God brought me out of a seemingly bottomless pit back in 1976... but as I for the first time in my life began to read a Bible, I began to focus. I focused on what I had never done well in secular schools, study and learn what I was reading. Eventually I assured myself if I kept on at this pace and in this direction I would speak like the scriptures spoke, quoting lines of scripture without thinking about it. All it would require was a whole lot of study until I had the whole thing down pat.
I grew for a long time until my knowledge so outweighed my spiritual development. In the early 1990's in spite of all my learning and in spite of the hours I had spent in the scriptures daily for so many years I backslid into a seemingly even deeper [if that it possible] bottomless pit than the one from which He drew me out back in 1976.
I stopped reading and talking in tongues [never did this much but I did do it.] and stopped attending any church services anywhere.I stopped even trying to talk to God. I had immersed myself in my work [secular] which I had always loved and in my stamp collection in which I had a passionate interest. By 1999 I was coming apart at the seams. I was keeping up with literally dozens of stamp trading partners all over the world and working countless hours of overtime on my job [the job I loved]. Immersed deeply in these thing I was trying [unsuccessfully] to forget God and all that He had done for me before and go forward effectively taking hold of my own bootstraps for I could [ha!] do it... I knew that I could [ha!].
When it broke it all came to pieces. I suddenly and completely stopped doing anything with stamps. I did not try to find stamps for people to whom I had promised stamps and to whom I owed stamps. I never answered letters received daily from stamp collectors all over the world.
On my job I committed a grievous wrong in integrity meaning little to Uncle Sam my employer, but burning me to the point where I chose to take an early retirement rather than face the music of a rebuke and a monetary deduction for my indiscretion. My wife knew I was having trouble, of course, but even she was shocked when I came home late in October of 2000 and I said that I was retiring now. It took about a week or so to make the necessary arrangements and suddenly I was unemployed living on a fraction of my salary without proper planning. It was impossible. Yes, it was... as we were to find out, quite impossible.
After my last day of work I went home and went to bed. I slept for 72 hours straight with all the stress of work and stamps lifted from me for that time... but while I thought I was finished, God very soon was to put us to the test. The garbage was set aside, those things that stood between me and a unity with God, my stamps collecting activities and my job.
I then decided I would go back to God, but there was no connection. I forced my to read the Bible but could not understand it at all. I forced myself to attend a church where I had attended for a few years prior to my sudden departure. I talked to God and wanted to speak in tongues again even just a little bit and maybe every once in a while, but it was all gone. I could not hear a thing. I could not feel a thing... except emptiness.
When I went to church there was nothing. To stay a whole service was hard but I did it. I could not attend regularly but about once a month I managed to force myself again attend hoping and praying that God would talk to me... that He once more fill me with that warm fullness that I could remember having felt previously. This went on for a long time, month after month with not relief but I refused to quit trying. I did find the verse where Jesus prayed, "not as I will but as thou wilt" and praying it as often as I could hoping for that break through. How long did this last? 2002 God let me know that He heard me and would receive me back... I was ecstatic, but God still had chastisement for us...
Two years of salary cut in spite of our best efforts one financial crisis after another. We defaulted on payments on our only car and it was repossessed. We lived 15 miles out of town where there was no public transportation. We were behind on our house payments were receiving notices in anticipation of foreclosure. My mind kept saying quit this nonsense and give up on this God of yours, but I refused. We filed for bankruptcy and it was pending. We had almost nothing left materially but we had God even though He seemingly would not help us. In my late 50's my pastor gave me a job helping him with the refurbishing of someone's home. We needed the money desperately. I who seldom was really sick to the point of being unable to work got severely physically ill on my day at work. I had worked in an office for years and now was out in the hot Oklahoma summer sun. It would kill me but I refused to quit. Only when I physically fell to my knees and could not continue did I admit defeat and went home. The end. No! God!
My one friend from church took his savings of $2000.00 meant to payoff his home and bought me a car giving me the pink slip. It was an old car but it beat walking or imposing on someone for a ride even to buy groceries. At least when we were homeless we would have a ride...if we could afford the gasoline.
A few days before the bankruptcy was to be finalized, a private detective from Arizona called my wife asking for her by her maiden name. [We had been married about 30 years.] We lived in Oklahoma. She had an aunt she had not seen since she was 8 years old in California. The aunt had moved to Kentucky where she had lived for a great many years. She had died childless in Kentucky and someone hired the Arizona detective to find her closest relatives, her 6 nieces and nephews. My wife was one of them.
We advised the bankruptcy court and they attached the inheritance so that it would be directly to the court. It paid in full all of our creditors. The remaining balance was just enough to pay off the mortgage on the home we were about to lose as that could not be included under the bankruptcy. That was 2002 and we are still walking with God today... How could we not want to and strive to be one with a God like that?
Give God the glory!
When my mother died in 2006, from my inheritance I gave my friend who had bought us a car a check for $10,000.00. The money is all gone and we have lived from pay day to pay for many years now, but what else could we want that this world might offer?
Again, Give God the glory!
, this to me is key towards our oneness with God and with each other. God sympathizes with our weakness against temptation, and we should sympathize with each other, as a part of helping each other in meekness.
