God Encounters 2 – My Story

Scripture: Ephesians 5:15-17; Galatians 6:4-5

15 So be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise. 16 Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. 17 Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do. (Ephesians 5:15-17 NLT)

One night during my Vietnam tour of duty in 1967, I was standing in the mud outside our company area, just after a powerful tropical rainstorm had come through. Across the airstrip I could see a couple of Huey gunships firing on a VC position just outside the wire of our base camp. The tracers from the machine guns swept the jungle like streams of red fire and the rockets were bright white arrows exploding orange where they struck. It was an impressive display of firepower!

But beyond and above the firefight, immense storm clouds rose like mountain ranges, with brilliant sheets of lightning dancing between them, and lightning bolts flashing from the clouds into the jungle. I could hear the crash and rumble of thunder even above the blasts of the gunships’ rockets. As I stood there in the mud, I found myself saying, “God if you’re really there and if you’re really who the Bible says you are, I want to know you and I want to serve you! If you’re not, then I just want to get back to the world and my wife and daughter and get on with my life!”

I did get back to the world and to my wife and daughter, and I did get on with my life. Through Bible studies with friends in our home, through a new awareness of the reality of the Holy Spirit, and through the wonderful opportunity to be involved in the Jesus People Movement, I came to know God more and more. Jean and I found opportunity to serve in practical ways and in spiritual ways we had never imagined.

Since that night 57 years ago, there have been opportunities, challenges, steps of faith, choices large and small, and a lifetime of learning and teaching and walking with God. Still, as I think back to that night standing in the mud in Vietnam, I know I had an Encounter with God. Something happened in me that night, and there’s a direct link from that God Encounter to who Jean and I have become and what we’ve done from that day forward.

Prayer:

Father, Thank you for initiating a God Encounter for me 57 years ago in Vietnam! Thanks for all the leadings and promptings and decisions and direction since that night. Please keep leading and guiding. And please keep arranging God Encounters for my friends and me as we need them! In Jesus’ Name!