The book had been very inspiring in
a negative sort of way. The story,
"The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant," had been popularized as a
Broadway play, and most people thought of it as a rather innocent fantasy about
a man who sold his soul to become a championship baseball player. I was eleven years of age, impressionable,
and fascinated by the concept that there might be a power greater than
myself. It didn't matter that it was the
devil. What did matter was that there
was something other, or should I say, someone!
I did what I thought was the logical thing. I tried my first experiment in prayer. I got down on my knees behind a chair in our
living room and gave my life to Satan.
There was no flash of black lightning, and on the surface I was mildly
disappointed.
In order to understand the
significance of my experiment it helps to know that I grew up in a
well-churched family. Sunday worship,
Sunday School, choir, youth group and all the other activities normal to
churches were a regular part of our family life. We were orthodox in our beliefs and conservative
in our life style. What was missing was
a concept of personal faith. We looked
on ourselves as Christians, but it was something we did, rather than Someone we
knew. What I hungered for, was that
Someone to know. That I was looking in
the wrong direction never even occurred to me.
While there were no overt manifestations
of the evil one, circumstances were to provide an answer of sorts to my
offer. A friend of mine began working at
a local store and began to steal from the cash register. I was glad to share the spoils. The thefts
from the cash register continued on a weekly basis for almost two years. Those years were to see an increasing
involvement in petty theft and vandalism.
School, always difficult at that time in my life, became almost
impossible. By the time that I was seventeen
I had spent three years just getting through grade ten. My school career ended with a conflict in my
home that forced me out of school and into the Royal Canadian Navy.
I enjoyed the discipline of boot
camp and revelled in the physical challenges but that six month period was only
the calm before the storm. Immediately
on being assigned to a ship in a Canadian port city where I took up with the
heavy drinkers on board ship. From the
very beginning of my drinking I knew only one possible reason for the use
of alcohol, and that was to blot myself
out. Whenever the ship was in port I
spent my time drunk, or planning to get drunk, or begging in order to get drunk
and I became involved in petty theft and violence in order to sustain the
ability to get drunk. I drank away trade
ratings and promotions and thought nothing of it. My ship-board career ended when I was working
on a live electrical box and failed to warn the Electrical Officer before he
stuck his hand in the box to correct my work.
Within twenty-four hours I found myself assigned to a shore
hospital. They really didn't know where
else to put me.
Being confined to the hospital interfered with my
drinking so I went AWOL in order to spend an evening drinking. That act transferred me from a hospital room
to a cell in solitary detention. In
order to keep track of me they assigned me to duty as a guard at the brig. During this time came my second and more
constructive attempt to pray. I had
spent an entire night drinking and had been unable to get drunk. That failure to get drunk put me in a state
of sheer panic. I remember rolling over
in my bed and crying out, "Oh God, help!" It was a prayer of sorts, although I didn’t
understand that even such prayers are answered. Shortly after that I found
myself with a conditional discharge and was told that if I stayed out of
trouble with the law for a year they would give me an honourable discharge.
Here is where the miracle
began. When I arrived home several
things happened. First, God temporarily
removed both the opportunity and the desire for alcohol. It was an act of sheer grace. Second, I went to lunch with my father who
leaned across the table and asked me an utterly incomprehensible question. He said, "Have you asked Jesus into your
heart?" I didn't even know what he
meant, but in the following conversation he shared with me that he had asked
Jesus to be his Saviour at a Billy Graham Rally in Toronto.
I enrolled in a special school designed to help people
who had not finished high-school to take two years of schooling in one
year. I discovered that several of my
classmates, all young people who had been out in the work force and were
returning for an education, were more different than I could have imagined. They had a light about them, a radiance that
came from the personal knowledge of Jesus and from an openness to His
Spirit. I began to attend evangelical
meetings and began to hear the steps of salvation clearly for the first
time.
Several times I earnestly sought repentance, but one
thing always held me back. That was the
theft from the cash register so many years ago.
Finally on an Easter Saturday I read a chapter in a book that bore the
heading, "Repentance and Restitution." The Holy Spirit confronted me with the fact
that God, in my case, made a very clear connection between confession and going
to talk to the shop-keeper from whom we stole the money. I got down on my knees in my bedroom and
began to pray. "Father, I can't
confess this to you, because If I do, then I will be arrested and then what
good will I be to you?" It was at
this point that I heard the voice of God.
Not inwardly, but outwardly with an audible voice! He said, "Go ahead, son." I said, "But I can't, because my friend
will become involved, and I don't have the right to do that." He said, "Go ahead, son." I came up with four or five more reasons, but
each time He patiently answered, "Go ahead, son." I got up off my knees and walked to the
corner store and took the owner aside and told him my part in the affair
without identifying the other person or giving the date when it happened. The owner merely asked, "Is it all right
in your heart now?" He gave his
forgiveness without lecturing or preaching and in so doing gave me a most
precious gift. I went down the street
after our meeting with a tremendous feeling of my burdens being rolled
away. For the first time I felt an
immediate sense of the presence of the Father and of Jesus without an
accompanying sense of guilt. But the
miracle was not over yet.
A few weeks later I knelt in a
humble living room with a small group of people praying. It was my first experience of an actual
prayer meeting. The meeting was so dull
that the person kneeling beside me kept turning the pages of Life
magazine. Every time he turned a page he
would say, "Amen," or "Hallelujah!" I took a look at that strange performance and
turned to God and asked Him, "What am I doing here?" With that He poured out his Holy Spirit on me
with the waves and billows of his love.
I lost all awareness of my surroundings and became only aware of
Him. I stayed under an intense anointing
for what seemed like hours. During all
of that experience He was making me anew.
How precious those moments were when He let me know that there was a
Power greater than myself and that He Himself loved me.
Copyright © 2015, R. Penman
Smith
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