Janelle participated in the Twin Cities Youth Mission Trip this summer. Hear about how it reset her faith and how she heard from God. Let's be encouraged to live our lives as if we were on a local mission trip! "You don't have to go super far to work for Him."
Above, watch a peek of Dave's story. Below, read more about how God changed him!
I have always been a believer; in fact, even as a very young child, I have always felt loved and protected.
I was raised in the Lutheran Church. The minister preached, and the congregation listened, but it was not an interactive experience. The Holy Spirit was mentioned in church from time to time but never explained or discussed. I knew that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit were the Holy Trinity, but I did not have an understanding of the dynamics of the Triune God.
All of this to say that the better part of my life, I was a “quiet Christian,” and while I was a believer, I rarely talked about it.
My knowledge of the Bible was very limited, and although I read selected verses from time to time, to me it was just words on a page. As an adult, I very rarely attended church, but yet I considered myself a good Christian and a good person. In reflection, I now know that God has always been at work in my life, even if I did not acknowledge it or give Him the credit.
All this changed one day about four years ago, when I was taking my mixed Labrador, Mandy, out for a morning walk. It should be mentioned that we did not have a set time for these walks nor did we have a set route; it pretty much depended on what Mandy wanted to do. It was mid-morning around 10am, and it was a comfortable spring day. We were coming down a small hill and coming to a street that intersected with the street we were on. At the bottom was a lady I had seen maybe two or three times before and always in this same general area.
As I approached her, we said “good morning” to each other, and then she asked “How are you?”
I have been asked this many times and normally would give a generic response. This time, however, the words that came out of my mouth were “I have a joy in my heart, but I don’t know why.”
They were not my words. I then asked her how she was, and she said, “I have a joy in my heart, and I do know why.”
I asked, “Why is that?"
She replied, “because I have Jesus in my heart.”
This cannot be overstated; it was like I was hearing those words for the first time. I felt like I had just been struck by a bolt of lightning. I took a step back, I pointed at her and excitingly said, “That’s it; that’s it! I have Jesus in my heart too.”
What happened next happened in a second or the blink of an eye.
God touched my heart, and I had the realization that Jesus had always been in my heart, but that I had never acknowledged Him there. In that same instant, I acknowledged that Jesus Christ was in my heart and that He was my Lord and Savior.
I was then flooded with the Holy Spirit.
The closest I can come to describing that moment is with a Japanese word, satori, which means to awaken, instant awakening, or sudden enlightenment.
I don’t have a memory of what, if any exchange I had with the lady at that point. I continued walking with Mandy, and as I crossed the street, I had a deep feeling of euphoria. I knew that Mandy was with me, but my awareness of her ended a short way down the leash. Filled with the Holy Spirit, I was aware that everything became a blending of the natural with the supernatural.
The colors were very intense and beyond my ability to describe.
Every step, I took was a “wow” moment.
If there were people walking by, or cars passing by, I was unaware of them.
As beautiful and intense as everything was, I had the feeling this was being toned down for me as I would not have been able to handle the full intensity of it. It was like a giant mosaic that had been skillfully blended and connected together.
I became aware that everything was vibrantly alive, connected together, and dependent on everything else.
A single leaf, a single blade of grass has a life onto itself and at the same time connected to all other life.
This includes animals, humans, all life; we are all connected.
Once I was shown this, I started seeing all life differently, and with a greater respect and reverence. It was a realization that we are all creations of God, and we are all children of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.
I would look at a single small wild flower, and it was magnified many times so that I could see the veins, the individual pieces that make it a flower, a thing of beauty, and a thing of God.
Everything was not only made by God but was part of God Himself.
This lasted for about twenty minutes, and the intensity of it lasted the rest of the day and into the next. I had the realization that I had been given a great gift, and this gift needed to be shared with others.
I went from being a quiet believer to becoming not only a believer but a knower that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are real and within all of us. A believer and a knower that Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior and died for us, and on the third day was raised from the dead. A believer and a know-er that the Holy Spirit is in me, gives me thoughts to think, words to speak, and guides me every step of the way.
I live my life in total gratitude to God, and I spend every morning reading devotionals, reading the Bible, and praying. The words in the Bible have taken on a new meaning; the words now are alive and jump off the page. I am not ashamed to say that there are chapters of the Bible that bring me to tears.
I went from one who did not talk about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit to one who will not, and cannot, keep quiet about the truth: the truth that God is Love, and we need to accept His Love and embrace His Love because it is our salvation.
I want desperately for others to know what I know. This experience has many more amazing stories to it, stories of being led to others that I have witnessed to, stories of how I was led to North Heights Church. Stories of the amazing people in the church that have helped me on my journey. The amazing story of how I, at age 79, became baptized by Pastor TJ and became reborn.
These events and stories are not about me; it is, and always will be, about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. And we must always remember to give God all the glory.
There are opportunities and miracles all around us. It is our job to be aware of these miracles and embrace them. They range from a parking spot that opens up in front of us, a person that needs a smile or a helping hand, a person that we can witness to, a healing. There are so many opportunities every moment of the day, and when they happen, we need to seize them, embrace them, thank God for them, and give God the glory.
The more we acknowledge them and act on them, the more they show up in our lives. I do not believe in accidents or coincidences; I literally look for the hand of God in all things, and in all things, I look for what can be learned from this.
I am still learning and still a work of God in progress.
On Easter Sunday on March 31 while at North Heights Church, I closed my eyes to pray, and when I did, I saw a single silhouette cross on a hill. It stayed with me, and as I looked at it, a voice spoke very clearly to me, “David I am going to use you in ways you never imagined.”
Thank you for this opportunity to relate how God is at work within all of us. God bless you, and all glory to God!