God wants me to tell you some things, but first I need to give you some background about myself.
I was raised in a middle-class home in a Midwestern community in the United States during the 1960's and 1970's. My parents took me to a mainline protestant church when I was young, where I went to Sunday school and learned a few things, but mainly ran around the church building and goofed off like a typical boy. For the most part, I did not "hear" much, probably because there wasn't really that much to hear. When I was older, I remember weeping on my mother's shoulder after the church service because I wanted to hear and understand, but I couldn't recall any of what had just been preached. All I really ever learned there was this: empty ritual does nothing; it is worthless.
I do remember "believing" one bright, sunny, spring day, when I was nine years old.1 I was reading a picture Bible on my bed -- about the Ten Plagues -- and all of a sudden I believed, and I said, "I believe this stuff," or something like that. I recall going and telling my mother about it, but not much else. For a few days or weeks I remember thinking about godly things, but that was about it and the memory faded until a few days before I was baptized by immersion in 1999. I can look back on my life from that point and can see evidence that I always wanted to do the right thing, although it didn't always happen. At college, I found myself different from many of the other guys, in that I knew right from wrong and would not participate in some of the shenanigans they got into, but given time I was influenced and somewhat corrupted. My "good boy" upbringing got tinged, and that's to be expected when living in the world.
During my early adult life, I was a typical male, but knew right from wrong and managed to stay out of most trouble, until I met the person who would eventually become my wife. We did not wait for marriage even thought we both knew that what we were doing was wrong. It took an overseas job offer to get me to marry her, and I "proposed" by saying, "Well, I guess we should get married," while standing next to her refrigerator at lunchtime. Not very romantic. We made up for it, however, by getting to spend a "four-year honeymoon" in Europe.
I pursued an engineering career at a multinational corporation and constantly worried about many things. I believed in the Darwinian Theory of Evolution, and had done so since I was eight years old. We tried to start a family and were unsuccessful, experiencing a number of miscarriages, including the loss of a set of twins (girl and boy) at 22.5 weeks gestation.2 That broke my heart, and my pride, and started moving me toward God. We forgave the doctors who had been working with us, and moved on to give birth to two daughters under their care. Those daughters are now adults and living near us.
In the mid 1990's, we were living overseas again and one Sunday while reading the newspaper someone spoke to my spirit and questioned how I was raising my daughters. I knew I needed to return home to Michigan and "take my family to church."
We arrived home on June 1, 1996, and the next day we went to my childhood church. We went there for about a month, but I realized I was not "hearing" anything, just as before, so we ended up at a different church that my brother had been attending. There, I heard the message about repentance for the first time, and I ravenously consumed the Word. My stronghold about Evolution prevented me from advancing, but one day it left me. I remember laughing at how stupid the notion was that the universe resulted from chance.
On April 25, 1999, I was baptized. God used my older daughter to get me to do it. She was nine years old, and they usually did not baptize children that young, but my daughter was exceptionally advanced, spiritually, so they did it. I followed her and was extremely motivated when the time actually came. They encouraged people to give "testimonies" during baptism services, and I recounted my childhood "I believe" experience, which I remembered when I was writing the testimony, and my final words were something like, "Pastor, please baptize me! I have work to do!"3
I believe it was shortly after my baptism, within a matter of days or about a week, I received the Holy Spirit. I didn't know what it was. It was amazing and I really liked it, and it sounds similar to what others have described, but the church we were attending did not describe it at all, other than to say that those who believe automatically have the Holy Spirit. That does not match the book of Acts, but it was the teaching I had been exposed to. When I approached my church about this, they were not able to give me answers. They directed me to the pastor who had baptized me, because they knew he was familiar with "spiritual warfare stuff," but his advice was that faith is not about "feelings" and to basically be quiet about these things and keep them between me and God. I forgive him for that, and still love him dearly. I did not speak in tongues because I didn't know what they were and therefore didn't ask to, and apparently God did not cause it to happen at that time. These things all happened in the privacy of my bedroom, and the experience was already strange enough, I suppose, but only God knows. My church did not teach much of anything about tongues.
I prayed some really crazy and wild stuff in those early days. I asked for a double-portion of the spirit of Elisha and for my family to impact the world. I asked to "scratch the surface" of who God is, knowing He is infinite. At work, I prayed to be able to witness to numerous people I worked with, and God brought that about in every case. Everybody there knew I was strange and on fire for God. I loved teaching Sunday school to fifth-graders (including my kids), and certainly learned much more than they did! I went to "spiritual boot camp" by being a counselor at a summer camp for abused and neglected children, took my family on a mission trip to Mexico (a place I never wanted to go), and shaved my head to be "Mr. Clean" for a vacation Bible school. Eventually, in July of 2001, I was led to leave my employer at the peak of my career to "go where He would show me." That's how I explained it to people, an "Abraham experience." My wife was okay with it, too, which helped confirm it was "a God thing."
I did not return to employment until late 2006, and then it was only to do contract work. During 2007, the contract work put me back in touch with those I had worked with before, and by November, 2007, I had rejoined my original employer to take what I called my "dream job." I was Process Safety Manager for a significant chemical manufacturing site, which gave me reason to know about and visit every part of the facility. As a child, I had dreamed of getting to go inside the chemical plants in the town I lived in, and this fulfilled that dream.
When I look back at it now, I actually was tempted to go back to where I had been, and I fell for it. Leaving employment in 2001 helped me to get rid of some idols in my life: steady income, health-care insurance, retirement nest egg and pride of achievement, among other things. In their place was my love for God and pursuit of Him, time with my children at their school, service to my wife by doing housework, volunteering my time at the local cable-access television facilities, and building a deck for my sister and brother-in-law. But my love for engineering and the security of employment beckoned, and I longed to return. The Scripture says that anyone who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for service in the Kingdom of God. Well, I looked back, and was eventually lured back. I know it now. God did good things during my fallback but I lost my fire and my kids wandered off, not that I can control them.
My job as Process Safety Manager was mainly to be a resident government representative on the company's payroll making sure the employees complied with federal and state regulations. I didn't make up the rules, but people attributed all the pain to me. To make a long story short, by the time my seven years in the role were up, everyone pretty much hated me. Compliance with the Law. Nobody likes that, and they blame it on the messenger. Sound familiar? Yeah.
When I became eligible for full retirement, I knew God was telling me it was time to go, and I officially retired on June 1, 2015. Exactly one year later, the company I had worked for on and off for roughly thirty years, was bought out by one of its owners and effectively ceased to exist as it had for seventy years as a joint venture. It had been a good place to work, but I was glad I was finished.
A couple of weeks after my retirement, I decided to recommit my life to God. I no longer represented my employer in any way and felt free to say what I wanted on social media. I began to do so, but mostly to what seemed to be no audience. I persevered, but grew frustrated and succeeded in angering those I loved. Finally, one day God showed me some new things and pointed out where I was wrong. My previous posts document how I was led to Jacksonville, FL to be set free.
Since then, God has been "rewiring me," at my request, to make me fit for service in the Kingdom of Heaven. When I was driving the car on the expressway after my deliverance on Neptune Beach, I became aware that some things were "missing." I had to think about driving, as if I was just learning how. We were not in danger, but God wanted me to know that some things had really changed.
God also wanted me to know that this was all very real. I had a very vivid dream the morning after my deliverance where the demons tried to come back. There were two beautiful pheasants flying toward me and I reached out to take them in my hands. At the same time, an oppressive feeling came over my shoulders from behind, and I reflexively exclaimed, "Save me, Jesus!" At that, everything immediately disappeared and I woke up. One or two mornings later, Satan came to me in a similar dream, and started to lead me off to jail, but I commanded him to produce his evidence, and he left me. A third dream came to me as we were preparing to travel back north. It was of a traffic accident involving a large semi-truck running off the road, and it worried me during the first day heading back, until I realized who it was from and that it was a lie. Throwing everything at the feet of Jesus, and asking Him to intercede for me with the Father, gave me peace, but Satan has been whispering to me often over the ensuing weeks as God teaches me who is talking to me and how to wage the battle.
I know what my job is, and have known for a long time. Satan succeeded in neutralizing me for a while, and I didn't even realize it was happening, although I knew things were not right. If anyone tells you that a Christian cannot have demons or cannot be influenced by Satan, they are in error or lying. Why would Satan waste his resources on anyone but those who can hurt him? He doesn't. Was I "truly saved" earlier? Only God knows, and it really doesn't matter. I think the totality of Scripture says that salvation is something we work out over our lifetime, and the end result is what matters. There are no "tickets" to heaven; only trust in Jesus, and we must do it until we are united with Him.
Bottom line: God is faithful. He rescued me when I called out to Him. All credit and glory to God! Thank you, Jesus!
All glory to God!
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UPDATES, March 26, 2022...
2Normal, full-term gestation is 40 weeks. Our babies were born 40 - 22.5 = 17.5 weeks early. Seventeen weeks early. Seventeen.
3I found a copy of my baptism testimony after I wrote this post, and it is part of a more recent post, which you can find here.
UPDATES, May 31, 2022...
Renumbered the previous footnotes to accommodate this one, which originates earlier in the post.
1This seems to have been my "born again" experience (John 3:3). It is something that just happened to me. My baptisms in water and Spirit occurred many years later. Being born and being baptized are not the same thing. I do not think John 3:5-6 is talking about baptism.
This is causing me to be wary of those who profess baptism in water and baptism in Spirit but do not seem to see or understand the Kingdom. Have they actually been "born again?"
Watching "fruit" is part of discernment. Discernment is knowing the difference between what is right and what is almost right. It takes a keen eye, and only comes through the Holy Spirit. He guides us into all Truth. My analysis of Lydia comes to mind, and you can read about it here.
UPDATE, July 4, 2022...
I just calculated the total number of months we lived in Britain. Ninety two (92).
9 + 2 = 11
11
Amazing...