Don's Devotionals: Learning to love God

Continued from yesterday

To God be the glory great things He hath done! 

I was telling her about Jesus while we walked but my mind was in a whirlwind.  There was a popular song at the time with the line, “Then I went and spoiled it all by saying something stupid like I love you.” And it was running through my mind.  We walked to a stone bench under the pines next to a chapel and sat down.  What was going on within me was so consuming I couldn’t continue talking.  I finally said, “There is something I have to tell you.”  Donna said, “Go ahead.”  I replied, “I love you.”  She replied, “I love you too.”  

At that point, I said, “Let’s pray.”  My prayer was simply this, “Lord Jesus – If this is not of you, stop it.  But if this is of you, please confirm it.”  And “heaven landed with a thud!”  That is how I have described it for 44 years.  We were immediately surrounded and embraced by a manifestation of God’s presence!  He imparted (downloaded) everything into both of us – the knowledge, the thrill, the excitement, the affection, the commitment, the complete settledness.  It was done!!  We knew at that moment, sitting on the bench praying, that God had chosen us for each other and we were to be married.  We belonged to each other.  

From that moment, we have never had any doubt that God chose us for each other – not the slightest doubt – ever!  I always knew that I was capable of loving someone.  I never dreamed that anyone could or would love me the way Donna does.  This was and is something beyond my wildest dreams.  Later I discovered that Donna had been proposed to by a boyfriend the weekend before but had to tell him no.  She was unable to say she loved him.  

Her attendance at the camp was a last minute occurrence, just like it was for me.  The next day, at the end of a meeting in the little chapel, Donna experienced salvation.  The chapel had a life-size wooden cross and as she sat looking at it, God gave her a vision of Jesus crucified on the cross there in front of her.  When she saw Him and His blood dripping from the cross, she knew that He had died for her.  She wept as Jesus met her there, cleansed her, forgave her and made her His own. 

God impressed on us we were to be married – He didn’t say get married.  I still had my senior year of college to go and He knew that I needed to be loved not married.  We were married 13 months later just following my graduation from Michigan State.

To God be the glory great things He hath done!

“What exactly happened?” is a response we have received when friends and acquaintances hear about our becoming engaged in 2 hours and 15 minutes.  Then we typically comment (as I wrote yesterday) that the reason it took so long was an hour in a meeting and an hour at dinner.  Neither one of us knew that we were coming to this camp until the last minute.  Donna, from North Carolina , was invited by a college classmate to go with her to a “dumb old Christian camp” that her folks were making her go to.  Donna, on the other hand, was excited to come because God had been wooing her to Himself.  Here are some of the key things that happened:

After sitting down in the auditorium, I asked Donna if I could ask her a personal question.  She said yes, being curious what I would ask.  I asked her, “Are you saved?”  She replied, “If you tell me what you mean, I’ll tell you what I think.”  I then said, “If you were to die or if Jesus returned, would you go to heaven or to hell?”  She gave me the answer when she said, “I’d probably go to hell because I haven’t done anything good enough to go to heaven.”  I knew I wanted to tell her about Jesus.  The meeting then started. 

During the course of the meeting, the speaker said something funny and everyone laughed.  During the laughter Donna looked at me and there was a bright glow around my head.  She was startled by it and wondered what it was? I was totally unaware of this phenomenon.

The three of us went from the meeting to the cafeteria to have dinner.  David sat to her left and I was going to sit to her right when the thought went through my mind to sit across from her.  I immediately responded to that thought and went around the end of the table, put my tray across from her and sat down.  As I looked up, our eyes met and my heart exploded with “THAT’S HER!”  I was beside myself, not knowing what to do – except play with my food for the rest of the meal because my appetite was gone.  A stunning, tumultuous event was going on inside of me.

When we finished dinner, David asked her to go with him to take some film to be developed.  Great was my relief when she said no.  After he left, I asked if we could go for a walk and she said yes.  Even though I was beside myself with what was going on within me, I wanted to tell her about Jesus and how I met him.  She wanted to find out what was the glow that was around my head in the meeting.

To be continued…

Proverbs 3:5-6  Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; ⁶ In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.

I thought that the summer of 1969 was going to see me working in a beach ministry in New York.  It was something I was really looking forward to, but the man leading the group, informed me that he believed the Lord had something else for me and I couldn’t go along.  That was the first major disappointment that I experienced since becoming a Christian the preceding fall and I struggled so trying to understand.

Since that door was closed, I pursued other opportunities for ministry.  I went to Columbia and then was a counselor at several Christian camps.  At one camp in Michigan, there was a group from Tennessee & Georgia who were there to observe the youth ministry going on.  By “chance” I happened to sit with them for lunch one day.   I was looking for more opportunities so I asked them if they needed any counselors for their large camp in August.  The leader thought they might need one more counselor.

A month went by and I didn’t hear anything from them.  Then about August 16 the call came informing me of the opportunity to be a camp counselor there at the camp in Georgia that began August 24.  Within a couple days the Lord provided my transportation.  It was at that camp, on the second afternoon, that God did something beyond my wildest dreams. 

On that day, as I approached the auditorium for the afternoon meeting, I saw David, a young man I had met there the day before.  He was one of the few people there that I knew so I went over to him.  As we were talking, up walks this lovely young lady named Donna.  She too didn’t know hardly anyone there, but like me, she had met David the day before as well.  So she joined us and we went in to the meeting.

Thanks to what can only be described as the miraculous intervention of God, we were engaged 2 hours and 15 minutes later!  We’ve joked that the reason it took so long was the first hour was in a meeting and the second hour was at dinner.  God supernaturally communicated, independently to each of us that we were His choice for each other and were to be married. 

In essence, what happened?  God chose to intervene in the lives of two ordinary people, who had just met, with a divine purpose.  He made known to us that we belonged to each other.  It’s as though we had been betrothed to each other without ever knowing it.  But God did more than just let us in on it.  He gave us a foundation to build a marriage on.  God imparted (in computer terms, think “downloaded”) knowledge, understanding, wisdom and a passionate affection for each other – into each of us.  He not only imparted this to us, but He gave us the incredible experience of a manifestation of His presence as confirmation to us as we sat on a park bench together in prayer.  He gave us in a moment what many don’t experience in a lifetime.

The date was August 25, 1969 and today is the 44^th anniversary of that incredible experience. 

 To be continued…

Proverbs 16:22a  Understanding is a fountain of life to those who have it,

About six weeks after meeting the Lord, I went up to Minneapolis for what I thought was going to be a youth retreat for high school and college age.   I had just turned 21 and hitched a ride up there with 3 other Western Michigan college students in a VW Bug.  I was in the back seat with a large suitcase and another large person.  That was a ride to remember!

When they dropped me off, I discovered the retreat had been cancelled.  The folks at the ministry center there were then wondering what to do with me – probably not the first time in my life that’s happened.  They had a Christian community / retreat center in northern Minnesota and one of the families was going up there for the weekend so they decided to take me along.  It turned out to be one of the most critically important times of my entire life.  I didn’t know it but I had a date with destiny.

The people at the community where we went were wonderful and very gracious to me.  The worship and ministry times were wonderful.  In my joy as a new Christian I was struggling with a serious issue that was warring within me.  During one of the services, the leader called me up to the front.  The Lord had divinely given him knowledge of my struggle and in a brief time of ministry my issue was dealt with and gone.  My war with this issue was over!

What followed next was profoundly important.  He said to me, “Don.  You cannot afford dating either spiritually or financially.  Seek Christian fellowship.”  Then he said, “I want you to pray for your wife – but don’t pray, ‘God, send me a wife’.  I want you to pray for her like this.  Lord Jesus, I thank you that you have the girl I am going to marry.  I pray that she will come to know you – that you will protect her and bless her.  Thank you that you are preparing us for one another.  I acknowledge that in your time and in your way, you will bring us together.  I commit her and our relationship to you.”

So I regularly began praying in this way for the unknown girl who would be my wife.  This enabled me to really release this whole area to the Lord.  Later the next spring I read an article by Billy Graham where he wrote about his children playing on a hillside.  He realized that on some other hillside were the children who would one day be the spouses of his kids.  So he prayed for their future spouses in the very same way.  We should do so as well.

Little did I know what the Lord had in store for me that  coming summer!  To be continued….

Psalm 9:1  I will praise you, O LORD, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonder.

Have you ever thought of praying scripture?  Years ago I heard a teaching on this idea and it has been a wonderful blessing.  Simply put, you personalize scripture so that the verses express what you want to say.  But more than that, many are the times that I’m not sure how to pray and they give me the words and the guidance – the path to pray.

Among my favorites are the ones I’ve identified as “The Blue Sections”.  (My Bible is kind of highlighted to the hilt!)  I have used a blue highlighter to mark over 30 different sections of scripture that focus upon God and His greatness and wonder.  They are not about us – they do not include requests for help or assistance.  They are declarative about Him.

I frequently found myself at a loss when it came to expressing to God what was in my heart.  I wanted to tell Him how wonderful and glorious He was.  It occurred to me that
scripture describes Him more accurately and effectively that I can.  So I searched for those scriptures that did exactly that and marked them in blue.  They run the gamut from entire Psalms to a single verse.  But when I pray them, personalizing them, my heart rejoices because it is accomplishing what it desires.

For instance Psalm 19:1-4 begins ”The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”  When I pray this, I personalize it so it becomes “O Lord, the heavens declare your glory, the skies proclaim the work of your hands!”  By using
scripture, my affirmations are rooted in eternal truth.  I know I am expressing reality and my heart is filled with a sense of accomplishing something so important.

It takes me about 25 – 30 minutes to pray through my Blue Section verses out loud.  Frequently, the experience provokes tears of joy and gratitude because it leads to such an intimate experience with God.  They help me to praise the Lord with all my heart and tell Him of His wonders!

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 6,400 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 11 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

1 Kings 19:18 – “Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel—all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and all whose mouths have not kissed him.”

Let’s imagine ourselves as being included in those 7,000 who were faithful to God so long ago.  Everywhere around us, the people have abandoned the truth of God’s word and abandoned Him.  On the one hand, we would have the joy of being His people – chosen by Him.  We treasure the wonders He has done.  On the other, the sorrow and pain of seeing His people sinfully deny Him.

One of the challenges that we would withstand is yielding to the cultural pressure of those around us to become Baal worshippers.  No matter what the cost, we would remain true to Yahweh!  How would we act around those who were participating in such sin – particularly when they were friends and family?  Behavior that they would think is perfectly fine is behavior that is totally unacceptable to Him.

I remember being in a meeting with Stephen Covey where he asked everyone in the audience to point in the direction they thought was north.  The theatre were in was “in the round” so he was surrounded by audience and hands were pointing in every direction.  He then lit up an overhead projector with a compass on it where the light could shine through.  The lesson?  Which way is north is not subject to opinion.  It is an absolute.

Do we relate to those 7,000 as we see what is going on around us in society today?  The cultural perversions we see in so much of society are so distressing.  Sadly much of it is in the lives of those who consider themselves Christians.  God’s people are called to be salt and light – the very evidence of His presence.  Instead, so many “head south” under the belief they are going “north”.

Isaiah described so accurately what we see going on around us, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” (5:20)

Let us live lives that glorify our Lord and Savior.  Let us lives lives that reflect His character and word.  His Word tells us how!  It’s the compass that always points to the true north.  Let us live lives that truly reflect goodness, light and sweetness.  As we celebrate the birth of Christ, let those be the “presents” that we bring to him as we kneel before Him!

Psalm 116:2  Because He turned His ear to me, I will call on Him as long as I live.

My story Part 2: Nothing prepared me for what happened when I raised my hand – acknowledging my doubt about knowing Jesus as Lord.  I thought it was hopeless, that I had too many doubts, but what did I have to lose?  I was startled to see a young man of about 15 push a chair to the middle of the circle of students and say, “This is where you meet Jesus!”

The evangelist came over to me and said that I could confess my sins and know that I was forgiven – that I would be clean inside; that if I wanted to know Jesus as my personal Savior and Lord – beyond a shadow of a doubt – to walk out to that chair and let them pray for me – so I did.

All of the students gathered around me and began praying – and pray they did!  There came a point when the evangelist asked me if I knew Jesus as Lord.  I replied, “No. But I want to!”  At that moment, it happened – I met Him!  From the top of my head, through my body to my toes, His power went through me!  God gave me a thunderous conversion experience beyond anything I could have ever dreamed of!  My Matterhorn of doubt was leveled in an instant.  Inside I was utterly changed, cleansed and filled with His presence.  Jesus was real and I was His!!!!

I was absolutely overwhelmed.  Within me was a tumultuous mass of joy, excitement, freedom, cleanness – there was Jesus, inside of me! And He didn’t go away!  After praying for others, we walked out of that prayer room into the main meeting area.  I so clearly remember looking out the windows at the woods and the lake.  I thought, “I’m 20 and life expectancy is about 70.  How do I keep this alive and vibrant for 50+ years?”  There was nothing in my experience that led me to believe that something this incredibly good could be sustained for any period of time.  The idea of it getting even better never entered my mind!

October 11^th was my 44^nd birthday in the Lord.  My love relationship with Jesus is more vibrant and more wonderful than ever.  It has never grown cold.  Words cannot describe the gratitude that I have because God made me His own; the joy of tears streaming down my face because of Jesus.  I will love Him forever because He heard my cry.  Because He turned His ear to me, I will call on Him as long as I live.

Psalm 116:1  I love the Lord, for He heard my voice; He heard my cry for mercy.

My story Part 1: Although I was raised going to church, albeit a liberal one, I never developed faith to speak of.  The idea of being born again or meeting Jesus in a personal way was totally foreign to me.  I came from a good home.  I was close to my mom but my father and I argued when we were together and loved each other while apart.

When I went to college, what little faith I might have had was lost due to atheistic instructors and discussions with unbelieving students who seemed intent on obliterating any ideas of faith. I remember one professor, a former pastor, believed that a nursing baby at its mother’s breasts was in the “Garden of Eden”.   Original sin was when the baby bit its mother’s breast and caused her to stop nursing the baby.  So the baby was expelled from the Garden!  And it went downhill from there.

In the fall of ’68, while a junior in college, I agreed to go to a Christian retreat with my parents.  It still amazes me that I went, but nothing was going on that weekend at college and it was important to them – so I went.  The retreat center was at an old time camp back in the woods overlooking a small lake in Michigan.

In the first large meeting, the speaker for the retreat spoke about the love of Jesus in a way that I had never heard before.  In fact he talked as though he knew Him – personally!  I was saddened by it because I thought, “If Jesus were real, that’s what He would be like – but what good did it do me?”  I couldn’t believe – or so I thought.  After the meeting, all of the high school and college age went to a separate meeting room.  A room full of “teeny-boppers” (a term popular way back then).  My impression wasn’t positive.

There were about fifteen of us sitting in a circle and I was easily the oldest.  Then the speaker came in and asked if there was anyone there who didn’t know Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior.  I was too embarrassed to raise my hand.  He then asked if there was anyone with any doubt about it.  Something raged within me as I sat there and I struggled with whether or not to raise my hand.  In spite of thinking there was no hope for me, I lifted my hand.

I was then startled by one of the young men (age 15) who jumped up from his seat, pushed a chair into the center of the circle of students and enthusiastically said to me, “This is where you meet Jesus!”  To say the best was yet to come is an understatement for the ages!!!

To be continued tomorrow….