6 Birthday Blessings

This week I celebrate my fortieth birthday. If you know me, you’re shaking your head right now; you know I’m in my sixties.

What I’m celebrating is my spiritual birthday. It was forty years ago that I was born again, when I began new life through faith in Jesus Christ. 

I’ve been reflecting on that week, forty years ago, and I want to share six blessings that have come along with my life of salvation and will come with anyone’s salvation.

1. God appoints the time, place and circumstances to bring us to His salvation. God allowed me to be so rebellious that my life would deteriorate to the point of desperation. My use of drugs and alcohol and life of sexual immorality and lack of integrity led me to a bed in my college dorm room where a demon would attack me in the wee hours of the night. As this evil spirit tried to paralyze and suffocate me, God told me to speak the name Jesus. I did and I saw this enemy imp lose power and flee from me. Little did I know at the time, God knew and planned millennia before that this would be the hour that I would bad-decision myself to a place of spiritual poverty and defeat, so He could come to my rescue and show me His love and power.

2. God reveals Himself by demonstrating His love and power. He revealed His love for me,  not only by rescuing me from an attack, but also by assuring me of His forgiveness and acceptance. The night after the night of the attack I asked God to give me His salvation. I felt nothing at first, so I assumed God was rejecting me, as I had rejected Him so many times before. That caused great anxiety for me. But then, He brought to my mind a horrible picture of the sinful life I’d lived up until then, showing me how unworthy I was to receive His blessings. I can’t explain how He did it, but as He was showing me my sin, He was at the same time letting me know that He was forgiving me for it. 

3. God gives us His own Spirit. It was the Holy Spirit who was leading me through the process of conviction and repentance. God, in the ultimate package deal, was giving me His Spirit along with eternal life. Yet, the following night, seven of my dormitory-mates, Christian guys who’d heard of my coming to Christ, visited to tell me about the Holy Spirit. “Now that you’re saved,” they said, “you can ask God to give you the Holy Spirit.” Little did they know, He already had given His Spirit to me. But these guys wanted me to receive the gift of speaking in tongues. I told them I’d love to receive that gift. They prayed for me to receive it and hoped to witness its manifestation, but that evening wasn’t God’s time for that. Two nights later, however, I was home for fall break. When I told my dad I had become a Christian, he had a very positive reaction. For some reason, that surprised me, and I was elated that my father was so proud of me. I went to bed that night so full of joy that, as soon as I lay my head on my pillow, I began to praise God in tongues. But that wasn’t even the most powerful manifestation of the Spirit’s power in me. That Sunday afternoon, I stopped at the home of a girl who attended Wingate University with me to give her a ride back to school. She and I had gone on a date eight days before (this was the night before the night of my struggle with the demon) and on our date we had had sex. When I arrived on that Sunday to pick her up, her family were all gone; she and I were the only ones in her house. I asked if I could help with her luggage and she directed me to her bedroom. Here I was in the bedroom of an attractive girl with whom I’d already had a sexual relationship, and nobody else was home. A still, small voice in my head said put the luggage in the car. There was no inner struggle, just a desire to obey the voice. I grabbed her bags and took them to the trunk of my car. I’m sure the girl was surprised, and as I thought about it more, so was I. That was the power of the Holy Spirit in me. What a difference He was making in my life.

4. God develops a family for us as He develops each individual in His family. The weeks after fall break were filled with new friends, brothers and sisters in Christ with whom I grew in my knowledge of and experience with God. God was bringing revival to that campus, so there were many new believers, like myself, joining the seasoned Christian students to form a strong community of believers there. Our hangout time was usually casual study and discussion of the Bible and praying together. My roommate, Ted, and two friends, Cliff and Beth, made up the nucleus of my life of fellowship. The four of us grew like crazy in our understanding of God and His Word, and the whole community was buzzing with excitement.

5. God prepares us for the way and prepares the way for us. Not aware of it at the time, I know now that God was building a foundation in me to live the life I’ve lived since. Over the years, God has given me a Godly wife with whom I’ve raised our six kids and now enjoy our six grandkids (number seven due any day now). He’s given us many, many ministry opportunities over our thirty-seven years of marriage and He’s provided richly for all our needs and has trusted us with many responsibilities. I often think back on my early spiritual development and can see the wisdom of God at work as He prepped me for my then future, now my past, present and still future. 

6. God reveals His plan in His own good time. One thing I’ve learned is that God controls the timing of things. It isn’t a blessing for Him to reveal His plans to us too far in advance, but that He makes them known to us at exactly the right time, which is usually as they’re being carried out, although sometimes beforehand. But always by His divine wisdom. He’s given us the ability to understand the past better than the future, so we must find contentment in trusting Him with the knowledge and control of our future.

Well happy birthday to me. And my brother Ted! Forty years! And eternity will be our real celebration.