POINTS OF REFERENCE THROUGH A LONG DARK TUNNEL
by :
George D. Kelly
Have you ever noticed while getting your car washed in the older style auto washes that at times it feels as if your car is going to be totaled before it arrives at the exit door? First your car is jerked onto a track, your sight is blinded by all the soap that hits the windshield, and when those thick belts start banging away it feels like your car is in the middle of a twister. For a brief moment you forget you are in a car wash and you get a little panicky. However, if you take your eyes off the front windshield and turn your head just to the left and down, focusing on some stationary object or reference point, the vehicle immediately stabilizes and your whole perspective has changed. Things aren't so bad after all.
Reference points are a large part of our daily life. Our temperature has a reference of zero, it is either above or below. In electronic trouble shooting most dc voltages are referenced to ground. Our monitory system is referenced to the gold deposit. Even our precious time we spend is referenced to a very accurate atomic clock at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Bolder, Colorado. It does not lose or gain as much as one millionth of a second in one year. Our faith has various reference points as well and if you will hold all of these thoughts for a moment I will tie them in shortly.
When something happens to you that is UNMISTAKABLY the power of Almighty God working in your life, you owe it to your Creator, to your fellow believers, to non-believers, and to yourself to share it. Otherwise you are simply hiding your light under a bushel basket. Sometimes there is more to this faith business than just prayers and candles. Once in a while we are called upon to bravely step into our faith with both feet and walk the talk. Some of you are aquatinted with parts of this story. Others of you have even played a role in it. But now as Paul Harvey would say, " The rest of the story." There were two years out of my life recently that required me to put into service everything I ever knew about God and his mighty works. They were two of the longest and toughest years of my life, but through it all one theme was at the forefront. That God was there for me every breathing second of the way because I had originally asked for this help in the beginning, and never stopped asking.
This story, as well as the entire worship service, is about hope and trusting in the Lord, no matter how dim the future might look. This story has all the key elements of our faith in it; hate and forgiveness, a desperate cry for help and having that cry immediately answered, embodiment in long term hope, and ultimately the realization of that hope. When Pastor Al gave his sermon two months ago entitled " Sinking", I am sure he had no clue how closely this story would parallel his sermon. This story is about getting out of the boat and walking on water without sinking. Like Peter, there were a few times I thought I was going down for sure but Jesus saved me.
It began in that fall of 1994 when I became acutely aware of the fact that I was working for a very demented alcoholic who was slowly pushing me toward a nervous breakdown. He was beginning to chisel away and destroy all the Lord had built up within me in the last few years and I couldn' t allow that to happen. My faith had become very precious to me in recent years. I was having these little nuclear explosions of joy continually going off in my heart and I didn't want to lose that.
This person who shall be known as my friend Jim for the duration of this talk was my boss for a large part of my career at Ameritech. He was at one time a friend close enough to stand up in our wedding. But slowly over a 25 year period I watched Jim deteriorate to a sub-human level because of alcoholism. Jim would get himself into trouble quite often because of his behavior. But somehow he would always come out smelling like a rose because he had a talent for conning his superiors. He was cunning enough to hide his sickness while at work and would very rarely drink on the job. For most of my career Jim had superiors that would keep his actions in check and would set limits on what Jim could get away with. Even so, many good technicians left our special communications group because they could no longer deal with him. This is not just my opinion we are dealing with here. It was unanimous across a work group of 30 people that there was something severely wrong with Jim. All he had to do was walk into a room to immediately change the mood and demeanor of everyone in that room. Jim was so welled up with hate in his heart that at times he would go out of his way to hurt people if he felt his ego wasn't being fully fed. One of his favorite sayings was," I don't get mad, I get even" , and he usually did. To sum it up briefly, Jim was the most vindictive, hateful, and tormented man I or 30 other technicians have ever known. After a management change that resulted in Jim getting a boss who was unfamiliar with the business things got out of hand. He was then allowed to treat people however he felt like and not much was said. There were many times near the end I would come away from the job in tears.
Every so often Jim would hold meeting he termed " woodshed meetings" which were nothing more than a technique Jim used to feed his ego. Usually held in the morning after a night of drinking, Jim would dehumanize everyone for small situations that could be handled in a word or two. For me however, these meetings were something more than just a boss gone bonkers. Every time Jim would hold one of his glassy eyed meetings it would take me back to the pain I use to know as a child. Many times while growing up my father would roll in off the midnight turn after having a few and start in on me over nothing in much the same way. The nightmare was beginning all over again 35 years later.
My first attempt at dealing with this situation gave me some insight into why we call Jesus our savior. There was a department in our company that handled this kind of situation when other steps had failed. The night I made the decision to turn Jim in was a very difficult time for me. It was my " night in the garden" over the issue. " Why me Lord?" I prayed. Why do I have to do this thing? Why can't he get in trouble with the law, have his wife threaten him with a divorce, or stumble in here so drunk someday they will be forced to deal with him? Why does it have to be me? I could end up losing a lot by rocking the boat and going up against superiors that had a lot of political power.
I am sure Jesus had similar feelings on that dark night in the garden so long ago. He could have called the whole thing off reasoning that it was just a dumb idea of his Dad's anyway and history would have been changed for all time. But he didn't! Because he knew that there were generations and generations to follow who would need that very moment in history as a reference point. It would be a standard so that others to follow would be able to judge for themselves whether they were going to their own crucifixions, metaphorically speaking. Whistle blowers have to get their strength from somewhere, and mine came from God. Just as Jesus got an answer to his " Why me " question that night in the garden so did I. " Why not you George," God replied. " You are the second most senior man in the work group. You are highly motivated by the unnecessary pain this man is causing you. You have the necessary back ground in substance abuse to present a believable case. You are near the end of your career at Ameritech and willing to take risks others are not. And above all you have Me, your Heavenly Father, to guide you through it. Will there be anymore questions ?" I believe I responded with, " Well Lord, since you put it that way, I will give it my best shot!"
So I began compiling information that proved my case that Jim had a severe mental problem, and that it was most assuredly related to his drinking problem off the job. I received the OK from all my co-workers to put them down for validation of the document. My intent was not to get Jim fired, but rather to expose a problem that was getting out of hand in the work environment, and somehow get Jim routed into a recovery program.
It was one of the most difficult things I have ever done in my life. Besides my own pain, another source of motivation to go through with it was a conversation I had one morning with Joanne Eenedingburg, our first Cluster Bell Choir director. Some of you may remember her as the somewhat plucky person who directed our Thanksgiving Cantata one year here at Immanuel. Joanne was in the hospital undergoing tests for cancer. I had gotten to work early on the morning she was to receive the results of her tests so I called her at the hospital. " How's it going Joanne?" I asked. Softly through the receiver I heard, " Not good George, the last check on my life is being written as we speak." After a long period of silence and then my attempt to console her I asked her a question. " How is it Joanne, you have to leave this world at such a young age, someone who loves and serves the Lord dearly, and the person sitting behind me gets to stay and spread his hate and discontent to everyone he touches for God knows how long? I had already had a previous conversation with her about my situation. " I know," she replied, " It doesn't seem quite fair does it?" I hung up the phone that morning more determined than ever before to push this thing through and somehow set this situation right. Joanne died a few weeks later.
But it was not to be, however. Politics as usual, the person I turned Jim into was good friends with Jim's boss and the end result of my effort was a mild talking to. Jim backed off for awhile but it wasn't long before he was back to his old self. My actions were to be kept anonymous but I had been rather vocal about my position on Jim over the years. So when it came down he knew it came from me. That of course made matters worse for me than ever before.
As time went by my condition at work grew worse. My blood pressure must have risen because I would experience occasional nose bleeds at work. One day I developed a rash that refused to heal that I am sure it was related to the situation. But when the job came home with me in the form of anger and depression I knew it was time to do something once and for all.
It was to be another night in the garden for me over this issue, but this time I was at the end of my rope. I needed special help. So one night after a particularly bad day at work I came down here alone to pray and think things through. Alone in the dark I tearfully wrestled over a solution to my situation for over an hour. I felt as if my life would never escape a curse I seemed to be living under concerning the effects of alcoholism. I still hadn't reached an answer yet so I thought I would end things by reading from Scripture and then go home. What happened next was to be the turning point in the whole scenario. I walked to the back to turn on more lights so I could see what I would be reading. When I returned to the pew I grabbed a pew Bible and as I sat down it flipped open on me to the middle somewhere. It had opened to Psalms. I was really heading for one of my favorite verses, Proverbs 3:5-6, Trust in the Lord. I put the book in my lap trying to decide which way to go from Psalms to get to Proverbs. For some reason Psalm 20 kept staring me in the face saying, " Just read me and then go home." So I did.
Now you must understand at this point I had probably only seen Psalm 20 once in my life in a general run through he Psalms. So it wasn't as if I was looking for some specific significance in Scripture but I sure got it. Practically every verse in that Psalm had a direct application to my situation. The Psalm opens with, " The Lord answer you in the day of trouble. May he send you help from the sanctuary." When I arrived at the word sanctuary, I burst out laughing. Since I was in the middle of the sanctuary and diffidently in trouble, I thought, " Wow God, you sure can pick' em!" As I read further down into Psalm, however, my laughter turned into a deep cry. With each verse I read I could feel God's loving arms slowly surrounding me. When I was finished I knew what I had to do and that everything would eventually be OK. The next day I began procedures for taking my pension and seeking employment elsewhere.
I didn't realize it at the time, but I had just received the answers to the test before I was issued the test. Over the many months that followed I would have to keep coming back to Psalm 20, and eventually Psalm 21 to reassure myself I was on the right path and following God's plan for me.
I left Ameritech in June of 1995 after 25 years of service and began the emotional task of finding new employment. Regardless of your credentials, quitting jobs in the 90' s can be very risky business. About a month went by with many resumes in the mail, and no response to them. I started to get a little panicky that perhaps I had made a mistake. " Oh Lord Jesus" I prayed, " Please don't let me perish in this process. All I want to do is find peace, maintain my family, maintain my dignity, and in the end bring all of the glory home to you." In God's own time all of those petitions would be fulfilled. He even said so when he handed me Psalm 20 verse 5 and said, "May the Lord fulfill all your Petitions."
There were other things in Psalm 20 that seemed to fit my situation exactly. Psalm 20 is a prayer for victory, and I was most assuredly looking for a victory in this experience. Verse 5 speaks of raising banners to my victory. With Nancy on the banner committee that seemed to fit. At the time this began, Nancy and the banner committee were working on the vacation Bible school display banner with the children hanging on the cross saying, " Hang on to the Word of God." At this point in the adventure, I was hanging on to every Word of God I could get my hands on!! Verse 2 finishes with the acknowledgment that I will receive support from Zion. In the early days of the church, besides the city, Zion also referred to the people of the church. I have received immeasurable support from my " Zion," that is to say Immanuel and its people. On the very night I was down here trying to find a solution, Nancy was on the phone with Sandy Rusnack making plans to type up my resume. The wheels had already begun to turn down a different path. Many months down the road Mark Levin would be some of that support from Zion by speaking favorably about my qualifications to my future supervisor. There have been many moments of kind words, prayers, and an assortment of help from my church family for which I am extremely grateful.
Another month went by and still no job offers. The cold hard facts were beginning to sink in. I might have messed up big time on this move. I turned to God in prayer and thought of all the experiences in faith that had brought me to this point. The wonderment of the Faith Works Conference at Purdue with speakers from all over the world. The incredible joy of two Twila Paris concerts in less than a year. Rekindling my love for my spouse through God's Grace. Launching our handbell choirs, and many other explosive things in-between. I wondered if this was where it was all going to end. But then in a very reassuring voice I heard God say, "Georgie, with all of those experiences I was merely strengthening and preparing you for this very time."
It was to be a time however, when I would have to stretch out my hand as far as it could possibly reach and allow my Heavenly Father the latitude to pull me through a very long and dark tunnel . One filled with an awful lot of unknowns. Would I ever find a job again? If I did would I be able to handle it? Would it be enough to support my family for another ten years before I could fully retire? Would I run into another situation like the one I left? Did I hear God correctly when he said trust me and leave Ameritech?
The answer to my first question came a few weeks later when I received a job with the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad. I was back at work again and things seemed much brighter. I was going to fulfill one of my childhood fantasies. I have always wanted to work for the railroad ever since I owned a Lionel train set. But fantasies have a way of fading into reality quickly. My " hi-tech" communications job with the railroad was very labor intensive. It involved digging ditches by hand shovel through railroad ballast and climbing telephone poles with foot spikes. These were tasks that I was 20 years and 20 pounds beyond! I knew I would not last long on this job.
I was back to square one again, or in my case back to Psalm 20. Verse 3 says, " May he remember all your offerings and regard with favor your burnt sacrifices." Well, if ever there was a burnt sacrifice it had to have been my attempt to correct the situation at Ameritech by turning my friend Jim into the Human Relations Department. That Puppy just flamed out and went to ground!! Now it looked as if the railroad job was going to be another burnt sacrifice and just an intermediate point on my journey. After reading Psalm 20 many times, gradually my eye drifted down to Psalm 21. It was also a Psalm for victory but it was the number that jumped out at me. It was a number that would play a key role and become a reference point in the rest of this story. Even before leaving Ameritech I was pursuing employment with a growing cable company in Chicago by the name of 21st Century. Coul d it be, God was saying my request to be hired by 21st Century would be granted soon?
I was beginning to think I had an over active imagination and that perhaps I was reading just a little too much into this Scripture coincidence. That was until October 2nd rolled around. On Monday morning October 2nd at 8AM I called up and quit the railroad job. If I didn't do something soon I was going to get seriously hurt. Once again my fate rested in the hands of God. I had no idea what I was going to do next. At 3PM that same afternoon I received a call from 21st Century Cable asking me to come down and talk about a position with them. Now how is that for the Heavenly Father looking out after you? Not too often in the 90's does one quit a job and get another one on the same day! Surely God was directing my path and keeping me well informed of his plans for me. Psalm 21 signified 21st Century was in my path and October 2nd matched perfectly with the second verse of Psalm 21, " You have given him his hearts desire and not withheld the request of his lips." My desire was to stay employed, my request was for the door to open up for a job with 21st Century.
I began employment with 21st Century a week later. Initially I was hired as a private contractor under the agreement that I would become a permanent employee when they signed a franchise agreement with the city of Chicago. They assured me the politics of getting a franchise was very close to and end and that I would have a high paying job as a fiber manager within a few months.
Three months of political delays went by and still no franchise. I was growing impatient. My salary as a private contractor was not enough to fully support my family so I had to keep dipping into my pension fund. If this rate kept up for long, there would be no happy retirement. Most of the work I was doing for this company was assessing city maps for accuracy and population. This was a procedure necessary to engineer the correct placement and number of fiber node amplifiers when the system would be installed. One morning while in the south loop area I happened by Old St. Mary's Church. I use to stop there occasionally before getting on the train when I was working at 85 West Congress Parkway. Having no idea of the address I stopped in for a few moments of prayer to settle my uncertainty about my current job status. I knelt down to pray. " Am I in the right spot God? Is this 21st Century position ever going to get off the ground? Is 21st Century the place for me or do I need to move on? I hate to be a whiner, but so far things are not advancing very well. Could you send me a sign of some kind so I know you are still with me and things will work out?" Then I looked down on the pew in front of me. There was a closed missilet lying there with a property sticker on it. It read, " Please do not remove - property of Old St. Mary's Church - 21 East Vanburn Street " !! Funny how God sends us things just when we need them.
There were other similar occurrences over the next few months. The number 21 kept popping up all over the place even without whining to God about my insecurity! Things were looking brighter for 21st Century so they sent three of us for Fiber Optic Systems training with Antec Corporatio n in Denver, Colorado. The day we left was the same day we held our handbell dedication. It was the 21st of January. The return flight from Denver was rather sparsely populated so we decided to change our seats for more leg room. Out of all the seats in the airplane, I was reassigned seat number 21A ! I kept reading this information to mean that I was still on the right path and things would be working out for me very soon. I didn't find out until much later that this number would bear a double application as a point of reference on my journey.
Things however took a turn for the worse shortly after returning from school in Denver. Due to all the political delays 21st Century was running out of money. As a result they laid one other technician and myself off for a period of three weeks. This lay off began the week of Ash Wednesday. Then that number popped up again! It was not by chance that Ash Wednesday fell on the 21st of February this year! If it sounds too good to be true it usually is. I quickly put it together the moment I saw it on the calendar. Ash Wednesday; 21st of February; equals " burnt sacrifice" ! I had to consider the sad fact that there might not be a high paying job for me here and my time with 21st Century was going to end up being another burnt sacrifice on my journey. I researched this little message from heaven even further. While mailing out resumes I kept a tracking list. The name behind item number 2 (symbolizing the month of February) was 21st Century. Looking back on that airline seat ticket confirmed this information even deeper, 21A was short for 21 ashes. Red alert, 21st Century is crashing and it is time to jump ship!!!
When things started to go sour at 21st Century I started to pursue a back up plan I had established with Ameritech New Media just before I took my pension. I called and set up a date for taking the entry exams for this new and growing business unit that involved building hi-tech fiber optic cable TV systems in a five state area. A month went by before I was allowed to take the employment exams. In the mean time 21st Century was granted the franchise to build a new cable system in downtown Chicago. Even after getting their franchise 21st Century was still giving me the stall on hiring me into the company so I continued to pursue my return path to Ameritech vigorously. On the night before the final city council meeting I sought more direction from God's Word. The final city council meeting would take place on March 26, 1996. Late in the evening on March 25th I was thumbing through Luke and the page header caught my eye. In bold type marking the last Scripture on the page was Luke 21:26. Another number match was occurring and I had come to pay pretty close attention to them as of late. So I r ead Luke 21:20 through Luke 21:26. I was anticipating some forecast on the council proceedings but got a warning instead. Luke 21:21 (there was that big number again)! said " Then those in Judea must flea to the mountains , and those in the city must leave it. I was already taking steps to leave 21st Century in the city of Chicago and now seeing this same information in God's Word confirmed my suspicions that another "burnt sacrifice" was about to take place.
By trusting totally in the Lord even burnt sacrifices will have their rewards. The many months of wandering around trying to find a stable job seemed to me a big waste of time but in God's plan it was a necessary step. First of all he knew I would need all of the state of the art training I received in Denver to pass the Ameritech New Media entry exam. And most importantly he was teaching me how to be patient and wait upon him. Compared to our fast food " got to have it now" way of life, God works very slow. If you are going to witness th e miracles, you have to be willing to wait for them. Nancy can attest to the fact there were many times when I would whine about this nightmare coming to an end and for life to get back to normal!
Light at the end of the long dark tunnel started to appear the day I took the employment tests with Ameritech New Media. However it was not without its moments of divine intervention. Throughout this journey there have been many moments in prayer that have both sustained me, and advanced the course of event s. I have been involved in communications my entire career. Getting a clean solid signal from point A to point B has been in my blood since I was 15 years old and fooling around with ham radio equipment. It is probably for that reason why I am absolutely fascinated with the ultimate communications system, that of course being prayer. I believe that prayer advances both attitudes and events towards the greater glory of God. If it didn't he wouldn't have told us to use it so much. There are theologians that believe this world would have flung itself apart long ago if it were not for the effects of prayer. A real case event where prayer played a crucial role in my journey was on the day I was being tested for reentry into Ameritech. I had started testing early in the morning with not much sleep the night before. Just prior to lunch I took a number sequence test that I did very poorly on. I was so foggy at the time I took it I could barely see. While at lunch I had become very discouraged. I had about had it with all that had happened to me so far. I was tired of being put under a fine microscope just for the privilege of chasing down technology that keeps changing ever five minutes. If this last ditch effort to be rehired by Ameritech didn't fly, it was going to be Nancy, myself, and a can of pledge as house cleaners until I fully retired. Before returning for the afternoon test session however, I asked God in prayer for help in feeling better and doing better on the tests. I refused to allow Satan any entry into my heart and to draw me down to failure. In another state, 80 miles away at approximately the same time (the lunch hour) and totally unbeknownst to me, Joan Mier swung into a washroom someplace and offered up a prayer of support for my situation. I had called her the night before and mentioned I was going in for testing and would be needing prayers of support. I am absolutely convinced that between the two of us I was able to return to that testing procedure with a completely renewed at titude to successfully complete four more hours of intensive electronic testing. Prayer works, especially communal prayer.
A happy ending to this story started to materialize on Monday morning April 22, 1996 when I reported to my first day of work with Ameritech New Media in Naperville, Illinois. I was back home with Ameritech but this time with a group of people that had a totally different philosophy on the work environment and human relations. I have been treated so well by them it feels as if I ha ve died and gone to electronic heaven! After being there awhile I remarked to Nancy that I had read in Scripture somewhere in the course of all these events that it was predicted I would one day return to Ameritech. I reviewed what I could recall of wh at I had been reading over the past two years but found nothing that seemed to fit. Then one day while I was gathering all the notes I had compiled to assemble this story I came across a book marker with a Scripture verse on it given to me by Donna Graves at my 50th birthday party. It was one of the more sensible gifts I can remember getting at that gala event! The verse is from Jeremiah 29:11 and reads, " For I have plans for you says the Lord, they are plans for good and not for evil. To give you a future and a hope." I usually like to read at least a paragraph at a time so I must have read the remaining verses near the beginning of this adventure. The last verse in this paragraph describes exactly what had happened to me over the last two years. The verse complete with its application to my journey follows. Jeremiah 29:14 -- " I will let you find me, says the Lord (find a deeper relationship with God through this experience), and I will restore your fortunes (return you to employment at a higher salary than when you left), and gather you from all the nations and places where I have driven you, says the Lord, ( gather you from the railroad job, 21st Century, and endless interviews and resumes), and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile." (that is to say, I will bring you back to Ameritech!!!!! But the final piece of the puzzle was yet to come! If it was prophesied that I was coming back to Ameritech, what was all this business about the number 21 then? After being on the job for a few weeks with Ameritech New Media, my boss handed me a form and said, \ldblquote Congratulations, it is official.\rdblquote The form contained official information on starting dates and bridging dates for my seniority. Even though my first day at work was Monday April 22, 1996 due to pay periods starting on Sunday at midnight my official start date was backed up to April 21, 1996!!!!! Then that airline ticket came to mind again. If you were to say the date time group in military format you would say it 21 April 96. The ticket number then took on its final meaning, 21A equals 21 April . To reinforce the confirmation even further under the bridging column my 25 years of seniority will be bridged on April 21, 2001. I rest my case, God was leaving me path markers along the way to make sure I didn't become lost while following his plan. At this point you might be asking yourself, " Wouldn't it have been easier if you would have simply put in for a transfer for Ameritech New Media and avoided all this nightmare?" In a word no! First of all Jim was such a vindictive person I am sure he would have found a way to crush the transfer process somehow. Secondly, only one person made it out of our communications group to Ameritech New Media using the transfer process. After he was accepted, New Media stopped taking inter-company transfers and hired only off the street. They wanted to accrue a hand picked team of experts that would stay with the operation and not be transferring back and forth. The path I took was the only one available to me.
Waiting upon the Lord to pave the way through difficult times can be a long process. But for those who hang in there till the end of the tunnel there is a moment of joy that makes the trip worth while. At that moment everything becomes crystal clear an d there is no more doubt or insecurity. There is a window within that moment through which comes a brief vision of what the joy of everlasting life must be like. The grass seems to be greener, the air smells fresher, the kisses are more passionate, and even the food tastes better. Such a moment for my story happened on my return trip from a training week in Minneapolis with ADC Telecommunications on the digital DV6000 video transport system. I had shared this trip with my fami ly sort of using it as a mini-vacation. We were driving back on the scenic route along the Mississippi River on the Minnesota side. It was a beautiful warm sunny day. We had pulled into a vista overlooking the river below to take some pictures and take in the breathtaking view. I paused for a moment to give thanks to a wonderful God who had taken me so far in just one short year. Then I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be. I no longer had knots in my stomach after thinking about returning to work after a vacation or time away from the job. Actually I was looking forward to it and the many interesting paths my new career with Ameritech New Media would take me down. What a shame my friend Jim is going to miss moments like this. One of two th in gs will happen with my friend Jim. He will either carry the bottle to the grave with him. Or, if he ever does turn around, he will become a fantastic testimony to the power of Jesus Christ in this world. For Jim there will be no in-between. It is my f ervent prayer it is the latter. Surely it is possible. If God could do all of this, then saving Jim should be small potatoes. Why? Because God wants all of his children back home, not just a select few. To bring that about I would like to incorporat e your help. Whenever you pay your phone bill, happen to blow by an Ameritech truck, or get your car washed for that matter think of my little story. Say a little prayer for Jim that he might have a chance to discover the incredible joy of God\rquote s love and forgiveness before it is too late and maybe we will get to see the miracle happen twice. Remember what I said about prayer earlier? Where God\rquote s glory is concerned, I believe prayer can do some mighty wild things.
SUMMARY
The raising of the Pentecost banner last May and the lifting of the one today marks the official end of my journey through the long dark tunnel for two reasons. One the same day Nancy, Jackie, and Pastor Al were lifting the banner onto the hook last May , I was making an exchange of the remaining test equipment I had on hand with 21st Century Cable. God had closed one door and opened up another for me with New Media. Secondly, going back to my original set of instructions, Psalm 20 verse 5 said, " May we shout for joy over your victory, and in the name of our God set up our banners." !
I thought my relationship with the Lord was in pretty good shape before all this got started, but now it is absolutely fantastic!! When you accept Jesus Christ into your heart full time, no more questions asked, something wonderful begins to happen. Li fe starts to transform itself from a series of continually pounding storms, to a series of challenges and events which in one way or another will draw you closer to God and will secure you on your pathway to heaven. To put it more biblically, \ldblquote All things work together unto good for those that love God." As in my car wash analogy, in the middle of all those storms Christ then becomes the unmoveable center reference point, against which, all other movable and transitory events are measured. This theory of utilizing a high standard stationary source to navigate yourself through the difficult channels of this life is nothing new. Hebrews 12 :2 (Good News Version) states it quite well. " Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus on whom our faith depends from beginning to end." In a strange sort of way it has been rather exciting to go through all of this. I got a chance to witness the mechanics of my faith operate all the way from tears, through prayers, to hallelujahs. This experience has given me the foundation I will need to cross the rest of the rivers with my savior and my friend Jesus, until I am all the way back home.
In conclusion ............................. C.S. Lewis once wrote, " God washes our eyes with tears that we might see clearly the land where there are no more tears." I am sure God saw me crying in the sanctuary that night. He came to me, wiped away my tears, and pointed me down a path where I would eventually find peace and happiness. Just like any loving father would have. Out of this entire experience has come the rock solid conviction that our God is a mighty God, and his children WILL NOT be forsaken. When you humble yourself before the Lord and call upon him for help, he will come to the rescue for you every time. You can count on that because he has to be true to his word. He absolutely DELIGHTS in helping his children. Be strong in the Lord and seek first the kingdom in everything you do, and then, you will be able to achieve things that far exceed your wildest dreams.
AMEN and AMEN