[ Taste And See ]
Smiles & Victory at Every Turn!Sharing My Love For God
2007-02-10
Obviously, the springboard verse for this blog is Psa 34:8 "O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him."
I'm really excited about the opportunity to share and exchange the great blessings of God. There is just so much that can be said and shared and I would like to do some of it here.
It's hard to find where to start. Maybe if I started from the beginning it would help. I joined the army out of high school. My first duty was in Germany. I was a kid just like everyone else, living life trying to "be an adult." I spent a lot of money on a sad life. I would go out and drink and spend my whole pay on such. It was a very sad introduction to being on my own. I really liked my peers but it was really unfulfilling. To add, I was somewhat religious. I remember trying to talk to others about God and, to no surprise, I was not very successful. Let me add something that I believe was a start of my conversion. There was guy in my unit who told me, "you're not a Christian, I've met real Christians." It really didn't strike me then but now, looking back, it was very instrumental in me really getting saved.
I finished my time in Germany and then moved to Kentucky. When I arrived there was something inside of me that really wanted to do something different and better. Some men came along and asked if I wanted to be in their special platoon. I thought that this was my break into doing something special so I decided to go along.
These men really wanted to impress upon us that what we were doing was special. We went through a thirty day initiation. They made it pretty difficult. At the end a few men were weeded out but I made the cut. Now I was part of their unit.
This part of my life was also very instrumental. I joined this unit thinking that being in a special unit would make thing better. I was in a group of different people with a different attitude towards the army. I started hanging out with these guys, bar hopping and such. With all of this I started to realize something. Nothing was different. I was still the same, and I was living a sad unproductive life. I started asking myself questions like, "isn't there more to life than this?" Getting drunk, playing army just didn't cut it.
Being religious, one night I was reading the Bible. I read the Bible from time to time but it never had the impact on me before like it did this night. I read a verse in Exodus, "Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain." I may have read this verse before but that night it struck me like a lightning bolt. I remember telling myself something like, "I use the Lord's name in vain" and "God is not holding me guiltless, God is holding this against me." I felt the conviction of my filthy communications and it was heavy.
I went on but not long after this happened a couple of guys came along and invited me out to church. (One of them that invited me told me years later that they determined to walk around those barracks one more time, Thank God for One More Time!) I went out.
Was I in for a shock. I didn't drive so they picked me up. They drove me out to a storefront church. I remember one of the ladies coming up and introducing herself with a very friendly attitude. My first thought was that she was interested in me. I didn't realize, until later, that it was her husband that invited me out.
It was clean and neat but not my idea of a church. I came in wearing my tight jeans and carrying a Bible. I sat down in one of the back pews. When they called service to begin they all rose and raised their hands and started praising God out loud. It was something I never saw before and I just stood there looking around. Needless to say, I didn't raise my hands. Then they began to sing. They all sang loud and happily. I was used to songs like "bringing in the sheaves" but these folks were singing upbeat hymns. It was not the reserved church I grew up in. I wasn't going to leave because they drove me out and it was a long way out so I was there until it was over.
I'll never forget the man that got up to preach. He started out like most preachers I knew of but as he went on he got louder and redder in the face. He preached and he preached with fire. I remember asking myself, "why does this man have to get so loud?" but there was another voice that was speaking and it said, "but he's preaching from the Bible" that same Bible that I had been reading in my barracks room. It was true. I told myself, "if it comes from the Bible I'll believe it." It was all from the Bible. I could not find fault and it was all at me or at least that's the way it seemed back then. The preacher didn't know me from Adam but God was speaking through him. He was dealing with my life and my dreaded condition and God's saving grace.
I was asked to come up and pray but I said no. I told them that I was already saved but deep down I knew I wasn't really saved. I went back to my barracks that night but I had encountered something great. They asked me if I wanted to come back out and I agreed to.
I came out a few times in a row and the conviction grew every time. I never prayed in church at that time but one night I returned to my barracks room. When I got in it was just me in our four man room. I was shaken by my conviction. I got down on my knees and I prayed something like, "God, I am a sinner and I need this salvation." I didn't feel anything different. I kept going to church and after that night of prayer I started going to the alter at the church and praying earnestly for God to save me. God saved me the night I prayed in my barracks room, but somehow, in all of it, God wanted me to pray at that alter.
I'll never forget my first pastor, how I love that man and the men he trained to reach others. Later on I came up to the alter to receive the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. I was raised a Baptist and this was very contrary to Baptist teaching. I remember that that same voice kept saying, "If it's in the Bible then how can you resist it?" or "If it's in the Bible, I'll believe it." It was and still is in there. The Baptism of the Holy Ghost was the answer to my need for power to live for God and it is still the answer today. I went up front and prayed for the Baptism and after a short while the Spirit fell on me just as it did on the Disciples on the day of Pentecost. I spoke in tongues and I felt the fire of God flowing and rushing through me. I was so on fire that I walked to the back of the church and told a guy, who had started coming out with us, that he needed to go up there and get the Holy Ghost too! (He's a faithful minister in our church organization right now. He eventually, in his time, received the Holy Ghost also.) It was something so amazingly great that the next day I called a girl I knew and told her all about it. I told my friends at the barracks and none of them could say anything to the contrary, they knew looking at me and the way I spoke of it all that this was not some hoax. They knew how sincere I was.
After this my life really changed. I was going to church all the time. I was no longer the invitee but the one inviting. I got a car because I wanted to pick people up for church. I was harassed by some of my fellow soldiers. One of them kind of gave me a hard time. It didn't matter. I knew how real God was to me.
When it was my time to leave that duty station in Kentucky one of the guys in my unit came up to me to ask a question. He asked something like, "What happened to you? One day you were out partying with us and the next thing you know you stopped and just started going to church." I was sad that I didn't get him to come out and now he was telling me, as I was leaving, how he noticed (he harassed me also from time to time, you really don't know how much of an impact new Christians have on their peers.)
I moved on to Korea and then back to Kentucky but I knew God had called me into the ministry and I had delayed too long already so I went to Seminary.
Today I am helping another minister. It's my goal to be a full time minister and God has me called and I know that these callings are without repentance.
I preached on a message tonight, "Taste and See" and I felt that I should share these thoughts with others in hope that they too will "taste and see" that God is good to them as He is to me.
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