In
August of 1991 my world fell apart. I broke up with my fiancé and life went
dark. Looking back, it was if God through me into a pitch black room then
pulled the walls away so I was totally alone. My prayers fell like led to the
floor at my feet, and I sensed that I was totally alone. God might as well not
have existed. He turned out the lights and I knew ichabod for the first time in my life. Driving from Oregon back to Michigan, a
route I had taken countless times before, provided every opportunity and every
temptation to drive my little Datsun of a cliff to simply escape the darkness
that surrounded me.
I never acted on the temptation, returned to Michigan for
the start of a new school year and plunged myself into my work as a campus
pastor and evangelist for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. I decided that the
only way I could deal with life was to lose myself in my work. The only time I
took off was on Friday afternoons when I would go see two or three new
theatrical releases. Other than that I was on campus at either Albion College
or the U of M “doin ministry”.
The
fellowship at Albion was a baby. We had started it two years previous and we were making some
good headway. God was clearly up to some very positive things. Local pastors
from across denominational lines began partnering together to help pastor these
young students. The fellowship was growing. People were meeting Jesus and growing in Jesus.Then all of a sudden the Spirit of God decided to bring a
“charismatic renewal” to our little fellowship. New converts through our ministry without teaching or
permission began to speak in tongues. Some received gifts of faith and
prophecy. Very cool things were going on. for whatever reason I stayed in the dark. Some of the
older leaders in the fellowship came to me concerned because of the zeal of
those being blessed by the Spirit was beginning to cause division. An attitude
of “If you haven’t experienced the Spirit like us, you haven’t really
experienced the Spirit…” was rearing its ugly head.
At
the time Albion’s student Union was a relatively small coffee shop in the
basement of the administration building. They painted one wall so that it looked
like arched windows and scenes from a sunny day. The furniture
resembled something you would find in an old basement Chinese restaurant: the
high backed black vinyl booths could six to eight students. The cracks in the
seats grew worse little by little. Other chairs could be strewn and moved around. The
whole place could probably only hold eighty students.
My
habit was to sit in one of the corner booths and meet with students
individually for discipleship but also to have an open “drop in time” when anyone
could come and we would simply hang out and shoot the breeze about anything and
everything. On this particular day about twenty students were gathered around
the table spilling out into the rest of the union. On days like this I always
felt like Jesus. There was a press of students wanting to dialogue and talk to
me. It was good (or bad depending on one’s perspective) for my ego. The buzz on
this particular day was around the charismatic renewal going on.
After
listening for awhile I finally spoke… “You know you guys have something really
cool. There are a lot of us that have been looking for the gifts God has
bestowed upon you. Enjoy these days when it is so easy to follow God.” They
asked what I meant by “easy to follow God?”
I
responded, “It is easy to follow God when he is pouring out His Spirit on your
life, and you experience him everyday…You have all these great experiences of
God right now but I think I know His heart better than you even though I don’t
have the same experience.” They looked at me like I was from the planet Zootron
in the Pluton Galaxy. “How can you say you know him better than us when he is
revealing himself to us in these incredible ways?”
So
I took them through the stories in Scripture. Story after story of people who
had no reason to trust God cause he seemed to be absent but they trusted
anyway. “There is something very near and dear to the heart of God when someone
is shut out and they choose to trust anyway. It is easy to trust when you are
sharing his room. The question doesn’t really arise until he is gone and asks
you to trust Him anyway…”
They
knew my story with my fiancé. I had already told them to listen to everything I
said about romantic relationships and to watch everything I did and to do
exactly the opposite and they would be fine… They knew the pain I was in. they
knew I was traveling through the dead of night with no sight and no landmarks
to guide me. They knew these things. They were watching me trust. I concluded,
“I have no experience of God right now. It is as if he threw me in this room
and turned off the lights and pulled the walls away. It is as if my prayers are
hitting the floor the millisecond they leave my lips, but I continue to trust,
and God really digs that. I know Him better than you…”
It wasn't too long after this that the pitch dark night began to turn to dawn. I began to hear God again. I began to know He was hearing me... But that long night of the soul was a gift -- a gift that brought faith...
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