1 Corinthians 13:1
American
Standard Version (ASV)
If
I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become
sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal.
I grew up attending church on a weekly basis. When I was 12
I was baptized into the church. Already by that time my attention was drawn
away from the church and towards many things. The church had become a vast list
of do’s and don’ts. I had mastered the list pretty well. I understood the
results of leaving the “truth”. But I had reached the point where I had no
desire to regulate my life by this list.
My mother had a deep love for speaking English correctly.
She spoke and wrote very well. She was the editor of a temperance magazine. She
had many college students come to her for help to speak both eloquently and
correctly. She was afraid that if we spoke like the kids around us we would
never amount to anything. She took Professor Henry Higgins’ philosophy in
George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion that
the way a person spoke had a huge influence on his/her effectiveness throughout
life.
When I turned 20 I started attending the church on the US
military base in Germany. There was a young man from the hill country of
Arkansas, if I remember right. What caught my immediate attention was the most
abominable English I had ever heard in my life. It was impossible that he had
ever passed even 6th grade English. He was highly opinionated. He
was a devoted Pentecostal. Everything about him intrigued me.
But in spite of all the red flags that I detected about him,
he took a liking to me. There was a holy Christian love that flowed out from
this man. Over the period of several months this Christian love got to me. It
slowly melted its way through all the extreme legalism that had been pounded
into me and repelled me from the church. Christ became a savior to me, not the
strict, unbending judge that he had been
before. It was under his ministration to me that I was saved.
Thank You Lord for
your love that flowed through this soldier to me. May Your love flow through me
to others!
I am still experimenting with this blog. If you click on "comments" or "no comments" then the computer should give you a box to write your comment. [I'm trying to publish this right now and to do this I'm going to click on "Publish" in a blue button below]
ReplyDeleteI selected Google and had to sign into my gmail account for it to post it
ReplyDeleteThis third comment is made after I activated Anonymous comments. If people start posting spam etc I'll have to deactivate Anoynmous comments. Wil
ReplyDeleteAmen. This is a beautiful story of your experience, Wil.
ReplyDelete:) Caryn