A few weeks ago, one of the worship leaders at church asked me to give a testimony during the worship time of a Sunday morning service. I was asked to speak in two segments, each lasting three to five minutes. The following is what I plan to say tomorrow, June 21, 2009. Segments one and two are what I plan to use, segment three is for those who are reading the post or if the worship leader decides to use it.


Segment One (4 minutes, 27 seconds)

I was born fifty years ago in St. Paul, MN and I am the second of seven children. I was raised in a Catholic family and I had parents who were willing to sacrifice greatly to send the seven of us to the Catholic grade schools. I later attended a Catholic high school and one year at a Lutheran college. I am grateful for this because at no point in my life did I ever doubt the existence of God. I never had to overcome the struggles that some have with the mysteries of Christianity such as the Trinity or the virgin birth.

I was twenty-six years old and married nearly six years when I finally realized the truth of my need for a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. On a February night in 1985, in a motel room in North Dakota, I finally got on my knees next to the bed. I was repentant and humbled and I remember telling God, “If what that man is talking about is true, then here I am. I am yours.” I was watching the 700 Club on television and Ben Kinchlow was the man I was referring to.

It was probably a month later when the reality of my conversion really hit home. I was sitting on the deck of my apartment reading The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. As if someone was standing in front of me and had just spoken to me, I heard the questions in my head. I believe God was asking me these questions. The first was, “Do you realize that you have not drank or smoked pot in the past month?” I sat quietly pondering the truth of that moment as I had been regularly abusing both booze and drugs. After a few minutes the second question was, “Do you realize that you have not even had the desire to drink or smoke in the past month?” I was stunned in amazement at the revelation. I truly did not realize that so much time had passed. This was certainly a blessing from God that I was delivered completely from two very bad and addictive behaviors. I went into the kitchen and poured the bottle of scotch down the sink. I then went to the bathroom and flushed away the bag of pot.

I believe that I could go to lunch today and have a drink and never have an issue with it. I believe that I was totally delivered from that bondage I was in. I have, however, determined in my heart to never do so again. I choose to do so in an act of thanksgiving and worship to God for setting me free and for so dramatically revealing His power to me. I sometimes wonder why He delivered me from those things but left other items from my past which torment me from time to time. I sometimes wonder if this is what the Apostle Paul was talking about when he referred to his thorn in the flesh.

For a time I had a physical issue that was diagnosed as myofascial pain syndrome. For over one year, every joint and muscle ached, sometimes leaving me in tears on my wife’s shoulder. I prayed for healing quite often. As time passed, my daily prayer became, “Lord, give me the grace to get through the day.” That was the year that I learned what it really meant to depend upon the grace of God daily. I eventually received healing for that issue, but not for the arthritis or the apnea. Again, I worship God by trusting Him and His judgment as to why some things are healed and others are not. I need to trust in His plan as to why I am delivered from some things and in others I need to keep humbling myself and seeking His grace. Through it all I have learned how to trust Him and to follow the teaching from Ephesians to “always be giving thanks for all things”. And in 2 Corinthians where Paul wrote, “For all things are for your sakes, so that the grace which is spreading to more and more people may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God.”

Speaking of dedicated service, Paul wrote in Romans, “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.” God has taught me how to do this over the past twenty-four years. Through my many trials and difficulties, God has transformed my view of the events in my life. I was always very self centered when dealing with and praying about issues in my life. It’s still easy to fall into some of that when suffering or agonizing over something. But God has helped me to change my perspective and see the bigger picture. Everything I go through is not necessarily all about me. I may be involved and I may be affected by an event, but is it really for me or am I a tool being used by God for someone else's benefit? These are actually two sides of the same coin.


Segment Two (4 minutes, 31 seconds)

When I was dealing with a lengthy recovery from shoulder surgery last spring, six to eight weeks that became twenty-three, I wrote an article titled "Whose Trials Are These?" It is in the Lessons section of my forum site. The article begins, “As I've gone through the last five months of challenges, many people have come along side to be used by God in my life. This got me to thinking, whose trials are these? Really, who is the testing for? I may be the central figure here, but that is simply from my perspective. So as I step back and look at the big picture I can see that there are a great many characters in this drama. It would be interesting to take a slice of the picture, one act in this play as it were, and see it from many characters and their focal point, each at the center of the scene. I went through the surgery, the physical therapy, the financial crisis, the family trauma, and so on. My story is fairly well documented here. But what of the others who have been involved along the way? How about the family members? What about the friends? And the donors? The prayer warriors had a large part in all of this. Let's take a look at a few in a purely fictional sense.” I go on to look at the issue from four different points of view and then talk about the two sides of the coin. On the one side are my tests and on the other side are the tests of everyone else who is reached by my issue. I am also the other side of someone else’s coin from time to time.

This is how I worship God and give thanks in all things. I embrace the struggles that come my way and rather than cry woe is me, I ask God what it is about. Instead of seeking immediate deliverance, I seek God and ask what He would like to show me. I ask Him that if He is willing to do so, to show me whom else it is for and how I can minister to whoever that may be in the situation. I worship God in acceptance, in obedience and in thanksgiving for the privilege to be used by Him in the work that He is doing in others.

Lest you think that I am specially gifted or some super saint, let me assure you that I am not. We all struggle with the same issues from time to time and at various degrees of difficulty. At times I need to battle pride and not think more highly of myself than I ought. At times I need to battle against self-loathing and feeling like a loser. There are times when I fall into sin too easily. There are times when self-righteousness rears its ugly head. It seems that I fail more times than I succeed both in life in general and in my spiritual walk. In any case I need to come back to what God has to say about me and I need to come into agreement with Him regardless of how I feel. If you knew my sinfulness like I know my sinfulness, you may be appalled. Perhaps you would want nothing to do with me. If I knew my sinfulness like God knew my sinfulness, I would be face down before Him in tears wondering why He wants anything to do with me. If you know God like I know God, you know of His grace and mercy and the forgiveness that comes from His love for us even in our sinfulness. If I knew God like He wants me to know Him, I would be face down before Him in tears of joy and thanksgiving.

Referring to Christ, the author of the book of Hebrews writes, “Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.” It is in my times of obedience that I worship God. He is honored when I respond positively to the leading of the Holy Spirit. I may be led through some tough or uncomfortable things, but God is always with me as I walk through the things He has prepared for me and for those around me.

God has led me to get up in the middle of the night on occasion to pray for someone, and at times I can literally feel the weight of darkness pressing down in spiritual warfare. When the weight is lifted, I know I am done. I praise God and go back to bed.

God has led me to walk up to people to pray for them directly or to sit and ask them what they would like me to pray for in my prayer time. People are sometimes caught off guard and surprised, but by the end of the encounter, they are often comforted to some degree when they realize that it was God ordained.

God has shown me the freedom in worship from the raising of hands, to pacing in the back, to even kneeling down. When the thought crosses my mind of what others might think about me and about what I am doing, I offer that to God as well. If people are busy watching me, they are missing out on an opportunity to worship God.

Where is God leading you? How do you worship God? Step out of your comfort zone and watch your relationship with God grow and flourish.


Segment Three (3 minutes, 23 seconds)

Life is precious and fragile and it can come to an abrupt end at any moment. We’ve all heard it said that every breath is a gift from God and that each breath could be our last. I go to bed every night with that realization.

I have an issue in my throat that gives me the sensation that something is caught in my throat at all times. Surgery could fix the issue, but the fix carries with it a chance of paralysis and is very risky compared to the ailment. This causes a severe case of sleep apnea of which I know some of you also suffer. Because my issue is muscular, the positive air flow machine is not as effective as it is for the more common soft tissue cases. There are some nights that I feel like I am fighting for every breath and I begin to wonder if one of these breaths will be my last. How can I have peace in my heart when going to bed each night?

I have peace each night by the grace of God. When I am settled into bed and ready to go to sleep, I say one final prayer of thanksgiving, worshiping God for His goodness to me. I thank Him for a minimum of four items from the day. Some days I need to think hard to come up with four, other days it is easy to rattle off a list. Number one on the list is always for my beautiful wife and the blessing she has been to me. The other items are specific to the day just ended. When lying in bed with a sense of thanksgiving and worship, I am at total peace to go to sleep no matter what my anxiety of the day had been. I simply trust in God and His plan and timing for my life.

I have been married for twenty-nine years. The only reason it lasted more than ten was because of the toughness of my wife during the struggles of our early years. Our society would say that she would have every good reason to walk away from me and end the marriage.

There was one time when my actions really hurt her deeply. It was all my doing and she was an innocent victim. Eventually my eyes were opened to the damage I had done in our marriage and I spent the next nine months courting her all over again. It was a hard road, but the trust and love in our marriage was restored and it has gotten better ever since that time. Some years later, while expressing the depth of my love and appreciation for her, I recalled that time. I told her how much I appreciated that she stood strong while we worked things out and how much I appreciated her forgiveness in the matter. I was caught totally by surprise at her response. She said, “Well color me stupid, but I have no idea what you are talking about.”

I again heard a question in my head. The question was something like, “If she can forgive you so fully, why would you think that I would do anything less?” Much like the day I was made aware of the reality of my salvation, that was the day I became fully aware of the forgiveness of God toward me. To that point in my life, that was my fullest awareness of the love of God for me. I was stunned with awe and love for God. Who am I that God would love me so greatly. I am His creation, made to worship Him.

Christianity is full of pithy little sayings, but there is one that I find to be very true and can be seen time and again throughout Scripture. It is, God doesn’t always call the best equipped, but He always equips the called. God has called upon me to do many things over the past twenty-four years, many of which I felt ill prepared to tackle. Whenever I walked in obedience to the call, He always worked out the details. He has never left me out to hang on my own. He hung on the cross for me, now I just need to walk with Him. This is how I present my body a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is my spiritual service of worship.


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Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me." John 14:6 That doesn't leave much wiggle room. Yet, we continue to try to get right with God on our own terms rather than submit to Jesus Christ.