I went with Mom to Saint Matthews Methodist Church in Hacienda Heights for years, and was a member of their Youth Fellowship, so I wasn't completely in the dark about Jesus being the Son of God. I had absolutely no understanding of what that actually meant, of course. There's baby Jesus in the manger; there's proud Papa God sitting on His throne in heaven. I was sitting in the House of Praise, wondering how Jesus could be the Son of God. I finally resolved I didn't know HOW Jesus could be the Son of God, but He was working, acting AS God in response to His name, and the Bible says He is the Son of God (the House of Praise was a Pentecostal commune where tongues were routinely spoken and there were a LOT of miracles both seen and reported. Services were held in the living room). I decided to go with the Bible and observed reality in spite of not understanding it, and got up to confess Jesus as my lord and savior.
I stood in front of the pastor, who greeted me, but he turned to a young, slovenly attired bum of a guy sprawled carelessly across the overstuffed chair. "What about you?" he said to him. The guy pulled himself together, stood up, and then suddenly started weeping and crying . . . and then just as suddenly began, still weeping, emotionally praising God in tongues.
I felt good about having gotten up to confess Jesus, anyway.
Ralph asked me to go with him to an evening service at Grace Bible Church in Honolulu. They were having a special, Pentecostal/evangelical musical performance. After the performance, Ralph stayed behind to talk to the ministers. Raised an Italian Catholic, Ralph wanted the gift of tongues we saw constantly at the House of Praise. The ministers took Ralph over to their fellowship center to pray with him. I waited, looking at the notices in the vestibule. One of the ministers stuck his head out: "Have you spoken in tongues? Do you want to get the gift Ralph is seeking?
Yeah, well, why not? I followed the pastor into the prayer room and knelt before a folding chair. "Just give your voice, your tongue, your mouth to God for the Holy Spirit to use, and let him use it to praise God with." Not rocket science. So I did. And nothing happened. Hmm. Maybe not enough of me. So I gave God my breath, my lungs, my larynx, my lips, my volition to speak. Nothing. I gave Him my life, my future, any kids I might have in the future. Nothing. I realized I was rejected by God, that He wouldn't touch me with a ten-foot pole. I mean like, utterly! I started to weep and cry like that guy at the House of Praise. I didn't know why I was rejected of God. I'd given Him my life. What more could I give Him? Inside I searched, reached for the reason God rejected me.
I didn't know it, but in my despair I had slipped into a trance. I was among bushes in a wash, like the one in La Puente down at the end of Fifth Avenue. I walked along a trail, and eventually it turned into a developed, concrete wash. A concrete wall rose on the side as I progressed. Finally, the trail dead-ended at a huge concrete block. I couldn't move it. I couldn't jump high enough to haul myself up it. I thought of back-tracking to where the wall had started to rise, and coming up the other side, but I realized that the trail I was following went down underneath it. This block was like a cap. It was the thing of me I hadn't given to God. But I didn't know what it was. I searched all over it--no marks, no name. I couldn't tell what it was for which God, still, utterly rejected me. "I'd give it to you if I could," I cried. I didn't know if it was a big thing or a little thing, or of what consequence it would have in my life. I finally said, "I don't know what it is, but whatever it is, I give it to you."
In my mind's eye I saw that I was below the huge block that had blocked me. It reminded me of the workshop I had formed in my mind in the occult, but it was more like the Combat Information Center I saw in operation in the Navy. I looked, and in a muddy plain of earth a figure of a man was scooped out of the mud. It was sat on a chair, and the mud was formed into bones, muscles, sinew, vessels, organs, skin, hair, eyes. It had everything except for life, and then it was given life, too. I wondered what it thought, not having a mind until a moment ago. It stood and looked out. "This is earth. It is day, but night will come, and it will get cold. I had better find shelter in those hills over there."
Then started the weirdest adventure: the mudman started walking to the forested hills in the distance. I followed right behind him, a little above and to the left. I saw through his eyes and listened to his thoughts. Here is the thing: I became him. We fused. We searched for unoccupied caves, thought about building a fortress, finding firewood, and wondered how to tell what food was safe as we had never eaten before, etc. And in the middle of wondering if I should harvest vegetables to eat or plant for tomorrow, it struck me (it would have struck me to my knees if I hadn't been on them already): I was directing my life as though it were mine, but just a moment ago I was a lifeless mudman. I was GIVEN this life--it WASN'T mine! God GAVE me this life in His grace, and yet I had never as much as said thank you, never acknowledged that it was His, never asked for what purpose had He made me to live. Whatever His purpose was, I HAD ROBBED HIM OF IT. I was a thief, an ungrateful rebel. I had "given" to God what wasn't mine to give; He already OWNED me. I had usurped what was His all along--"rebellion as witchcraft!"
I cannot tell you the abject horror that went through me. I had received life from God, He had made me to live, and I had not honored Him in the least for it. I was desperate to rid myself of self-control. For a second, I wondered if I would fall flat on my face if I totally relinquished self-control of myself. I didn't care if I did fall. I cast self-control out of myself as one might cast out a demon, or an armful of dirty clothes onto the floor. It didn't escape my notice that I couldn't have done this without the spiritual talent I had gained in that meditation class. I'd been sent there for a reason. I didn't fall; I was caught! I thoroughly and absolutely surrendered God's life back to Him, and submitted myself for whatever purpose He had for me.
I was kneeling beside a large fallen pine tree. We were on a clearing high in the mountains, aspen glow on the snow-capped peaks and in the clouds above. I was kneeling to pray. Though my head was bowed, I was aware that the aspen glow was giving way to the rose-colored glow of the presence of God. I said to that presence, "You are Glorious God. I am a mudman, given life by your grace. Whatever you tell me to do, that I will do." And then I shut up and listened.
I listened intently for awhile. And then I heard so faintly, "Remember this, and it is all right." It's all right! I was forgiven. God had accepted me. The gratitude I felt was immeasurable. I felt my bowels flooding with joy. I wanted to tell God how much I appreciated and loved Him, but English didn't have adequate words to express my gratitude. As the joy and adoration rose in my bowels to my mouth, my mouth began to move on its own. "Don't try to control it," I heard the pastor say. Controlling was the furthest thing from my mind!! I raised my arms in complete surrender and a torrent of praise and worship poured out of my mouth. I was speaking in tongues, a distinctly oriental language.
So there was my sin: self-lordship, and its solution: recognition, surrender, honoring submission.
Danny
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