"And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death." Revelation 12:11
I had some mixed emotions about leaving California. For one thing, I had just been re-baptized a month or two earlier for the first time in a sabbath-keeping church. My first baptism occurred in a Sunday church, even though I regarded the seventh day as the sabbath I should observe. We had attended at least three Sunday churches before we started regularly attending a sabbath-keeping church. From what I had learned, it didn't really matter what church you attended as long as you believed in Jesus as your personal Savior and Lord. The problem was, we could never completely avoid the sabbath "issue" when we attended the Sunday churches. Being a stickler for truth, I would always want to talk to the pastor about why most Christians didn't seem to want to obey the fourth commandment. I was never quite satisfied with their explanation, but I tried not to make it an issue with the other members of the church. The only problem is that "work days" always seemed to be on Saturday, and whenever someone would ask me why I didn't want to participate, the sabbath would inevitably become an issue. So, now that we were attending a sabbath-keeping church that we liked very much, it was hard to leave.
But, move we did. We arrived in Garland, Texas in April or May of 1982. It wasn't as easy to find a job there as I had hoped, so I ended up working at a pizza place where the manager, who happened to be a non-practicing Jew, was willing to allow me to have sabbaths off. Of course I wasn't able to earn enough to support my family, but we were able to get by until I qualified for disability benefits and at the same time entered college to study computer programming.
While in Texas, we attended another sabbath-keeping church which we liked very much and which, incidentally, had a pretty even mixture of black and white members as well as a few hispanics. We had a black choir director whom I loved dearly. He was the one I looked to most for spiritual guidance while we were in Texas. But still, I had very little in the way of victory over sin in my life, and it was beginning to take its toll on me spiritually.
Another thing that wasn't helping me spiritually was my experience in college. I got really good grades. In fact my GPA was about 3.98. But there was very little in that environment that encouraged me spiritually. A number of my teachers openly ridiculed Christianity, and I felt ill-equipped to defend my faith.
Also, none of my family in Texas were Christians, and they didn't seem the least bit interested in anything that I might share with them concerning my faith. At the same time, since I didn't grow up with my mother, I really wanted to establish a relationship with her and my younger sisters and brother (they had a different father whom my mother had divorced years earlier). I spent much of my spare time with them. And because I also spent a lot of the rest of my time studying, working and going to school, I didn't spend the kind of time I should have with my own family.
Naturally, Laurie got tired of this, and wanted to go back to California. Her brother had extended an invitation to us to come and live with them in Chico, which is in northern California. So even though I hadn't quite finished my degree, we moved back to California in December of 1984. I figured I could finish my degree at Chico State University. Unfortunately, I hadn't planned on the fact that I'd have to pay out-of-state tuition because I had been out of state for three years. Even with financial aid, there was no way we could afford to do that, so I never did finish.
However, I did attend almost half a semester at Chico State before I realized the financial aid would not cover the cost. The day I had to drop out, there was a man performing a one-man outdoor concert. I decided to sit down and listen for a while. It seemed that most people weren't paying much attention to him. He was on a portable stage erected on one end of a grassy area, just him, his guitar and a sound system. There was a small group at the other end of the grassy area kind of half listening. One other person and myself sat up close to the stage listening attentively. His music was rather up-beat, but the words of the songs were very elevating, and his voice was quite pleasant to listen to. As far as I was concerned, for a contemporary Christian artist, his music was a cut above most of the others I'd ever heard.
Toward the end of his concert he sang a song that made a profound impression on me. The name of the song was "How Can You Say No?." As he was singing, it occurred to me that most of the people within the sound of his voice were indeed apparently saying no to Jesus, and as I thought about it, I myself, as evidenced by the overt sin that still plagued my life, was also saying no in spite of myself. When he finished the song, he immediately began to sing the traditional hymn, Holy, Holy, Holy as his closing song. At that point I could no longer hold back my tears, and I wept bitterly over the way I felt I was hurting Jesus, even though in my heart of hearts I didn't want it to be that way.
When the concert was over, I approached the singer, whose name was Craig Smith, and asked him how I could get ahold of a recording of that song (How Can You Say No). I told him I didn't have any money at the time, but if he would give me his address, I would buy a copy when I did. He then took me to his car and gave me a record album containing his recording of that song. By the end of the day I had learned that song and it's been an important part of my repertoire ever since.
Since I had essentially learned the skills I needed to become an entry-level computer programmer, I decided I'd try to find a job based on my excellent grades even though I hadn't quite finished my degree. Unfortunately there wasn't much of a market for entry-level programmers in Chico, California at that time (1985). I might have been able to find a job if I had been willing to move to a larger city such as Sacramento, but that has never been an option for me since I became a Christian. It has always been my desire to live in more of a country setting, because the temptations are far fewer in the country than in the city. Although Chico is not exactly country living, Sacramento was certainly not any closer to that ideal.
Since I couldn't find a job as a computer programmer in a setting that was acceptable to me, I decided to go back to Napa and work again as a psychiatric technician at the State Hospital. I thought perhaps after three years off I might be able to handle it for a while. After several months of looking for a job with no success, it was a rather pleasant sensation to go somewhere where there were several openings from which I could choose. I wanted to go back to work at the Children's center, but since there were no openings there, I elected to take a job on an adult male ward in the program that dealt with the most violent population in the hospital.
My first day on the job, I was told that there had been four murders on that ward in the past six months and that two of the victims were staff. At first I enjoyed getting to know the patients and my fellow employees. But as I was given more and more responsibility, and began to have less time to spend with the patients, I began to sense the futility that I had experienced years earlier.
In the mean time, at home, Laurie was beginning to feel inadequate in terms of taking care of our handicapped daughter's needs. She felt like she needed help and a little relief sometimes. Jessica was (and still is) unable to sit up by herself, feed or dress herself, or communicate in any intelligible way other than non-verbally. She needed total care, and Laurie felt like she was neglecting Michael's needs in order to meet hers. It has never been my desire to place Jessica anywhere. But I agreed to allow her to live with a foster mother who lived only a mile away from us at the time, with the understanding that we could go visit her any time we wanted. Unfortunately, that proved to be counterproductive, because whenever we would go visit her she would cry and exhibit regressive behavior for days afterward. So our visits had to be short and infrequent in order not to disrupt the foster mother's routine. (This went on for a year until we moved to Tennessee in the summer of 1986 and Jessica lived with us once again.)
With the pressures at work and my heartache at home, I was becoming more and more depressed and self-destructive spiritually. Shortly after we placed Jessica with the foster mother, it was suggested that we seek professional counseling. During one of the counseling sessions I confessed that I was having thoughts of suicide. At this the counselor became rather alarmed and suggested that I come for counseling more frequently.
About the same time we started seeing the counselor, we began to meet with a Bible study group whose leader was teaching things that seemed to be in opposition to what I had learned up to that point concerning what one needed to do to be saved. He showed from the Bible that one could not be practicing known sin and expect to be saved. That flew in the face of what I had been taught. I was taught that all I had to do was believe, and that Jesus would take care of the sin part. However, he convinced me from the Bible that my belief was in error, and I couldn't really argue with him, because for the first eight years of my Christian experience, Jesus hadn't seemed to do anything about my sin problem, even though I had done my best not to put forth my own effort to overcome sin. I kept waiting for Him and trusting Him to do something about my sin problem, but to no avail. Now I was convinced I was a lost sinner, and that really made me feel depressed and desperate.
One good thing that came from this experience was that I began to read my Bible more diligently. But no longer being under the illusion that I was a saved Christian, I was extremely anxious to know what to do to change the direction of my spiritual life. I never doubted for a moment during this time that Jesus was who He said He was, and that He loved me, but there was something missing in my experience, and I knew if I didn't find out what it was, I would be lost in spite of my desire to be saved.
About the time I expressed to the counselor my thoughts of suicide, I met a man at work who had floated from another ward and had noticed me reading some religious material in the break room. He invited me to attend some meetings that were going to take place at his home the following weekend. After having talked to him for a while, I agreed to come.
The meetings started on a Friday evening and then continued all day Saturday (sabbath). I worked the night shift at this time, so I had to go to work after the Friday night meeting at 11:00 p.m. until 7:00 a.m. the next morning. So I was a little groggy during most of the meetings on Saturday. But I do remember that the theme of the studies was the seal of God, and the importance of co-operating with Jesus in the sealing process, which is the process of sanctification. The key that I came away from that series of meetings with is that it's not only okay, but necessary to co-operate with Jesus in order to live the Christian life and ultimately to be saved. And to co-operate with Him requires personal effort empowered by His grace which enables us to do those things that are pleasing to Him.
In other words, if Jesus, in His Word, requires me to do something (or not do something as the case may be) that I'm not naturally inclined to do, it is my responsibility as a Christian, by His grace, motivated by His love for me, to do it anyway. I found that as I began to practice this principle, for the first time in my Christian experience, I began to have major victories over sin, so much so that others noticed a distinct change in me and made comments to that effect. This was the first time I had ever experienced that phenomenon. I've always been a fairly likable person, and was able to pass for a Christian without too much difficulty until you got to know me well enough. Now people who knew me really well were beginning to notice a significant change in my attitude and character. I refer to this period in my life as my first love experience.
This experience began in December of 1985, and lasted for several months into 1986. I have had several renewals of this experience through the years since then, but never quite as profound as it was the first time. I remain committed to the principle of co-operation, by God's grace, but there have been peaks and valleys through the years up till the present time.
In the summer of 1987, my wife and I started our present ministry which we call Joyful Noise Ministries. We had been singing scripture songs for years, and I found it to be the most effective way of memorizing scripture. At one point in 1986, my friend, Dane Griffin, shared a scripture song with me that he had composed (Exodus 20:8-11). I was so impressed by it that when I went home I tried to remember how it went. I couldn't quite remember the tune, so I made up my own. That's when I realized that I could do this, and so proceeded to compose music for many of my favorite passages in order memorize them for my own edification. When ever I would sing one of these songs for others, they would invariably ask if I had any recordings. Eventually I got the hint, and since the summer of 1987 we have distributed hundreds of recordings of scripture songs we have composed and collected through the years. It has been my joy to serve the Lord in this way, and I know that songs we have had the privilege to share have been an encouragement and blessing to many hundreds of people.
As far as my Christian walk is concerned, there have been times when all I could do is say, as Jacob did, "I will not let Thee go, except Thou bless me." Gen. 32:26. I know I have not and never will (in this life) reach the place where I can say, "I have arrived." But I will continue to "press toward the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Phil. 3:14.