Christianity Oasis Forum

[saint701]

Hello All,


Blessings!

Preface Part III

Things got worse! Was sitting outside chatting with my wife as she was sun bathing. I "still" didn't know anything about putting on the whole armor of God. I was still a wet behind the ears babe naked to everything the Lord desired to allow the wicked one to thump me with. He didn't thump me though. He zinged me. He spoke his poisonous arrows at me through my wife! They pierced my spirit! I didn't know quite what had happened to me, but I felt the life of God flow out of my spirit as though a football with a dart in it.

Up until that point I had survived the onslaught, but those darts began the end of my good journey with the Lord for quite some time. I enrolled in the local Man of God Cemetary, a liberal seminary designed to foster and develop modern humanistic thought, but my wounded spirit wasn't in it. I couldn't concentrate on studies and soon dropped out.

But before I left the wise men gathered a council, plopped me in the middle of it and began to examine me as to why I was going out from them. They treated me just like I was Judas Iscariot himself on the way to betray my Master. What they did to me was just plain cruel. There I had suffered all that year of hell in the true work of God being persecuted for righteousness sake, then that. What came next was even worse!

I took a job as an associate Pastor of a small full gospel church but my wife would not attend it. That was the last straw! I was humiliated! I was whipped, beaten down, depressed and worn out. My wife's fire filled darts of the wicked one had poisoned me. I got angry. I got angry at my wife and angry at the Lord. I decided I didn't want anything to do with that old cold hearted thing even if she was the mother of my children. I packed my old 73 orange and white Chevy Vega, took what I felt was a reasonable portion of the bank account making sure to leave her sufficient funds and headed out.

I traveled south to my mother's house. With my dad's recent passing she was alone in a 4 bedroom house in a small subdivision 5 miles out in the county. As I approached the front of the house in my car I saw her carrying a 25 pound fire log for the upstairs fireplace insert up the driveway toward the front door. It was now Winter. All I had thought about was me, me, me. And there my poor old 5 foot 2 inch mother was having to carry wood 40 yards up an incline to the stove. Right there I got a new revelation on what had killed my dad.

Why hadn't he stacked them near the front door? I had no idea. The lawn was spacious. The folks nearby were neighborly. Those fireplace insert chunks were huge! I considered her plight, a quarter acre garden in the middle of an acre and a half of grass to cut. I reflected on cutting that grass the Spring before when dad was on his death bed. She had it rough.

I carried in the rest of the wood for her, got my things and moved into the upstairs guest bedroom. "Son," she said, I am very happy you are here, but please don't be a bringin' in a bunch of old floozies to dinner." I honored her in that.

The next day I ventured out to apply to substitute in the local elementary schools. I was called right away. My approach to teaching was really liked by my supervisors and within a month had earned a half day position at one of the schools.

Now throughout my struggles of the preceding few years I had been given a few prophetic words of encouragement, all of which are still coming to pass as I write. One came by Kenneth Hagin. He said Satan would use my family members against me, but the Lord would restore me such that it would be like living in Heaven for me. He said the Lord would give me a companion that would respond to the Spirit of the Lord. Another came as I sat in church one day that said that I would eat the fat of the land indeed if I was willing and obedient. And a third prophecy came from that same school counselor friend of mine where the witches were. He said I was on a rough and rocky road, that not long and the Lord would put me on a smooth one, that the Lord would comfort me one more time, that at that time I would know I was a man of God, but after that I would have to walk.

These have come to mind at this point in the story because my mother lived on a rough and rocky old country dirt road.

To be continued.


Blessings!
L,ICJ, Saint701.