Psalm 34:8 New International Version
Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
It is amazing to me how I can remember incidents that happened fifty years ago but if you asked me what I had for supper last week I could not tell you. I believe that those notable and life changing events that we go through at different times become memorials and are placed deep in our subconsciousness to remind us of something that changed our perspective and direction in life.
Like you I have many of these memorials that have helped develop me into the person I am today. I would like to share one of those moments.
I had just returned from Fort Lewis Washington, I had finished up a stint of active duty in the army national guard. I was still finding my way through the maze of decisions and directions adulthood had thrust me into. I was trying to develop my identity and as a young man I was reckless and experimented with things that I should not have. Friday evenings were always important to me because it was the one night of the week for me to splurge on reckless excess. Whatever might make itself available to me was fair game. A nice car, friends like myself who were anticipating the next thrill. These were not always a good combination to be honest with you and if it would not have been for God watching over me during this time I do not know where I would be today. I must share that I had no active relationship with God, I believe it was the prayers of my great grandmother that were prompting God to provide barriers to my poor decisions.
As I clearly remember this particular Friday night as I was getting ready to leave my parents home my brother stopped me in the hallway outside of my bedroom. Now anyone that knew our family knew that my brother Rick and I had a relationship like oil and water. At this time we were not close at all. Maybe because of the times he had tried to get rid of me, his nuisance of a little brother. I remember the time he wanted to play cowboys and indians. I was to be an Indian and he had decided that my punishment for wrongdoing was to die by hanging. We were pretty young, Rick possibly five and me three. He had watched too many cowboy movies I guess, but he had a good handle on how to accomplish the act. We had bunk beds in our room and he had found a rope and tied one end around my neck and the other to the bed railing. He was just about ready to pass judgment when mom walked in to check on us. I had never heard her raise her voice to that level before as she told my brother to freeze and move away from me. She quickly untied the rope and gave us both a lecture that would not be forgotten for a long time afterwards. I remember that day as though it happened yesterday. Sufficient to say Rick and I were cut out of different cloth. So what happened next was so out of character for the two of us that I was to become totally overwhelmed and speechless. Rick’s comments went something like this. “Steve do you have a second I have to tell you something”, “I responded sure but make it fast for I am in a hurry to get going”. Rick was quiet for a moment and then the words spilled out of him like water out of a faucet. “Steve I want to tell you that I love you and want to ask you to do me a favor”. I have to stop there for you need to understand the emotional makeup of our family. We were not ones to share things like that. We never told each other that we loved each other; it was shown through actions. I don’t remember as a kid my mom and dad ever telling me they loved me. Oh I knew it but no one ever said the words. So when Rick said this to me I was in shock and speechless for a little while. After composing myself I think I said something like that’s nice. It really was pathetic that I could not say those words back. I then asked what the favor was and he replied he wanted me to promise to come to church with him and his wife on Sunday. Well go ahead and hit me with a club, I thought to myself who is this guy. Go to church, for real, is this a joke. We both had stopped going to church, this is the same guy that used to go with me when we took the money mom gave us to put in the offering and skipped church and bought candy and laughed all the way home. He was as serious as a heart attack, what could I say, he had that look on his face like a homeless puppy. I very reluctantly agreed, basically to get away from this very uncomfortable situation. Sure enough on Sunday he was there to pick me up. I was ready to endure a boring drawn out service and watch the clock stop as I waited for the end to finally come. I could not have been more wrong from the second I sat down and looked around at the people around me, I knew that this service was going to be unlike anything I had ever experienced before. It was not the size of the congregation for it was a small group of nearly forty people. It was the sincerity and the vibrancy and the emotion that came forth from them unashamedly. Between the instruments and their loud and demonstrative worship I was spellbound and uncomfortable. However I did something that morning that opened up the door to an event that changed me. I had never thought of God in a personal way. Prayer was like writing a letter to someone who never wrote back. You always hoped they got it but you never really knew for sure. It was when in my mind I asked this question that things changed for me that day. I said “I wonder if this is for real can people really be this happy in church. I think that was all God needed from me to do what he did next. I felt a wave of emotion sweep over me like a tsunami, I could not stand before it nor could I resist its effects. I was crying and I didn’t at first even know why. I wanted to stay where I was but in our household men did not cry it was an act of weakness and I was totally embarrassed. I could not force myself to stop crying however and finally ran out of the sanctuary and found a room with the door unlocked. I needed to compose myself, that depth of emotion and the warmth of what I was experiencing was overwhelming to me. Of course my brother was new to this as well and he was no help in trying to help me understand this experience. I remember when I slammed the door and looked around there was a teenager in that room hiding out. He had no idea on how to respond to what I was experiencing and quickly left. My life was never the same after that experience. I did not give my heart to God that day nor did I change how I was living but I did learn there was something in this place that was supernatural and that I could not explain. I never went back into the service that day. It was several weeks later that my world was to blow apart and at that time I would recall this event and find my way back to this sanctuary in search of hope and a reason to continue to live. It was God’s mercy that moved upon my brother to drag me there that morning. For when the moment of devastation overcame me and I was deciding on living and dying that I could stop here on my way to that final decision and find the rest of what I had missed out on that morning. That there was a God in heaven who was concerned about me even when I was acting in a very unholy manner in my living and received me into His arms and lifted me up and took my broken heart and restored it with a new one.
No matter where you are in your journey in life I would like to remind you that there’s more to living than just following a faulty pattern formed by preconceptions and peer pressure. I pray that if you have not felt the love of God that nearly knocks off your socks that you soon do. However if I could leave you one thing that I would have done differently, I would have done this. Instead of running out of that experience I would have run into it without reserve. I would have let that current of emotion take me right into the arms of God and held onto Him with all my strength.