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Okay, Lord!As I look back, my first step toward God was apparently in the opposite direction. One Sunday morning when I was sixteen years old I was sitting in Catholic mass and was suddenly struck by how phony the religious ritual seemed to be. I'd been to mass every week since I could remember, but as the priest in his colorful robes was performing the steps that I knew by heart, I just could not believe that any real divine Being would be interested in partaking of such silliness. By the end of that service I even questioned whether God did exist. In my impetuous teenage thinking, I determined that there really was no God and instantly became an atheist. I found that being an atheist took effort. On the one hand it meant freedom from religious restrictions. Still, my dad commanded me to continue to attend church; when I did go it was meaningless to me and boring. Then there was the continual self-questioning, “What if there is a God after all?” My attempt at atheism lasted only until the summer. On vacation I was climbing a rocky bluff alone. At one point a rock I thought to be firm came away in my hands. I was hanging on a ledge by my elbows above a drop of twenty feet or so onto rocks below. I thought I was about to fall and spontaneously called out, “God, help!” I managed to recover my balance and lift myself onto the ledge. I sat there looking at a magnificent view and admitted to myself that I was wrong to think there was no God. Later that year I settled the question in my heart: there really is a God; He just isn't Catholic. I didn't think about God frequently after that. During the rest of my high school life I became a hippie-type. I played music with my garage-band buddies and partied. After graduation my dad told me that if I wanted to continue to live at home I would have to cut my hair and get a job, so I left to live with my girlfriend. When she became pregnant we married. I dropped out of the university and went to trade school to get a job as a computer programmer. My daughter was born when I was nineteen. During that time I felt that there must be some kind of transcendent experience for a human being that had nothing to do with drugs or mere pleasure, and far more meaningful than having a job and supporting a family. I tried to find out about zen, yoga, meditation, etc., but sitting around chanting “om” was even sillier than attending mass. I guess I was seeking for something, but in my concept it wasn't God. I wasn't moving any further toward God, but He was arranging events in order to come to me. A family in the local church moved into a duplex on our block. They rented the second apartment to some of the younger sisters in the church. We called them all the “Jesus freaks”. I found out later that the sisters would watch from their window and pray for the people they saw. One Friday on the way to work a stranger on the subway train sat by me and talked to me about Jesus. I got off the train a few stops early to get away from him. That same evening I ended up talking to my Christian neighbors. They invited me to a church meeting. I was actually afraid to go; I feared that if I went I might be changed somehow and become like them. I avoided them, but two days later they found me at home and invited me again. I decided to go one time so that I could decline any future invitations, saying I had tried it and didn't like it. When I entered the meeting, one of the ushers was the fellow from the train! I took a seat and the congregation began to sing hymns. I sang along, sharing a hymnal with the person next to me. In one hymn the chorus contains the lines, “Oh how I love Him, how I adore Him, my breath, my sunshine, my all-in-all. The great Creator became my Savior...” As I sang this, I became too choked up to continue. It was as if the Lord Whom I had been resisting was looking me in the eyes and asking me if I would receive Him. I whispered two words, “Okay, Lord.” Right away I felt a great relief. My heart was at peace and I knew two things: that my sins were forgiven and that these people were my spiritual family. I fell in love with Jesus, He began to burn in my heart, and I became part of His Body. From that first meeting I became intensely interested in knowing the Bible. That night the speaker talked about the topic of the human spirit. I heard that man has a deeper part of his being than his mind that can know God and contain God. That clinched it for me. It was the exact answer to the transcendence I had been seeking. I was experiencing it where I never expected to find it; it was the Holy Spirit filling me with bubbling joy! I was baptized a few days later in a pool in my neighbor's basement. I started to read the Bible whenever I could and I went to every meeting I could go to. I heard the messages of Witness Lee and read the books of Watchman Nee. The light was astounding and the Word became my delight. Within a few months I got a copy of the first completed Recovery Version book, Romans. I studied it and attended the first Life-Study training where I heard Witness Lee in person for the first time. Being filled with the Word firmly grounded me in Christ and has preserved me in grace ever since. Since then, over the last twenty-five years, I have attended all the Life-Study trainings (except two) covering the entire Bible, all the Crystallization trainings, and very many conferences and church meetings. I have to testify that, having been constituted with all the divine riches in the Word for more than half of my human life, my initial joy in Christ has become deep and constant. I have a clear vision of what God's purpose is, how He will gain His desire, and what I must do to cooperate with Him. Bob Freepartner | Back to List |
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