peace that passes

I know one thing, David – it’s a longing that never leaves me alone. Thankfully.

David, if you don’t mind me saying, I love the direction you’ve taken. I’m glad you were brave enough to leave the established ministry. …one needs to apprehend the light calling to one and follow it only…

May you be blessed. Don’t worry.

Sarah

Here is a little about why I’m a Christian. It’s part of my ‘life changing event’. It is all true without embellishment and took place in the Adelaide Gaol about 35 or so years ago.

I’d been reading my Good News For Modern Man at every chance I got. I carried it in my jacket pocket. Upside down with the cover inwards in case someone spotted it. I didn’t want anyone thinking I was getting all religious or about to become a copper (informant). I could feel the presence of God, I mean that, I could actually feel His Presence. As I read that Good News For Modern Man, I could feel him even more. One day I woke up and couldn’t feel that presence any more. (I called it the God Feeling). Anyway, it went away and I was reacting just like I did the day mum dropped me off for my first day at Blackmans Bay Primary School. I was hollering as hard as I could. This just could not happen. Don’t get me wrong, I was an adult and a fearsome criminal now and they don’t holler out loud at such things. But in my spirit, I was hollering out to God “why God, why have you left me”. This went on for hours without letup. I also knew from what I’d been reading, that God wanted to be praised and thanked even when things were not going well. So I thanked him that he’d left me and praised him for it. But I was still hollering in my spirit, “but why God, why?”. I kept this up for a long time. Thanking God, praising him and asking him why he had left me. As I was doing it, thoughts would come to me saying “just swear at him, you were better off before, now he’s abandoned you”. I would think about that, it only took a second, and answer back “it’s not Gods fault, it must be me where the fault is”, but I didn’t know what I’d done to lose the presence of God. So off I’d go again. “I know that it’s me at fault God, but why did you leave me, if I knew what it was I’d fix it”. On and on I went like this without letup. Eventually it dawned on me that I’d done all that I knew was right and hadn’t got anywhere. What was I to do now? I sat down on the bench in that yard in the Adelaide Gaol to try and figure it out. I’d prayed myself to a standstill. Blokes were playing volley ball in the yard and the bench seat that I sat on was only a metre at the most from where they were playing and you had to watch out in case someone came crashing toward you while they were trying to stop a ball. Anyway, I sat down and as I did, I felt a peace come. It came like it was a cloud. A cloud of peace. The kind of peace that I’d never experienced before. I remember thinking “this is what smack (heroin) is a counterfeit of”. A poor substitute it was too. This peace was so great that I gave not another thought to being in the way of a volley ball player. The peace completely enveloped me and in it God spoke to me. I was flabbergasted. I kept saying to myself “God is talking to me, this can’t be happening”. But it was happening. God told me of an incident about the blind man weeks before. He reminded me of it and told me that when I tried to get that blind man a cup of tea that it was a good thing. He also said told me that I did it so the blind man would think I was a good bloke. Again I was flabbergasted. He told me that he prefers it if I do something good because it is good, not to get praise. That blew my mind. So here I was saying to myself “this can’t be happening” while at the same time my mind was being blown at the wisdom of God. I remember thinking that if all the people in the world and all the books and computers could have all their knowledge combined that it wouldn’t even come close to what God had. God continued talking and I kept being blown away. He told me “when you were a little boy and told a lie, you would blush. Everyone could tell you lied because you blushed. I was so blown out by that I said “that’s right God, that’s right”, He said to me “Hang on, there is more”. This blew me away even more than I already was. I thought “there are 4 billion people on the earth and God is talking to me, far out”. He continued “You taught yourself not to blush, but all you were doing was blocking me out”. At that “I interrupted him again “that’s true God, that’s true”. He said “hang on, there is more”. If I wasn’t completely blown away by now, I was then. It was too incredible to even believe let alone try and tell to someone else. But I’m telling you exactly what happened to me that day, I’m not making any of it up. He said “you were like a beaver building a dam. I was a river wanting to flush through you and clean you, but you built a dam of logs and blocked the flow. I had an image in my mind of a beaver that blocked a creek with lots of logs and had it all blocked up. God said “look here is pride” and he started to remove the central log at the top of the wall that had all the others locked in together.
Then the peace gradually withdrew and I began to become aware of my surroundings again. I could start to hear the noises around me and see the volley ball players. I wondered to myself “I wonder what the time is”. In an instant I knew it was 20 past 3. I looked at the clock at the end of the yard and it was 20 past 3.