Chapter 3
Choose You This Day Whom You Will
Serve
Joshua
24:15
I was faced with a monumental decision that would affect
my entire life and my eternal destiny. It doesn’t get bigger than that. But I
did not realize how big it was at the time. How many of us really do understand
the actual importance of what we might be doing right now this very minute? I
mean, would Esau have sold his birthright for a bowl of soup had he known what
he was doing? For that matter, would Abraham have listened to Sarah and had a
child by Hagar if he’d known what it would do to the rest of history? We could
go on and on, but suffice it to say we really should ask God what the right
thing is for us every day and we’d spare ourselves a lot of grief as well as
others around us. As Jonah said,
Jonah 2:8. They
that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.
That’s why the Bible tells us in:
Isaiah 40:31.
But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall
mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall
walk, and not faint.
I learned something about what truly waiting on the Lord
is that I will share later because it is so important that we understand this
concept, but I’m getting ahead of myself here.
Getting back to my story, I was not going to decide
anything for or against those guys and their offer right away. I wanted time to
think about what it could mean but more than that, as I said I wanted to give
God a chance to make me a counter offer. That is, if He was interested. I really
didn’t know if He would be but I thought it was worth waiting in case.
I had a distinct feeling in the days and years that
followed that those dark guys were never far away from me and that any time I
wanted, I could still call them up and say that I was ready to go with them into
that fog. Knowing that made me feel like there was no need to rush into a
decision.
I kept the experience completely to myself and never told
a soul. It actually surprises me to think of that now. It just seems like I
should have wanted to share it with someone. But for whatever reason it never
even occurred to me to and I kept it very close to myself. Looking back on it
now, it’s as if that experience was placed up high on a shelf in my mind and
even I was not able to altogether consciously access it and speak of it to
others even if I had wanted to. I could look at it and contemplate about it in a
very distant fuzzy way but not bring it down into everyday experiences.
Furthermore, I do not know whether this was through my own choice or something
that was sort of programmed into me by them. Certainly the fear of ridicule had
I tried to speak of it to anyone would be there. But it was also a very personal
thing that until I knew what I would choose, I was careful to guard as one would
a secret destiny.
The album “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath,” by Black Sabbath,
suddenly became very important to me. While still at Band Camp, I asked my
friend, to whom the album belonged, if he’d sell it to me. I never had much
money and before I’d go out and buy it new, I thought I’d at least ask if there
was any way he’d sell it to me. To my delightful surprise he gave it to me. It
became my favorite album by far for some time. I listened to it constantly and
soon learned to play my guitar along with every song on it note for note. I
would play right along with the album straight through one side then the other.
Tony Iommi, the guitarist for Black Sabbath, has a guitar
style that is not so much about playing a lot of chords, but it is more about
lead guitar lines and repeating patterns. His guitar is the backbone of the
band’s sound. Remember Iron Man? Kids could play “air guitar” to that and sing
the guitar part as “Nar, nar, na-nar, nar, nar, da-da, da-da, daa daa, nar, nar,
nar… and anyone would know immediately what song they were doing. So it was
great for a guitarist like me who didn’t know a lot of chords. Kind of reminds
of that line in Cheech and Chong’s parody “Earache My Eye” about this successful
rock star named “Alice Bowie”. Towards the end of the song he says “I only know
three chords…” This later album was decidedly more ambitious than the song Iron
Man or the Paranoid album that it is on. I use that as an example because more
people would be familiar with that song and thereby the style of guitar playing
that the band has. Nevertheless the songs on this new album were still within my
ability to follow, and it wasn’t long before I could play every song, note for
note, and then improvise to my heart’s content for the solo parts. The songs
sounded very powerful and hypnotic and I played with proficiency that allowed me
to just get lost in the whole magic carpet ride of the experience. I felt as if
I was part of the world that was this music. It made me feel as though no matter
what happened to me in everyday life, this part of me was who I really was and I
felt that I was something special in that place. I’m sure that as time went on,
others were able to sense this in me though they’d never heard me play guitar. I
felt empowered by it no matter where I was, and I loved that about it. Those
songs from that album – and there were plenty of others as well, would be with
me in my head and I felt strong because of them. My own little “secret inner
strength” that would be with me wherever I would go.
The astonishing thing for me now, looking back, is to
realize that this strength was such a counterfeit and false version of what you
get for real with God. The reality is that if I would have ever really gotten
into any kind of actual trouble, that stuff wouldn’t have helped me one lick.
But I believe that this same sense of “personal power” is what makes someone
want to be involved in witchcraft or other dark arts. But it is a LIE, folks! It
cannot save you because those lying creatures that are behind it don’t actually
love you. God does love you. Remember Jesus made the comparison between the good
shepherd who lays His life down for His sheep, vs. a hired hand who doesn’t care
about the sheep. Worst of all is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, just wanting to
devour the sheep.
I remember when my good friend George (you’ll soon be
meeting George) and I visited some kids at a home for troubled teens, back
around 1984. I don’t recall how George knew about this little place, near the
ocean, off the beaten path, but he had a heart for these kids because though now
a strong Christian, when he was their age, he was just like them. They were the
victims of broken homes and a world of drug abuse and every kind of domestic
problem there was. So we were there spending some time with them and this one
boy, maybe 15 years old, was telling us how his “main man” was Ronnie James Dio.
The abrasive, in your face, Satan worshipping, heavy metal rock star that was
very popular at this time. This kid is raving about how great his buddy Dio is,
as he keeps flashing the satanic devil horns salute thing with his hands. George
and I just looked at each other and felt the sadness of knowing how deceived
this poor kid really is. How can you not see that Mr. Dio is not your friend,
and does not know or care in the least that you are in this place for messed up
kids. You have your whole life ahead of you. Why would you want to throw it away
on this misconception that you have a friend in these sorts of people? But I
could relate, because I was once there too, believing that I had personal power
and friends in that music.
This deception reminds me of an episode of Superman I saw
as a kid. Jimmy Olsen had obtained a “magic” necklace that he believed would
give him the same powers of resilience and imperviousness to injury that
Superman had. At some point in the story he and Lois
Lane wind up in danger and Jimmy is about
to place himself in harms way to help save the day. Lois wants to wait for
Superman but Jimmy said there was no need now that he had this magic necklace
on. So he’s going to go ahead and do what Superman would do if he were there. He
barely escapes death as the real Superman shows up just in time and saves them.
Jimmy is convinced that his magic necklace did indeed keep him safe through this
ordeal because the wearer of it cannot be harmed. Lois had been trying to
convince him that he’s wrong to trust that thing and after they are both saved
by Superman Lois stomps on Jimmy’s foot or something while he’s still wearing it
and he hollers in pain. When he realizes the necklace does not protect him after
all and that he could have been killed for real, he faints. That’s a little bit
like I feel looking back at how foolish I was to think I had some inner power
because of that music.
I remember working a temp job at a factory, back in the
days just after giving my life to God. I always carried a small, pocket-sized
King James Bible with me wherever I went, in the back pocket of my jeans. This
one was unique in that it contained both the Old and New Testaments. Most of
those only had the New Testament and Psalms. I would take it out and read it
from time to time on breaks or during slow points in the shift at work and this
actually caused quite a stir there for awhile. I worked the graveyard shift and
things were more relaxed then compared to the other shifts. Someone asked me
what I was reading one night. After telling them, they started telling me what
they believed about God. This opened up a can of worms and soon people all
around the factory there were talking about God. It was amazing. Strangers would
come up to me and want to ask me questions or make comments to me about what
they believe. The reason I mention this here is because of one man there in
particular.
I don’t remember his name. He worked security for the
whole factory. He was a big, strong powerful man. He looked like a biker, with
boots and a Levi’s jacket and chains and all that. One night he came up to me
and wanted to talk with me about God, but he began to tell me why he could not
be a Christian like I was. This is one of those things that I remember with an
element of sadness, because I didn’t know at that time how to answer his
position like I would now. What he said was that he could not be a Christian
because, to be in his world, you had to be very strong. Now you see how this
ties in with our subject at hand. He said that becoming a Christian would be to
become weak and vulnerable. I’m sure that I must have told him about how God is
stronger than any foe and that it is He, who gives me strength, so maybe I did
okay. It’s just that I feel so sorry for him. I feel as if I wished that I could
have said more than whatever I may have said. I wish that I could have convinced
him that the strength that comes from our own toughness is nothing. We’re no
match for the true enemies of our soul, Satan and his fallen angels and demons,
and that’s why we all need God. Alone, we are easy prey. But I
know how deception works by convincing us that we are fine when we are actually
in serious danger. So off he went trusting in his own bad self to be enough to
keep him safe from every threat. I wish I could have shown him a scripture such
as this:
Psalms
118:6. The Lord is on my side; I will
not fear: what can man do unto me?
7. The Lord taketh my part with them that help
me: therefore shall I see my desire upon them that hate
me.
8. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put
confidence in man.
I have heard that this last verse, verse 8 is the
centermost verse in the entire Bible. Wish I had known that back then. I might
have preached a mini-sermon to that man right on the spot, with that as my
text.
The steps of a good man are ordered by the
Lord
Psalms 37:23
I got a little ahead of my story there, but actually, I
did not begin following God for some time. I was instead exploring the way I
felt by being around this music. I was trying to weigh the sides of my choice
against each other. Of course I wanted to go to heaven when I died, but I wanted
to have a fun and fulfilling life in the meantime. For me, that meant music. But
God has a way of orchestrating you into a decision too.
Somewhere along the line in my decision making process I
remember having a very meaningful conversation with myself. It started one day,
when I was at my high school, San Pasqual High in Escondido, CA.
There was a guy in my PE class that was telling me about this book he was
reading by Hal Lindsey called “Late Great Planet Earth.” He may have mentioned
some others by the same author, such as “Satan Is Alive And Well On Planet
Earth”.
Now, I was a regular churchgoer, every Sunday and certain
nights during the week too. But to talk about “church stuff” at school to a guy
you don’t even know that well, that was just something not done. And here he’s
telling me about how the world as we know it is going to end someday. And
there’s a judgement where we all stand before God and give account of our lives
and what we did with them… Whoa now! That’s all fine and good to hear at church,
like I said, because you expect to hear stuff like that at church. But this is
the “real” world out here at school. That just made me really uncomfortable.
Although I had grown up in a Lutheran church which is
supposed to be “Amillennialist” which is to say they don’t believe in a literal
interpretation of the book of Revelation; or the rapture; or the tribulation
period with the coming global dictator called the Antichrist; or the physical,
literal 1,000 year reign of Christ etc. etc. Nevertheless, there were some at my
church that stirred up controversy by teaching those concepts at Bible studies
and Sunday school anyway. So I was exposed to some of Hal Lindsey and knew just
enough for it to scare the hair right off my head and that’s about all. (Well, I
still have my hair but it did stand up at times.) So here I was, after this guy
got me all thinking about this stuff right in the middle of my normal school
day… This disturbed me enough to get me thinking of a plan to deal with this
situation. I considered my options and one of them went like this:
“What if I just go ahead and do my own thing and live my
life my own way, including play my music and see where it leads or whatever, and
while doing that, just keep an eye out for the signs of the times? And if I
start to notice things getting really bad, as though the end times are getting
closer, then I’ll go ahead and repent and get right with God at that time. But
why go to extremes now when it’s not that bad yet and I still have my whole life
ahead of me?” Makes sense, right? But no sooner had I thought that way, and was
sort of trying that philosophy on for size, when suddenly a thought occurred to
me that was wise beyond my years. It must have come from God. The thought that
came to me was:
“Wait a minute, what’s to keep me from being deceived
right along with the rest of the world as to whether we are nearing the last
days or not? In other words if I go my own way now and don’t have God in my
life, what guarantee do I have that later I would even recognize the signs of
the times for what they were even if they were happening all around me?”
I somehow knew right then that it is only those who are
walking with God that will be able to discern the times for what they are when
they get here. The rest of the world will go on eating, drinking, buying,
selling, planting, building, marrying, being given in marriage and all that and
never know that anything is wrong. So I realized that this is a decision I’m
going to have to make real soon one way or another. I did not choose to follow
God right then but I was getting closer. So I knew that this was getting serious
and yet I still asked God for more time. Oh, thank God He is patient with us.
I remember another sobering moment along the way. I was
at home in the back yard, not doing anything in particular, but I started
thinking about heaven and hell. I had always thought that I was someday going to
go to heaven when I died, way off in the future. But for some reason I started
imagining what it would be like to go to hell instead. I don’t know where this
came from but it was so real that I started to feel fear. I could see what it
would be like in this one aspect, that if I went to hell, no one in heaven would
be grieving for me. I don’t know why I thought of that but it gripped me and
shook me to the core. I guess I had always just felt so secure in my
heaven-bound future that I never worried about what hell would be like. I also
assumed that if I somehow ended up in hell, someone in heaven who knows how nice
I am would protest and they’d stop everything until they corrected this
“mistake” and got me up there. But now I saw that if I went to hell, the
celebrations in heaven would go on without me and no one there would even know
or care about me. Because it was my own fault for having chosen by my free will
to go my way away from God. This experience was profoundly unnerving and the
worst thought I could imagine. After all, one of the greatest motivations for
wanting to be a star in music (or anything) is for recognition of how great and
important one is to others, right? What if it’s really true what Jesus and Paul
said? That the purpose of our lives here is that we make a choice between loving
this present world and being a big shot now, or humbling ourselves now and
repenting of our own way? Then putting God first and getting to know Him,
believing Him for a reward that is to come? That means not having it all now but
dying to our selves now, taking up our cross and following Jesus in order to
receive a reward in heaven that lasts for eternity?
Jesus said:
Matthew 10:37. He
that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that
loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of
me.
38. And he that
taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of
me.
39. He that
findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall
find it.
Matthew 16: 24.
Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let
him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow
me.
25. For whosoever will save his life shall lose
it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find
it.
26. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain
the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for
his soul?
Best Of Both
Worlds?
(A song by Van Halen)
There are plenty of similar Bible verses that we could
quote but instead I want to tell you of an experience that I had while at a Van
Halen concert. This gets ahead of our story in general but this principle is
timely here. There is a song by this band called “Best of Both Worlds,” that
says,
“You don’t have to die and go to heaven, or wait around
to be born again. Just tune into what this place has got to offer. We may never
be here again. I want the best of both worlds. And baby, I know what it’s worth.
We can have the best of both worlds. A little heaven right here on Earth.”
It was the “5150” tour in 1986, (which is the CD that
that song is on. 5150 is the police code for criminally insane.) and Van Halen
were on the top of their game. This was the first album they did with Sammy
Hagar as lead singer and they were really happy. Everything was going well for
them. Their concerts were sellouts all across the country. The show in
San Diego, where
I live, sold out so quickly that they added a second show for the following
night and it too sold out. I went with my same friend, George that I mentioned
earlier. (You’ll soon be hearing a lot more about George. Also, I have another
story about this night that I want to tell you, but it will be in a later
chapter. One on the power of our prayers – how something that George and I
prayed that night at this concert affected the whole concert.)
We were there for the first night. The concert sold out
so fast, as I mentioned, that by the time I bought the tickets there weren’t
many left. So our seats were on the backside behind the stage where you would
normally not have any audience because there’d be nothing to see but amps or
curtains. But Van Halen set up their stage in a way that had minimal
obstructions for the behind the stage seats so the audience went all the way
around. As such, from our seats directly in the middle behind the stage, we
could see up close what was going on before the start of the show as the band
entered the stage from one side, still hidden from the majority of the audience.
We could see them laughing about what they were about to do. They wanted to
catch the audience off guard by having complete silence and with no introduction
and with the house lights still on – suddenly, Eddy on his guitar begins to just
wail away by himself in that much imitated but never really duplicated guitar
flair of his. The audience went wild! Even though they were looking at an empty
stage, they knew it was Eddy. The cheer was deafening and the boys in the band
fell all over themselves with laughter at how much noise a crowd could make for
one little guy playing a guitar. The roar did not subside as the band took the
stage and the house lights went out and the show started with the first song.
The worship and adoration for this band was unimaginable.
It was so immense. That’s when the Holy Spirit began to speak to me about this.
He told me that the desire in every one of us to be recognized and praised for
our uniqueness and individual talents that we each have is a natural part of all
of us and is not in itself an evil thing. In other words that adoration we were
witnessing right there at that concert is something we all would like to receive
in one way or another. The reason for that, the Holy Spirit told me is because
we are made in God’s image and that’s how He is. God wants to be recognized for
what He is good at. For example we know that God is love and He wants to be
known for that:
Ephesians 2: 4.
But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved
us,
5. Even when we
were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are
saved;)
6. And hath
raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus:
7. That in the ages to come he might shew the
exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ
Jesus.
So then, was there anything wrong in what Van Halen was
doing that night? Yes, the Holy Spirit went on to show me that where those guys
in that band went wrong is that they were trading away their chance at eternal
and genuine exaltation. Trading it for this fleeting moment on a stage in front
of this audience that lasts for however long and then it’s over.
When we succumb to temptation from Satan to try to
receive that exaltation that God intends, but by some means that God did not
intend, we bypass God and we go our own way. God does not want to be cut out of
our equation. He’s the one that planned to exalt us in the first place. His
plans of goodness for us far exceed anything we could ever cook up for
ourselves, or achieve in this world on our own. Therefore, it is a tragedy when
we sell out so short for what looks good now but is nothing compared with what
we just forfeited. To cut God out of our lives is to excite His jealousy.
I recently heard Oprah Winfrey speaking about how she
didn’t want to believe in a “jealous” God, but rather one of love. We have been
deceived into thinking that jealousy is evil or a sin. When we think that
jealousy is a sin we are confusing jealousy with envy. Envy is a sin. In fact it
is listed as one of the seven deadly sins. God gets jealous but He never sins
and He never envies. So what then is the difference between jealousy and envy?
Simple. Envy passionately desires something that is not ones by right but
belongs to someone else. It is forbidden by the 10th Commandment,
which says Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods. Jealousy on the other hand
wants that which is yours by right but is being withheld from you. If a man’s
wife is giving her body and affections to another man he feels jealousy not
envy. On the other hand if an attractive single woman at the office is dating a
single man and some other man desires her, he is envious, not jealous. See the
difference? We can provoke God to jealousy only because God deserves and can
claim our love and honor as His created and purchased beings. God desires to
bestow great blessings upon us and will do so when we trust Him with our lives.
But when we go our own way and become successful in this world, as Van Halen was
doing, we are headed for trouble.
Proverbs 14: 12.
There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are
the ways of death.
13. Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful; and the end
of that mirth is heaviness.
Matthew 19:30.
But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be
first.
Matthew 23: 12.
And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall
humble himself shall be exalted.
James 4: 10.
Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you
up.
Sadly, it wasn’t long after that concert that Van Halen
hit bad times. They weren’t selling as many albums as they once did and
guitarist Eddy Van Halen and lead vocalist Sammy Hagar became unwilling to work
together any longer. Many years after that concert I happened to see Eddy Van
Halen on the Howard Stern Show on TV and he was a very sad looking person. He
hardly spoke and wouldn’t cooperate with Howard or any of the others that were
trying to talk with him. I felt bad for him as they began to belittle him and
suggest that maybe this is why Sammy Hagar as well as the band’s original
singer, David Lee Roth whom Sammy replaced, also couldn’t work with him. Of
course that just made things worse. I just remember thinking how far removed he
seemed from the glory days of those earlier years. That kind of ride doesn’t
last. God never intended for us to fly like a comet and then crash and burn like
a meteorite. His plan for us is eternal. It requires faith on our part in Him,
and we must believe that He has good intentions for us, in order for us to get
good things from Him.
Hebrews 11:
6. But without faith it is
impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and
that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek
him.
Satan tries to get us to forfeit our chance at true
exaltation with God for eternity and trade it for some temporal and temporary
reward here and now. There are innumerable examples of testing of faith like
this in the Bible but one comes to mind: that of the rich young ruler.
Matthew 19: 21.
Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast,
and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and
follow me.
22. But when the young man heard that saying, he
went away sorrowful: for he had great
possessions.
If this young man had known this truth, he would have
gladly done what Jesus said. But it’s a test. See, no one gets to see the
correct answers while they are taking a test or else it wouldn’t be a true test,
would it? Everyone will want the reward in the day when all is revealed. But
right now we have God’s word and promises to us and we have to learn to trust
Him, accept it by faith and act on it now while it’s still hidden and while the
test is still being given. Once you are in eternity, faith as we can express it
now becomes no longer possible. That is why the Bible says that now is the
accepted time:
2 Corinthians 6: 2.
(For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of
salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now
is the day of salvation.)
Jesus promised that whatever we give up for Him and His
kingdom we will receive 100 fold both now and in eternity.
Mark 10:28. Then
Peter began to say unto him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed
thee.
29. And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say
unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or
father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the
gospel’s,
30. But he shall receive an hundredfold now in
this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and
lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal
life.
31. But many that
are first shall be last; and the last first.
Okay, now that I’ve gotten that out, let me continue my
story…
I finished High School finally, graduating in 1977 amidst
all the hoopla and celebration that goes with that. Though I never really
understood what the big deal was. Some people acted surprised that I’d made it
as though it was some tough thing to have done. I thought, Huh? I just showed up
to class every day, did the work and got passing grades, what’s so hard about
that? To me that was easy, the hard part was figuring out what to do now that I
was out. From now on I would have to start making decisions for myself and I
wasn’t overly excited about that. I never had planned to go to college because I
already was overstuffed with school from the past 13 years of K-12th
grade. I had avoided the college prep classes in High School. I guess I figured
that rock musicians didn’t need to be too educated…
I somehow had this precognitive awareness that many of my
schoolmates would do what they many years later admitted they had done. Which
was to spend time in college in a major that they really didn’t like and after
graduation, end up taking a job in a field that has nothing to do with what they
were qualified for from all the years of college. I felt that I had ended up no
worse off than many of them were but without having to go to the trouble of all
that extra schooling.
Another thing that never appealed to me at all was all
the college hype of joining a fraternity and doing all the nonsense that goes
with that. For example, remember the bonfire that Texas A&M used to have
every year until it collapsed and killed several students. I had always thought
of such activities as distasteful and foolish as well as a waste of energy and
recourses and I could never be attracted to anything remotely like that. (I
looked it up):
(“The Nov. 18, 1999, collapse killed 12 Aggies and
injured 27. Texas A&M now observes Bonfire Remembrance Day every year in
recognition of the tragedy, which brought an end to the 90-year-old tradition on
campus.”)
This is not to say that I was against learning true
knowledge. I love learning about things that are true and it has been said that
all truth leads to God. What you get in most places of higher learning leads
away from God, and that, even from an early age, did not appeal to me. I just
seemed to have a sense that knowledge worth obtaining was not necessarily what
you found in going to lots of school. Anyway, I was glad that I avoided that,
and don’t feel that I have missed out for having done so. Nevertheless, as a
sort of transitional excursion into the next phase of life after high school, I
did enroll in some Jr. College classes, involving music. Being still thoroughly
uncertain about my future because the whole thing hinged on my choice that I was
putting off, I was sort of marking time, at this point.
My first place of employment was actually while still in
High School, working part time at a fledgling new restaurant in town called “The
Hungry Years Soup Kitchen.” The motif was patterned after the depression era but
meals certainly were not priced that way. A friend from my church was working
there and he helped me get the job and I enjoyed working with him but then he
quit soon after I’d started.
They served great soups and sandwiches and had the best
salad bar I had ever seen up to that time. But to hold down costs, they made one
person do three persons’ jobs at one time. Sometimes when you showed up for your
scheduled shift, there wasn’t enough business to accommodate your clocking in
and they illegally requested that you not clock in for work at all though it was
your scheduled time. They’d give you a meal as compensation for coming in. Some
employees complained but I didn’t mind, probably because, come to think of it, I
was seldom one that was not put to work.
I would work there for only a few months before I was
badly injured by a falling kettle of hot au juice. It fell down from its
precarious perch up on a shelf where it was not supposed to be and dumped its
painful contents all over the backs of my legs from my thighs down. The
inspector had warned them about this before. Other employees had also suffered
the same fate before me, including the guy I knew who got me this job. But it
was more convenient for the sandwich makers to have it up there so as soon as
the inspector was gone, back up there it went. The problem was it was in close
proximity to this steamer appliance that required a great deal of physical arm
motion to operate. The use of this appliance would shake the entire workbench,
including the shelf upon which this hot kettle was sitting. This machine had a
drawer compartment into which the sandwich meat and cheese would be placed and
once closed inside, the operator would crank that handle back and forth like
crazy, pumping in the hot steam. The vibrations from this motion would affect
that hot kettle and move it closer to the edge of its perch. You could get away
with this a certain number of times without incident until eventually that hot
kettle would have edged forward too far and spill its contents down on whomever
might be there. When this happened to be me, the girl operating it at the time,
screamed and ran out of the way herself just as it fell, but I had no chance. I
was working with my back to this area, slicing up a pan of fresh corn bread, and
was unable to get out of the way. I would have been relatively unharmed had I
not placed one hand on my left calf just instinctively, not really knowing what
had just happened to me. But that fatal act is what caused my burn there to be
worse than those of some others who had received the same baptism. The rest of
my legs were 1st degree burns which is like a bad sunburn. But in
this spot where my hand momentarily pressed in, it went into 2nd
degree. Which is where a layer of skin has died and must be removed. Once the
pain registered, I was really hurting and ran as fast as I could to the large
sink in the dishwashing area, and jumped up into it and turned on the cold water
full blast, and ran it over the backs of my legs.
I ended up having to be taken to the emergency room at
the local hospital. Like I said, the doctor had to remove the dead skin, which
was the worst part of the ordeal. It had blistered real bad but was still
hanging on. There was no way to soften the pain. The doctor apologized but had
to do it. It felt like someone skinning me with a razor blade.
My dad thought I should sue the owners of the restaurant,
but I didn’t have the heart for that. I knew that this business was the owner’s
whole life and I didn’t want to ruin it for them but I didn’t want to work there
anymore after that. The money I made in the short time I worked there was just
enough to buy my first full sized guitar amplifier. So it was good for that and
the experience but I decided that from now on I’d never work in the food
business again and I never did.
God’s Counter Offer for My Life
Some readers may remember Keith Green. He was a
contemporary Christian singer / songwriter in the 70s and 80s up until his
untimely death in a plane crash in the early 80s. His influence was huge
wherever he went with his hard hitting message. His contribution was not so much
as an evangelist converting the lost as it was in calling the already saved into
a deeper relationship with God. By having them evaluate their walk and shaking
them awake if they were “Asleep in the Light” as one of his songs says. Kind of
like I was at the time but I didn’t know it.
In the summer of 1977 after having just graduated High
School, I went to see Keith Green in concert at the local Palomar Community College. It was here that God
would give me my first indication that He did in fact have a counter offer for
my life as opposed to the one Satan had previously made.
At some point in the program, Keith asked the audience of
mostly Christian young people, whether or not God was really real to them in
their everyday life. Keith said,
“Is God’s power working in you daily and is He really
LORD of your life? If not then I’m going to give you a chance to find out why…
What is it that is coming between you and God that is keeping you from truly
having the relationship with Him that God intends to have with His people.” Then
he said,
“If you are not willing to make a change in your life
then I advise you not to participate in this. Because He is here right now, and
if you ask God to reveal this to you, and there is something that needs a change
from you, He will show it to you. And if you see it but are unwilling to make
the change, then you would be better off not to know, than to know and not do
something about it.” He said,
“You really don’t want that, that would wreck your night,
believe me, you’ll walk out of here feeling so small you could fit under crack
in the door and not even have to open it to get out of here…”
Well, I considered myself to be at least as good a
Christian as anyone else at my church. I was with a group of others from my
Lutheran church and there were probably dozens of area churches represented at
this event. I thought being a Christian meant that you believed in God, and
accepted Jesus Christ as His son who came to die for our sins on the cross. That
He rose up from the grave the third day and ascended into Heaven. That all your
sins are covered in Jesus, so just do the best you can and what else is there to
it? None of the previous chapters’ incidents were anywhere in my thoughts this
night. So basically, I guess I took Keith Green’s challenge as almost a nuisance
to be quickly dispensed with by participating and then get on with my life. I
honestly did not think that there could be anything in my life that was between
God and me. So my attitude was, bring it on buddy, I’ll pass your little test.
“What a maroon…” As Bugs Bunny would say…
So Keith was ready to give us some silence, reminding us
that God was in this place ready to reveal to any who asks Him and so he said,
“Go ahead and ask Him now.” And then he was silent for a while.
I began to silently pray,
“Lord, is there anything in my life that is coming
between you and me and that is keeping me from really knowing you the way you
want me to, and that you would want me to change?” I waited for any
answer.
Instantly, I began to hear a voice in my mind as clear as
any you could ever imagine. It was God and He was speaking directly to me with a
commanding authority, He said,
“Yes! Your records! You love your records more than
you love ME, and if you want to know me truly, then give me your
records.”
As soon as I heard that I was overcome with shock horror
and grief and I about panicked. I was completely astonished, on two counts: One,
because there was in fact something. And two, because as soon as He said it, I
was dismayed at how accurate He was at picking the one thing in my life that
meant everything to me. I freaked out inside and I said,
“Oh God you can’t mean that! How could you, that’s my
whole life!” I said,
“Anything else, anything at all, just not that! There’s
no way!”
For the first time in my entire short life, I realized
what dying to oneself really entailed. I protested. I started saying that it
wasn’t fair to ask so much from me when all these others around me were not
asked for similar sacrifices that meant so much to them. I was horrified and I
assumed that the rest of the large, concert-sized audience should be equally
horrified, but they weren’t.
I now understood what Keith Green meant about feeling so
small you could walk under the crack in the door. I was angry. I can’t remember
the final song and prayer but there undoubtedly was that and the concert was
over and people began discussing plans to go out for coffee or whatever. I was
numb. I didn’t want to participate in any “fellowship” now. What was wrong with
these people, I wondered? How could they not all have something equally
meaningful in their lives that God would want them to give up? I was shattered.
I kept what I was feeling to myself for a while. But I
remember there came a time when I finally shared this situation with others at
my church. I was expecting sympathy and understanding, but I instead got one guy
volunteering to go with me right then to my house and he’d help me destroy my
records or burn them for me or whatever it was… “SHUT UP!” was all
I could think about that idea.
Just so you know, I didn’t have a lot of records, but the
ones I had meant everything to me. Having never had a lot of money, each time I
had a few bucks to spend, I bought another record. I had been collecting them
for some years and my collection was the most important thing I possessed. It
represented everything that I wanted to become myself. I couldn’t believe that
God would ask this of me.
I don’t remember when my response to God was delivered by
me, either that same night or at some later point when I could think about it
straight, but I know that I finally said,
“Lord, I’m not able to do this thing right now but please
be patient with me and help me so that some day I will have the faith to go
through with it.” I’m so glad that God is patient with us.
Reader, if you are struggling with anything that God is
asking you to do, let me encourage you to ask God for the wisdom and strength
and He will meet you right where you are.
Psalms 103: 1. Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is
within me, bless his holy name.
2. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all
his benefits:
3. Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who
healeth all thy diseases;
4. Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who
crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies;
5. Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so
that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's.
6. The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment
for all that are oppressed.
7. He made known his ways unto Moses, his acts
unto the children of Israel.
8. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to
anger, and plenteous in mercy.
9. He will not always chide: neither will he
keep his anger for ever.
10. He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor
rewarded us according to our iniquities.
11. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so
great is his mercy toward them that fear him.
12. As far as the east is from the west, so far
hath he removed our transgressions from us.
13. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the
Lord pitieth them that fear him.
14. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that
we are dust.
15. As for man, his days are as grass: as a
flower of the field, so he flourisheth.
16. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone;
and the place thereof shall know it no more.
17. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting
to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's
children;
18. To such as keep his covenant, and to those
that remember his commandments to do them.
19. The Lord hath prepared his throne in the
heavens; and his kingdom ruleth over all.
20. Bless the
Lord, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments,
hearkening unto the voice of his word.
21. Bless ye the Lord, all ye his hosts; ye
ministers of his, that do his pleasure.
22. Bless the Lord, all his works in all places of his
dominion: bless the Lord, O my soul.
Well, as with any journey from point a. to point b.
there’s no marking time in place. You either are moving closer to your mark or
else further away from it. My faith, being weak was not able to propel me closer
to God and so I began moving further away. Oh, I was still very active in
church. I was even playing guitar and singing in a group at church called “The
New Life Singers,” which I had been in for years. As far as anyone could tell I
was doing just fine. But inside, I now knew something that I had never known
before. I was placing rock music before God on a scale of importance in my
life.
I got a part time job in a car wash for a while and then
went to work full time in a hotel as a maintenance guy. I was still living at
home at this time and so was able to save some money. This let me buy even more
records than I’d had up to that point. I was also playing my guitar more than
ever and soon joined some other local musicians to form what would become a
local favorite rock band all over town.
The struggle for identity between two opposing worlds was
constant. Part of me really wanted to be good and godly but part of me was just
being pulled toward darkness. The darkness side was usually the winning side
most of the time. Though when I say that, I must qualify it by saying that I was
never a drug user or even much of a drinker or involved in sex. In that sense I
was still every bit the good boy.
See that was part of what I thought being a good
Christian was. Because I never did any of those things, therefore I thought I
was a good Christian. Most of the people that I knew as Christians probably had
a similar idea about that too. They’d view anyone that lived a “worldly”
lifestyle as a sinner but anyone who went to church and didn’t do all those
“sinful” things as godly. Never mind whether they were really in a relationship
with God or not. So when I say that I was giving in to darkness, I’m not talking
about that kind of “sinful” lifestyle, I’m talking about a life where I was just
going my own way and doing what I wanted to do.
I’ll tell you this too, the fact that my choice of
activities was music and that that music was admittedly worldly was not what was
really the heart of the issue. The issue for me was that God asked me for those
records and I was not giving them to Him. There were so many people going to
church that were just as far away from God as I was and they might even be
leaders in the church. (Some of Jesus’ biggest foes were the religious leaders.)
In fact it was pretty much an accepted reality within the church that most
churchgoers were not committed to God. That’s why so many sermons and Bible
teachings were on trying to convince us that we should give ourselves to God
more than we really do. There was an accepted status quo that you could get
saved and then still do whatever you wanted as long as you prayed about it and
asked God to bless you.
So, I was trying to live in both kingdoms but spending
the most time and energy in that kingdom where my SELF was on the throne. But at
least I knew that I was doing that. I was not allowing myself to get comfortable
in that state.
One of the ways that I did that was to keep coming back
to church – and not just the Lutheran church where I grew up. I started
branching out and going to other churches whenever some event would draw me
there. I attended a lot of Christian concerts, or meetings where a special
speaker was in town, or some other thing. I found that there were some very good
churches and very good teachers of the word who did not pull punches.
One such was Calvary Chapel in North
Park, where Mike Macintosh was then pastor. I think I was there this
night to see a Christian concert. It was almost New Years, 1979, becoming 1980.
Mike preached a sermon that night that said basically that he believed that 1980
was the year that God was going to start “shaking the fence.” And that those
Christians that were trying to walk that line between God’s kingdom and the
world’s kingdom were going to fall off that fence to one side or the other. He
talked about how the Antichrist was getting closer every day and very soon we
could find ourselves living in the kind of end times troubles like the Bible had
prophesied were coming. I had always thought that 1980 and beyond had an ominous
sound to it anyway. Very “futuristic” and unsettling to someone who was not
walking with God. That sermon really put the fear of God into me.
Finally I got to the point that I was seriously ready to
discuss with God the details of my doing what He had asked of me some two and a
half years earlier.
I was working at the hotel as a maintenance guy as I
mentioned earlier. I was hired on to help renovate all the hotel rooms in this
five story hotel and we began with the fifth (top) floor which was closed to the
public so we could do the whole floor all at once. We stripped all the guest
rooms and bathrooms, and the long hallways bare, and then prepped, sanded and
painted everything before the new carpet and wallpaper, furnishings, and
everything would be redone from top to bottom.
One evening, the workday being nearly complete, I
wandered over to the South end of the long, stripped hallway on the deserted
5th floor and gazing out the window off toward the West, seeing the
sunset over the freeway, watching cars whizzing by down there… With no one else
up there and all being very quiet… I began to think very deeply and truthfully
about my life and my situation having put God on hold since that night at the
Keith Green concert.
I thought about what a girl who worked at that same hotel
as a housekeeper, had said to me right at that time. She came up to the fifth
floor to see me and tell me these things. She and her boyfriend had attended one
of my band’s shows on an extended holiday weekend party that we threw. There
were lots of people camping out with us in the desert for three days. And she
really said a lot of nice things about the band and me. She thought that we
really had something that would propel us into bigger things soon.
I loved the attention and yet it seemed empty without God
being part of it. Was this really what I wanted if it meant being without God?
Was that girl’s admiration and people like her going to be enough? The band had
brought me respect from people like her and many others. Even my Dad respected
what I was doing which I would least have expected. But people really treated me
like I was somebody because of the band. I felt that I was doing exactly what I
had set out to do since way back when I was much younger. I was in a very
popular band and we were starting to write our own original songs and pursue
getting signed to a label and all that. We had done some recording at a studio
in Hollywood and
a local radio station was going to play some of our original songs on a show
dedicated to that. I loved all of that, but why should I hold to that if God
wanted something else for me? I began to be aware that God was right there with
me and so I wanted to talk to Him.
I said,
“God, let me tell you why I’m afraid to do this thing
that you have asked of me…” And I felt Him say,
“I’m listening.” I said,
“You are asking me to give up the one thing that I’m good
at in exchange for something that I’ve never been good at.” I was aware that to
give up my records meant more than just those records but my involvement in
music itself. I felt that it would naturally lead to my leaving my band as well,
and for what, The Bible?
I had been going to church and Sunday school for as long
as I could remember and I even had to go to private church school for Jr. High
School for 7th and 8th grade. We had Bible reading and
devotions every day and chapel every Wednesday in addition to church on Sunday.
I had so much Bible exposure and yet after all that, I couldn’t have told you
the difference between Ecclesiastes and Ephesians. I just never comprehended the
Bible and could see no reason to think I ever would. You might think there’d be
lightning striking me for telling God this. But no, God likes when we get honest
with Him. Then I said,
“Also, you are asking me to become like those people at
my church who are all into church like it’s the only thing they do… I just can’t
see myself being like that.” I knew that there were some people who were “into”
church and were really dedicated to it like it was their life, and I just could
not see myself becoming like that.
I did not know how God was going to respond to my sudden
coming clean with my inner feelings about all this but I was sincere and it felt
good to be saying this to Him. Now it was His turn to talk. And talk He did! His
communication to me was very personal and very authoritative, as you would
expect. I was about to receive the offer that I had been wondering about all
this time. He said:
“First of all, I am not asking you to become like those
people at your church, for they don’t know me any more than you do…
And as for your not knowing the Bible, If you will trust
Me and do this thing I ask, and give Me your records, then you will be one of
the few true disciples that I have on the Earth today.
I myself will be your teacher.
And I will teach you and show you things that their
pastors don’t know.”
That was it. I was stunned. I felt elated and also a
tremendous urgency now to make the right choice. I was genuinely shocked at that
first part and yet I knew immediately the truth of the statement. As He was
saying those words I could see the whole picture of how those people that I was
referring to were just sort of using church the way I was using my
records. They really did not know God any more than I did. I had never realized
that before. But now it seemed so obvious. Not only that, but apparently this
was so common that for someone to do what He was asking me to do was truly rare
and would put me in a special category. I knew that I’d just heard
an indescribable offer from God Himself. But the biggest weird feeling that came
over me now was this question:
“Do I believe it?”
This truly was the same kind of experience that those
other guys had presented me with but now it was from God. There was a sense of
knowing that it was real, yet it was so unbelievable too. I honestly thought
about Abraham and how he must have felt when God told him to first leave his
homeland and later to offer up his only son as an offering. Oh, it’s easy to say
we believe in God, until He asks you for something like that and attaches some
huge meaningful promise with it that sounds so good you want it with all your
heart, but can you trust it? I really wanted to believe God now. But did you
hear what He said? If I do this, I will be in a very special category! I will be
a true disciple of God! Am I ready for that? He Himself will be my teacher and
teach me things that their pastors don’t know? WOW!
I wish I could say that I ran right home and got my
records and got rid of them, but I did not. I wanted to do it but how to
actually do it, I did not know.
So that’s why God brought me Desiree.