Behold I Tell You a Mistery

This is the third and final part of a series about James and Wanda. If you read the first two parts, please bear with me as I update those who haven’t. (part one) James’ testimony of spiritual conversion is one of the most unique I’ve heard. In his younger days James was a heavy drinker. He admitted, “Me and my wife’s uncle always went to the Riverside Bar and Grill, in Columbus, after work…There was a large moose’s head mounted on the wall behind the bar. One night, after about ten doubles, I looked up at the moose’s head and its eyes looked like they were glaring back and forth at me. Then I heard the moose say, ‘This is your night. You better change your ways. It’s your last chance.’ It scared me to death so I called a taxi to take me home…I just wasn’t smart enough back then to know that it wasn’t the moose that was talking to me, but the Holy Spirit.” From that day forward, James never looked back and immersed himself in serving God and others.

In part two; we read how James understood the importance and power of confession, of having a clean slate before God. He explained, “If something is bothering me I pray about it. Some men’s’ sins go before them and some men’s sins follow them, those are the ones that show up later. The ones that go before you are the ones that are forgiven. I want my sins to go before me.”

Now for part three. Well, James died of colon cancer on Monday, February 9th, 2004. I visited his wife Wanda in the hospice room shortly after James’ death. Wanda told me, “Sometime between 4:30 and 5:30 a.m. I was taking a nap beside Jimmy’s bed. I woke up very cold and afraid. I saw a very bright light and then I saw two people taking Jimmy out of the room. I couldn’t see their faces, just their shapes. I asked Jimmy’s brother, Donnie, and his sister, Margaret, who it was that, took Jimmy from the room. They told me, ‘Look! He’s right there in bed.’ About 5:45 a.m. Jimmy passed away. I believe he was already gone.”

Now this is where the story gets really mysterious. Jim’s niece, Sandy, who lives over a hundred miles away, had a similar vision around the same time as Wanda’s. Sandy shared her experience with me in a letter some time after James’ death: “Right before Jim was diagnosed with cancer I started having visions…I thought that I could see two people standing with outreached arms…they were trying to tell me something about Jim…they were Jim’s mother and his aunt….On Saturday, February 7th (Two days before James’ death), as I sat at the table working on a paper for graduate school, I saw the vision again…I knew if I wanted to see Jim alive, I had to go immediately. I left early Sunday morning and went to see Jim for the last time….Monday morning, between 4:30 and 5:30 a.m. (The morning of James’ death), I had another vision….It was as if I was looking down on Jim’s hospital room. I saw him in bed and other people in the room with him; and then I saw a ball of light swoop down across his bed and linger in the corner of the room. It became brighter and left the room. I knew Jim was either gone or would be soon.”

James’ thirty-year-old nephew also told Wanda that he was awakened at home around 5:30 a.m. (The morning of James’ death) by Jim singing the song he used to sing to him when he was a small child. He told Wanda that his mother found him sitting on the side of his bed crying. When he told his mother that he thought Jim had died, she responded, ‘You don’t know’. Twenty minutes later they received a call informing them of James’ death.

So what do you make out of this; three people seeing similar visions simultaneously hundreds of miles apart? You could try to discredit their character, dismiss them as “kooks”. But if you questioned Wanda’s character I would be the first one to stand up and defend her. She is intelligent, compassionate, honest and sincere.

More importantly, how should we conduct ourselves, live our lives, in the light of truth, in the light of eternity, in the light of who God is and who we are? Think about it, for it is a question of eternal significance.

“Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed…death is swallowed up in victory…thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:51-58)

Some Men's Sins Go Before Them

This is part two of a three part series about James and his wife, Wanda. In case you missed part one, I’ll update you. James was seventy-two years old when admitted to SOMC Hospice because of end stage chronic airway obstruction and colon cancer. James’ long drinking career ended abruptly on February 26, 1972, when he thought the moose head mounted above the bar where he was drinking spoke to him, ‘This is your night. You better change your ways. It’s your last chance.’ Well, James has been a sober believer ever since. James exclaimed, “That actually happened! I just wasn’t smart enough back then to know that it wasn’t the moose talking to me, but the Holy Spirit.”

James was born and raised in the small Southern Ohio town of Otway. James reflected on the day of his birth, the day after Christmas, December 26th, 1930: “It was thirty degrees below zero the day I was born. Dr. Gordon rode a horse to our house to deliver me. My dad said that it had snowed and the sun came out and melted the top of the snow. It refroze during the night and my dad said that the top of the snow froze so hard that the doctor could ride his horse on top of it.” I asked, “But didn’t they have cars back then?” James explained, “There’s no way you could get a car up Thompson Hill any more than you could fly a plane up there. So the doctor had to ride a horse.”

James continued, “I only weighed three and a half pounds when I was born. They didn’t have incubators back then so they put me in my father’s ten-pound tomato basket to make a bassinette for me. They put some blankets around me and sat me on the mantle above the fire place to keep me warm. It was the warmest spot in the house.”

The circumstances of James’ birth, the day after Christmas, remind me of that first Christmas. When Jesus was born, his mother Mary “wrapped him in swaddling clothes (rags) and laid him in a manager (feeding trough).”

Well, I guess I should get to the point of this story. James had been admitted to the hospital and I stopped by to visit. We ended up talking about the stress of living with chronic illness; how families can turn on each other; take their frustrations out on each other and even forget they’re on the same side. James admitted, “When I’m irritable and sick I can answer her (Wanda) kind of rough. As a matter of fact, I just had prayer before you came in. If something is bothering me I pray about it. Some men’s sins go before them and some men’s sins follow them, those are the ones that show up later. The ones that go before you are the ones that are forgiven. I want my sins to go before me.” Jim assured me, “That’s in the Bible, First Timothy 5:24!”

After our visit I looked up the Bible passage James referred to; and sure enough, just like he said, there it was: “Some men’s sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment and some men they follow after”.

Since the Garden of Eden, men and women have been blaming each other. Remember the story recorded in Genesis chapter three? God commanded Adam and Eve that they could eat of any tree of the Garden, except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Then along came the serpent. Of course you know the rest of the story; Eve ate first and then Adam took a bite. When God confronted them Adam said, “The woman you gave me tricked me…” Then Eve said, “The serpent tricked me”. Or, in the words of the old time comedian, Flip Wilson’s, character, Geraldine, “The Devil made me do it”.

The nut hasn’t fallen far from the family tree hast it? We as husbands and wives, as fellow human beings, are still blaming each other. How many times have you contended, “If it weren’t for….then I wouldn’t have….” or “She makes me so…..”?

Several years ago, my wife and I were having serious marital problems, on the verge of divorce. I vividly remember sitting alone at the kitchen table praying, “God if only Susie….” Then suddenly, unexpectedly, God, in his “still small voice” (I Kings 19:12), spoke to me like a father correcting his son, “What are you doing to show her that she is the most important person in your life? There’s no excuse for unholy behavior. You are responsible to me regardless of what anybody else does. You just put me first and I will take care of the rest.” I thank, praise and credit God, that it’s been over thirty years and three daughters ago.

When we try to escape responsibility we end up escaping freedom and forgiveness. For you see, God is willing and able to forgive sins sincerely confessed, but he can’t and won’t forgive excuses. Like my mother always said, “There are no ands, ifs or buts about it.” So, I think we would be wise to follow in James’ footsteps. I sure don’t want any of my sins “following after” me.

“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” (I John 1:8-10)

A Moose of a Different Color

James was seventy-two years old when referred to hospice with end stage chronic airway obstruction and colon cancer. James was born and raised in Scioto County, Ohio. He served in the infantry during the Korean Conflict and for twenty-seven years following his army discharge he and his wife, Wanda, lived and worked in Cincinnati and then in Columbus, Ohio.

James managed a service station in Cincinnati and next worked for Lenox heating and air-conditioning in Columbus. But James and Wanda always considered the small country town of Otway, Ohio their home. They even maintained a house there so they could return on the weekends. When James became disabled in 1982, they retired to Otway.

James and Wanda loved, embraced and served their community and church. James served as deacon and Sunday school director for five local Baptist churches. They both enthusiastically participated in and organized numerous community fund raising projects.

But now for “the rest of the story”; James has one of the most unique testimonies of spiritual conversion I’ve ever heard. His life was not always characterized by a faith in God. Wanda shared, “James used to be a heavy drinker…he drank almost every day…He even carried a fifth of whisky in his lunch box…He drank so much he got down to one-hundred and twenty-seven pounds.” He’d promised his mother that he would change before she died in 1970, but he wouldn’t make good on his promise for another two years.

Now this is where the story gets really interesting. James began: “Me and my wife’s uncle always went to the Riverside Bar and Grill after work in Columbus. We would drink from about eleven in the evening to two o’clock in the morning; until the bar closed. There was a large moose head mounted on the wall behind the bar. One night, after about ten doubles, I looked up at the moose and its eyes looked like they were glaring back and forth at me. Then I heard the moose say to me, ‘This is your night. You better change your ways. It’s your last chance.’ It scared me to death so I called a taxi to take me home. I asked the driver if he drank and he said, ‘Yes’; so I gave him my six pack of beer and the fifth of whisky that I carried in my lunch box.”

Wanda continued, “As soon as he got home he told me, ‘I have to get saved!’ I thought he was losing his mind, but I knew something must have happened, because I didn’t think he would ever give away his last beer. He told me, ‘You have to take me to your mom’s and dad’s right away.’ It was about five o’clock in the morning by then. But we went and mom and dad prayed with him and he got saved that night.” James assured me, “That actually happened; February 26th, 1972. I just wasn’t smart enough back then to know that it wasn’t the moose that was talking to me, but the Holy Spirit.”

James’ conversion reminds me of the Biblical account of Balaam and his donkey (Numbers chapter 22). Balaam, against God’s direct orders, accepted a commission to curse God’s people, the Hebrews. While in route, riding on the back of his donkey, his donkey saw an angel blocking their path with a sword drawn in his hand. So the donkey refused to proceed. Balaam, unable to see the angel, struck the donkey, but the donkey brushed up against a wall and crushed Balaam’s foot and finally just lay down. Balaam struck the donkey again, and this is where this story gets really interesting: “Then the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey, and said to Balaam, ‘What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times…Am I not your donkey on which you have ridden, ever since I became yours.” Well, Balaam finally got the message. God allowed him to continue but Balaam’s heart and purposed changed as well as his outcome.

In retrospect, if God used a donkey to change the direction of Balaam’s life He could use a mounted moose head to change the direction and outcome of James’. It just goes to show, God surely “works in mysterious ways”. God, in his love, will use whatever it takes to get our attention, to redirect us from our path of self destruction. Hopefully we will be smart enough to realize that it is God speaking to us.

Who Will Be Jesus to Them

This is part three of a three part series about Carl, a plain-spoken country fellow accustomed to hard work; a farmer and retired stone quarry worker. Carl’s lymphoma is now taking a toll on him and he’s spending most of his time in bed. Carl’s heart’s desire continues to be to serve God, but he admits that at times he questions his worth and prays for God to take him home. But I believe that this could be Carl’s time of greatest triumph and influence, the time that God’s grace and power will shine the brightest. For it’s easy to praise God from the mountain top; but Carl continues to praise God in “…the valley of the shadow of death”. (Psalm 23) What a testimony of the love and sufficiency of God.

The Apostle Paul learned something of the power of weakness. He testified: “To keep me from becoming conceited…there was given me a thorn in my flesh…Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me…For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)

Carl has inspired me and I’m confident that this final story will inspire and challenge you. For the final time, here’s Carl: “I used to have a booth at the flea market. There was a fellow who had a booth near mine. He was a tough guy, a motorcycle rider type. He had a nasty turn and a raw attitude. He thought he owned the world. You know, people are afraid of a guy like that. Maybe I should have been. But I wasn’t.

He treated an old man real mean one day and I told him, ‘I don’t like the way you do. I wouldn’t be like that. You can’t do that here. We all try to get along.’ Then I told him, ‘What you need is a friend. I’m going to be your friend.’ He told me, ‘I don’t have any friends. I don’t get along with nobody.’ I told him, ‘The Devil just has you all torn up.’ Then he said, ‘You don’t know me.’ And I said, ‘No I don’t, but I would like to know you and help you.’ He said, ‘No one can help me.’

The breaker box for all the booths at the flea market was located in his booth. It kicked off a lot and just for spite, he wouldn’t turn the breaker back on, so none of us had lights. I told him to turn it back on and he said, ‘No, I don’t need it.’ There were bigger men than I was there but they were afraid of him. He looked like he would slap your jaws. But I asked him, ‘Why can’t you turn that back on?’ He said, ‘That’s not my problem.’ But I said, ‘Now listen, I’m gonna turn that back on.’ Then he asked, ‘How do you know you will? Maybe you will and maybe you won’t.’ Then I told him, ‘you just watch me.’ They all said, ‘Carl he’s goona hit you.’ And I said, ‘No he ain’t’, but he could have snapped me in two. I don’t know why I was so bold. The Lord just gave me boldness.

After that he kept the door to the breaker box open so it wouldn’t over heat again. I went back and thanked him and told him, ‘You’ll get along with others better that way.’ He said, ‘I don’t care what they think.’ But he never shut that door again. He would look at me and grin and give me an ‘okay’ with his thumb.

After I got cancer, while I was taking chemotherapy, he would ask me, ‘Mr. Brown, how are you doing today?’ Once he got a big ‘get-well’ card and took it around the flea market and told everybody, ‘I want everybody’s name on it!’ His name was at the top. He even called me at my home to ask about me how I was doing and said, ‘This is your friend…’ A lot of people told me I shouldn’t fool with him. But he needed a friend. He’s gonna get saved yet.”

Carl’s example reminds me of a contemporary Christian song by Bruce Carroll titled, “Who will be Jesus”: “He came home from work last night to find that she was gone. Now he’s spending his first Sunday sitting in the pew alone. There are whispers all around him as his heart breaks into. He’s wandering who’ll reach out and help him make it through. Who will be Jesus to him? Who’ll show the love that will restore him again? He doesn’t need a judge he needs a friend. Who will be Jesus to him? …Wounded people everywhere; and when they look at us do they see Jesus there? Who will be Jesus to them? Who’ll show the love that restores them again? For they don’t need a judge they need a friend. Who will be Jesus to them?” Will we be Jesus to them?

“But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you…for if you love those who love you, what reward have you….if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others?” (Matthew 5:43-48)

He Never Said a Word

This is part two of a series on Carl, a 72 year old gentleman referred to Hospice for lymphoma. In part one Carl manifested how God sometimes asks us to do things that might seem “crazy” But we also learned that “God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise (I Corinthians 1:18-31). My hope and expectation is that part two will wet your thirst for the deeper things of life; not for religion, not for right interpretations; but for God Himself. Listen to Carl’s story:

“I was out farming when my neighbor came along the road. I owned two little farms and he did to. He always treated me like dirt and accused me of things I didn’t do. As I was driving home from the grocery store it started eating at me. I got to thinking about it. What I was doing was feeling sorry for myself. All of a sudden somebody appeared in my car beside me. I never even heard the door open and close. Besides, I was driving down the road at a good speed. He was a big man, over six foot tall, all dressed in white. I couldn’t see his face, just his side. His face was all white. I couldn’t turn my head but he was sitting beside me. He never said a word. I wondered if it was Jesus or an Angel. You talk about cold chills! I forgot all about my problems. It was like if someone gave you a million dollars and cheered you up. You would forget about all your problems. He came to encourage me and he did. I straightened up right then. It got my mind off my self. He never said a word but he encouraged me. When I did turn my head he was gone. I still get blessed by it today.”

Carl and I concurred that its God’s “manifest presence” that we long for, that truly satisfies. In the light of God’s presence, without a word being heard or spoken; fear, anger and self-pity are vanquished. A.W. Tozer, a popular Christian author described it more eloquently than Carl and I: “For it is not mere words that nourish the soul but God Himself, and unless and until the hearers find God in personal experience they are not the better for having heard the truth. The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him, that they may delight in His presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center of their hearts. (“The Pursuit of God”)…“Theological knowledge is about God. While this is indispensable it is not sufficient. It bears the same relation to man’s spiritual need as a well does to the need of his physical body. It is not the rock-lined pit for which the dusty traveler longs, but the sweet, cool water that flows up from it. It is not intellectual knowledge about God that quenches man’s ancient heart-thirst, but the very Person and Presence of God Himself.” (“Keys to the Deeper Life”)

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. (Psalm 42:1-2, NIV)