a story from Glenn
Well
my dear ones,
Last
week, my friend, Glenn, told his story
in
front of a large crowd of people
and
it was some pretty intense stuff!
Have
you ever felt despair?
Have
you ever felt abandoned by God?
Or
wonder if God even exists?
Or
know anyone who meets
one
of those criteria?
If
so, then read on.
Back
when he was a teenager,
Glenn
tended to fluff off in school
because
he was really smart
and
had a photographic memory,
so
he found he could get by without studying.
At
age 13, he won a local science fair
and
got the chance to go to the nationals
in
Atlanta.
Along
with a bunch of other kids,
he
got taken by a chaperone to see the movie,
“Chariots
of Fire.”
It
wasn’t what he or any of the other kids
had
wanted to see
(they
wanted to see “Cat People,”
an old 1942 horror film,
but the chaperone wasn’t going for it. =>);
however,
Glenn wound up inspired by it.
He
decided he was going to apply himself,
reach
his potential, and go to Oxford.
But
then at age 14, Glenn got into
the
world of drugs and alcohol.
He
was drunk or high all the time,
so
he did poorly in high school,
dropped
out, and had to get his GED later.
A
small private Methodist college
gave
him a second chance,
but
he screwed that up, too.
At
age 21, at 4:00 AM,
he
went to rob a small Methodist church.
He
figured there’d be no one there
in
the middle of the night,
but
when he opened the office door,
there
was the pastor sitting at his desk.
Glenn
asked,
“What
are you doing here?
And
the pastor asked,
“What
are YOU doing here?
So
Glenn broke down, told all,
and
even pulled out his drugs.
That
pastor took them, ran down the hall
and
locked himself in a bathroom,
proceeding
to flush the whole mess.
Glenn,
realizing he hadn’t yet paid for them,
tried
to beat the door down,
but
the pastor kept the door locked
until
he had gotten rid of them all.
Then
the man brought Glenn into the church
for
a “come to Jesus meeting,”
where
he turned his life over to Christ,
after
which the pastor told him to
go
home and get some rest.
[Shakespearian
aside: “OK, nothing really
Earth-shattering
so far; I’ve heard many
similar
stories. But now comes the part
where
some really wild stuff happens;
hence,
is diverges from the
up-to-this-point
similar stories =>]
Glenn
woke up rested, yet still needing a fix;
so
he figured, “Well, so much for the Jesus,
Power-of-God
stuff; I guess I’m going to heaven,
but
meanwhile, I’ve got to suffer through
the
hell of drugs for the rest of my life.”
He
went to pick up the phone to call his dealer,
but
as he did, it rang, and it was one of his
old
mentors, someone who had believed in
his
potential, and who invited him to
a
church service that night.
A
bit flustered, Glenn agreed to go.
The
man drove him up to Macon GA,
to
a “spirit-filled Baptist church.”
Glenn
was a bit freaked out by some of the
stuff
he saw going on, but he had to stay,
as
his crafty teacher had picked him up,
so
Glenn had no car and no way to get home
(we’re
talking about roughly 30 miles).
As
he was trying to make the best of it,
and
waiting for things to wind down,
an
evangelist from India got up and said,
“I
need to pray for you, and you, and you,
and
you, and you,...and for a young man
who
has been in the grip of drugs and alcohol
for
his entire life.”
Knowing
that person was him,
Glenn
walked to the front of the church
and
lined up at the alter.
But
then when he saw the man
putting
his hands on people’s heads
and
praying over them, he’s all like,
“No
way, man! He’s not touching my head!,”
so
he snuck back into the crowd.
When
the evangelist was done praying
for
everyone else, he said,
“We
still haven’t prayed for that young man
who needs to be delivered from
the grip of drugs and alcohol.”
Glenn
said the next thing he knew
it
was like in the old movie,
“The
Ten Commandments,”
where
Charlton Heston (as Moses)
raises
his staff
and
parts the Red Sea.
The
crowd parted, and he was face to face
with
the man, who came forward and said,
“I’m
not going to put my hands on your head,
I’m going to put my hands on your stomach,
because you have had a hunger for God
your whole life, but Satan has perverted it.”
Then
the man named every drug Glenn ever took,
but
not one that he’d never taken,
and
prayed over him for deliverance,
from
which point he was delivered of
any
craving for drugs or alcohol.
(I
wish it was like that for everyone,
but, I mean, how cool is that?)
He
became an associate youth pastor,
and
for the next 25 years he traveled to
some
pretty desperate places in order to
give
people hope.
Then,
he got the call from God to leave
the
ministry he was in
(like
even though the lead pastor
begged him to stay).
There’s
not a lot of people that will hire
an
ex-addict; the job offers weren’t pouring in.
But
finally, he got a job in Hawkinsville,
and
began to really apply himself.
He
also started to go back to college.
After
a couple of years,
the
unthinkable happened;
he
was offered a Rhodes Scholarship
at
Oxford!
Here
it was, the dream of his life!
However,
as he was now married,
with
a wife, 3 kids, and a cat,
he
couldn’t afford to be away for 2 years,
so
he had to turn down his life-long dream.
Glenn
was crushed.
It
was like after 25 years of serving God,
God
said, “You’re not good enough,” and,
on
top of that, he saw his dream,
only
to realize that he wasn’t going to
get
to realize it.
However,
a year later,
his
company came to him and told him
that
they were going to sponsor
4
students that year,
and
that they were going to pay for Glenn
to
finish up his final semester...at Oxford.
So,
this October, along with all the
twenty-somethings
at Oxford,
there
will be one 48-year-old guy,
living
his dream.
That’s
awesome!
And
I drew some take-aways from it.
First
off, what struck me is this:
if
there was no God,
then
how in the heck
did
that evangelist KNOW out of
the
hundreds of drugs he could have named
to
name every drug Glenn ever took,
while
never naming one that he didn’t?
Also,
God was faithful all the time,
even
when it wasn’t obvious to Glenn;
in
retrospect, he saw that if he hadn’t
been
called out of the ministry and
into
his current job,
then
he wouldn’t have been where he
needed
to be for God to fulfill his dream.
God
is faithful all the time,
and
has better plans for us
than
we do for ourselves.
(by
the way, I’m reading that off the wall;
My wife put a sign over my desk,
“For I know the plans I have for you,”
declares the Lord,
“plans
to prosper you
and not to harm you,
plans to give you hope and a future.”
--- Jeremiah 29:11
Unless
you’ve read this blog for a few years
you
may not know that that is the word I got
from
the kindly angelic lady who spoke to me
in
the midst of my clinical depression.
It
lifted me up then as it has ever since)
As
Glenn put it,
he
got to live out
what
King David said in the Psalms:
“I
would have despaired unless
I had believed that I would see
the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living.”
--- Psalm 27:13&14
King
David got to see it.
Glenn
got to see it.
I
pray that all of you will also
see
the goodness of the Lord
in
the land of the living.
Have
a great week. =)
grace, peace, and love to you,
dave
posted by thedavemyster at 3:52 PM
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