Early in my childhood, I accepted Christ as my Savior. With a child’s mentality, I’m sure I did it to hopefully make God happy with me, and so I wouldn’t go to hell. There was a lot of turbulence in my home-life through those years. Because of the turbulence, I was attracted to whatever would make me happy. Wherever alcohol was available, I sought after it. Drugs were not readily available like they are today, so drugs were not an option, thank goodness.
After high school, I enlisted in the Army. Through little choice of my own, I was “volunteered” to become a prisoner-of-war interrogator and was sent to Vietnam. In the name of “war” I tortured prisoners to get information. Before going to Vietnam, I got married. I came back from Vietnam twisted by the war: hard-hearted and a heavy drinker. My marriage began to go downhill soon thereafter.
My youngest brother, Dale, the black sheep of the family as far as I was concerned, also had a powerful born again experience. And it was seeing the incredible change in his life for the better that began to make me take a more serious look at my comprehension of Christianity. When I would talk with Dale, all he would tell me was to forget about my hang-ups about Christianity and organized religion, and just fall in love with Jesus Christ. He said the rest of it would all fall into place in due time. But I didn’t know who Jesus Christ was, or should I say, IS. That’s because I refused to believe what the Bible says about Him is true. I believed the lie that the Bible cannot be trusted. If the devil can convince you of that you’ll never come to know truly who Jesus Christ really is.
So at age 35, I was a wreck. I was facing death, and I wasn’t convinced in my heart that I would go to heaven (if there were such a place). My marriage had fallen apart; my life was in a shamble. I had two precious children and an emotionally strained wife who had neither a suitable father nor husband.
Despair descended upon me, and fear of dying began to plague my thoughts. My despair eventually turned to desperation. Everything culminated on a Friday night. I went to bed early that evening, and started crying out to Jesus Christ. . .if there was a Jesus Christ who could hear me, or wanted to hear me. “Let me know you are real! I do want to serve the real God, but I’ve got to know you are real! I’ve got to know that what the Bible says about you is true! I’ve got to know if you really care for me!” I cried and agonized to God until the wee hours of dawn, but all I heard was silence. “God. . .do you even hear me?” More silence. I finally gave up. What a fool I had been to cry out like this all night long. Thinking that maybe – just maybe – God would have compassion on me and somehow reveal His reality to me in a way that I wasn’t so doubtful and confused.
It was just starting to break day and then it happened! The bedroom instantly became about 30% brighter. I looked for a light to be on but none was! I thought maybe the sun was now up and I had fallen asleep and had wakened hours later, but the clock said differently. No – I wasn’t imagining it nor was I dreaming it. The light was real! It was of equal intensity throughout the room. An invisible presence was in my room. The reason I know so was because an indescribable love was so strong in that room that it seemed there was not enough room to contain it all! I felt like I was being shoved back by a big hand into my bed, the love was so strong. And I knew – don’t ask me how I knew – I just knew that I knew that it was the Spirit of Jesus Christ in my room!
At that moment He spoke very powerfully to me. Not audibly, I don’t think, but powerfully to my inner being. The intensity of it was so strong though that it might just have well of been audible. He told me what I had to do to make my relationship work with Him. Then instantly all the anguish and pain and misery and confusion and doubt of a lifetime was sucked out of me. And all that was left was peace. Sweet beautiful peace . . . and knowing that God is real.
