Vessels of Honor - The Gospel Influence of Faithful Men in My Redemption Story

Understanding the heart of God is quite easy, if you are familiar with the scriptures. His extravagant pursuit of people from Genesis to Revelation is quite clear. John 3:16-17 screams how God loves the lost. The other side of understanding the heart of God is understanding the mind and ways of God. Paul, told the Corinthians that apart fro God’s Spirit it is impossible to knows God’s mind and ways. So, to the lost. To the spiritually blind and dead one of the only ways to know the mind of God and His ways is through another person. Let me be clear, God’s toolbox is full, for sure. His favorite tools are His People, His Word and His Spirit. His ways are past discovery for the unredeemed and most of the time by the redeemed. Our sinfulness is a titanic barrier to fully understanding God. Yet, He is never not pursuing every living person. “ If I be lifted up I will draw ALL men unto me”. How does he do that? How will every person be “drawn” to Him? Humanly speaking, when people don’t “get” us, we tend to avoid them. Not so with God. He passionately pursues us. He comes face to face with us through those people who have come to him and found life in His name. Freedom from Sin. Joy in His presence. Peace that passes all understanding. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Late in 1980, around September I was assigned to a project that I really wasn’t excited about. See, I had moved to Southern New Mexico to work as an Ironworker and Welder. Wes Kelley owned the company I was working for at that time. Wes, was a giant of a man in many ways. His stature was huge. His personality was resolute. His heart was fully for God. Wes wasn’t the first believer I had ever met - but he was the first to capture my attention as truly Godly person. I worked on a myriad of projects for Wesco Construction in the oil fields, mining industry, commercial buildings. Around September I was assigned to a church project. Wes was a deacon at growing AG church. They needed more educational space and we obviously got the bid. One of the things that made the project frustrating was that churches always want things on the cheap. So, cutting cost was prime concern. Which meant that I would get a “volunteer” helper. This is where I begin to discover God’s mind in small ways. God had for years been planting into my blinded heart seeds of the gospel. My blindness was pervasive. Empowered by years of abuse and sin my heart was evil, my soul was dark. Anger and isolation ruled me. Drugs and alcohol fueled me. Work gave me some kind of purpose. Back to my volunteer helper. Well, what I can I say. He was quite a man. 78 years old. Joyful. Super fit. He was totally unashamed of the gospel. Which at the time I resented. Long story short, Dick was the human being that hugely impacted my life for the gospel. He was a rather unique individual. Honestly, I wasn’t very kind or nice to Dick. I was actually quite hateful. My brokenness and addictions had clouded my heart. I was emotionally stunted, insecure and had built some walls around my life that would only allow certain people to get close. After about three-four weeks on the job we began to connect. I began to see him somewhat like my father. He was a man. Hard worker. Successful. He commanded some respect just because of his story. Dick never stopped talking about Jesus and how He had transformed his life. He would pray before we started our day. AND he wasn’t shy to share truth with me in natural conversation. I was oblivious to how the Holy Spirit was shredding my heart. With each prayer, mention of Jesus my heart began to open up. Then one day Dick dropped a bomb of me. I was on a ladder about 8 feet in the air, wearing a full set of leathers to protect my clothes and skin from the welding sparks. It was HOT. I was sweating like crazy and I was severely hungover. So, not in a “good mood”. I was welding, and Dick began to pull on my pants leg. I tried to ignore him because I didn’t want to stop the bead I was welding. He pulled a little more seriously and so I thought I was on fire. I stopped, pulled my hood up to look at myself and I wasn’t on fire - so I looked at him and angrily asked, ‘what do you want”? This is where he drops the bomb - a spiritual bomb. He said to me, “ Bill, do you know that it is possible to live once and die twice? But is it also possible to die once and live twice?” That was not my best of moments with Dick. I was quite rude and pulled my hood down and started to work again. Dick never said much the rest of the day. He know that he had pricked me with truth. In fact, he had shown love like I never felt - He told me the truth without fear. That night, I was miserable. I couldn’t get unhooked from that statement. Obviously, the Holy Spirit was tilling soil and about to reap the seeds that had been sown in my life for years unknown to me. This provoked me to begin to read the Bible. My roommate had a coverless children’s Bible that I stole from him to read. My heart was open and I yearned for some kind of peace on my heart. For 12 years, since I was 10 I sought to fill the emptiness of my life with every kind of drug and drink that I could. The Bible began to reveal in my my sin and create in me a curiosity. Obviously, I couldn’t understand what I was reading. But, I came to realize later that it wasn’t me reading the Bible - But the Bible reading me. A battle began to brew in my life. An internal battle. Fighting around my sin and my friends. I knew that in order to reform my life things had to change. In brilliant fashion my attempt at self reform was a great failure. Along the way, two major things happened that will require additional space. A dream and a extreme break with my friends. Dick was always inviting me to church. As a kid I only went to church for VBS as a 6 year old or for funerals. But, he made the invitation actually inviting to someone attempting life change without the capacity to pull it off. I knew that there had to be more. My first service at First AG of Carlsbad was quite and experience. But, the gospel was being sown into my life either way. I attended there two weeks in a row and came to the conclusion that this was not a fit for me. I come to realize later that the Holy Spirit was leading me away from emotionalism to truth. I needed the anchor of truth to unearth my brokenness. I landed at a small Baptist church one Sunday. Victory Baptist Church - a hyper independent fundamental church. My pendulum was about to swing - swing hard. My first Sunday at VBC they were without a pastor and they were candidating a potential new one. He was rough and loud and certainly got my attention. No emotionalism this time. But, I was emotionally shaken. His message was pure fire- gospel laden fire. I left shaken. The next week I continued to be read by the Bible I had stolen from my roommate. The next Sunday, I bravely re-entered VBC. Crazily, no one there was friendly to me. I certainly didn’t look like anyone in the room. This particular Sunday, another candidate was there to preach. This time, the man was more eloquent. A story teller that captured my attention around Daniel chapter five. The man from the week before had been used to unearth a fallow ground - This man would be used to bring me full circle and into the family of God. As he closed his message, I knew that I had been “found wanting” and the invitation was given and I ran to the altar. There a young man, took his Bible and walked my down the Romans Road showing me from the scriptures how I could offload my sin and become a new man. Here’s where my life really took on newness. That evening, I was invited back to be baptized. I was hungry to obey- my heart had been renovated instantly - at least it felt that way. After, my baptism three men approached me. I’ve written about them in the past. Those men were super instrumental in my life change for the next year. I think need to close here. My salvation story has many layers, like most peoples. It’s been 40 plus years since that day. January 1981 is still has vivid in my mind as yesterday.