ROBERT@kontu.utu.fi (Robert W. Johnson) (03/18/91)
This is my testimony. My parents took me to Sunday School when I was young. At age six I told them that I didn't want to go anymore, and that was the end of that. In the second grade, there was this class clown that was always getting everyone in class in trouble. He should have been in the third grade but was held back because he was such a trouble maker. One day he called me up to his desk, and proceeded to really insult me. I said within myself, "I hve the right to puch this guy, but I am not going to." I proceeded to walk away. After taking about three steps I had my first experience with God. The heavens opened and God spoke to me, prophezing my future in two phrases. I remember it to this day as if it just happened. I lived a normal heathen life up until the age of twenty, not too bad a person really, but full of lying, masturbation, stealing, drugs (when I was 18, LSD, hash, you name it). At eighteen I ran off to Hollywood California with a seventeen year old girl. She was my love. This was the 1960', when drugs were plentiful, sex was rampant, and the Beatles and Rolling Stones were on top. Eventually the FBI caught her and took her back to Texas. I quit my job with the US Post Office and went back to join her. Her father was one of these ardent Christians, and he got so angry at me that I was afraid to see her anymore. I found out a year or so later that she had gotten pregnant and had given my som up for adoption. During this time I started seeking God, though I had not given up my sinful ways. I started reading the Bible, then everything I could find on the occult and Zen Budism, then Hinduism. I read many books on the Tabetian Lamas. I chanted with the Harri Christnas. I tried having spiritual experiences using drugs (like LSD). I lived in the northern California woods near Mendcino. I even tried a commune. But through all of this I still was not satisfied with my search for God. I HAD NO REAL EXPERIENCES OF GOD. At one time I even thought that I was God. During my later experinces I became a celibate. Then I left California and went back to Texas, still reading Ghandi, St. Francis of Assia (sp), the great philosophers, existentialists, occult, you name it. I STILL HAD NO REAL EXPERINCE OF GOD. When ever Christians and I would bump together, man would there be a verbal war. When I was twenty-one I went to work for a man that was a Christian. he talked to me about Christ and I ended up going to His church. I got baptized, but my thinking was that Jesus was just another great religious leader. I was sitting in church one Sunday when I said within myself, "Here is some man telling me how evil I am and all these people in church are just dead." That afternoon my sister and I decided to go down to Herman Park, where all the hippies in Houston hungout. We were at the bottom of herman Hill when we started hearing all this noise coming from the top of the hill. I went to investigate. It was a large group of Christians that were sitting there singing Christian songs written to popular music. I sat down and started singing. I enjoyed myself. They invited me to their next meeting and I went. I got hooked. Here were some Christians that were actually really enjoying God. I loved it. These people were eating and drinking Jesus. After a year of meeting with them I moved over by the meeting hall. I had discarded all of my religious garbage and it was just Jesus as Lord for me. I was eating, drinking, and living Christ. No more sin. After a year of being dealt with by the Lord, I had no more peace of mind about my long hair and my sloppy dress, I was at the meeting hall one Sunday. The meeting was over and I was just standing around. All of a sudden a still small voice within me said, "Let's go home." Man was I shocked. What was this voice that spoke inside of me? I wasn't sure what it was so I hung around the meeting hall to see if I might miss something exciting. Nothing happened. I should have gone home when the Lord told me to. I HAD A REAL EXPERIENCE OF GOD, God spoke to me. Through the years the speaking has become so often and so real that I rarely do anything without checking with the Lord. I am a Christian, born of the Holy Spirit of God. God is in me, AND HE IS REAL TO ME. Now I experience the Lord so often that it is second nature to me. Now I walk, talk, and breathe my Lord Jesus Christ. Praise be unto God for my salvation. ----- Robert W. Johnson Computer center, The University of Turku, Turku Finland robert@kontu.utu.fi (InterNet) robert@firien.bitnet (BITNET) The preceeding is my opinion and may not express the opinion of my employer and furthermore has nothing to do with my employment.