of “duality.” I walked with one foot in the world and the other in the church, depending on the moment.  In time my hypocrisy became my biggest nemesis. I had become cleaver in disguising who I was, one thing with my friends in high school and another while I was in church.  But my heart convicted me. 

It would be five years later when I would see that Jesus did not want just a part of me, HE WANTED EVERYTHING!  But was I willing to give him that?  Months later I found myself in a retreat at Panama City Beach where the crisis came to a head.  I could no longer straddle the fence and there in front of my bunk bed I surrendered everything to my Lord and was wonderfully baptized in the Holy Spirit. It changed everything.  The power that I did not have to obey the One who loved me now flushed through my soul filling me with a new love, bold courage and intense hunger to walk in the path the Lord had given me.

From that moment everything changed.  The whole orientation of my life had become redefined.  Known? Not hardly!  But redefined! 

Since that day in 1972 I have been enthralled with this Man named Jesus!  I have read much, studied much but nothing has captured me more so than this book we call the Bible. For fifty years I have read and studied this most sublime literary work and it has never lost its gloss, it’s power to instruct me and provoke an ever-refreshing wonder. It pulses with life and speaks to us today as it did from the day it was written.

I teach in a Bible Institute in Mexico, preach in churches but my greatest delight is that “great while before the day” when sitting in my “cave” my office, I sit at the feet of the most beautiful being that exists!  And, from those precious moments I will endeavor to share the secrets of the cave!

Am I a predestinationist, a Baptist, a Charismatic, or a mystic?  I’ll leave that to you to decide.  But for now, let me just introduce myself as your brother who is one of many who call Him Jesus!

August 2023