A few weeks past after my mom had floored me with her words that one day I would preach the gospel and privately before God I went about my life day after day wrestling with those words with a you have got to be kidding me attitude. I just couldn't see it. Moses I could see doing that. Peter, James and Paul I could see doing that. My dad and Billy Graham I could see doing that. But me, how could such a thing be. I'm a nobody special kinda guy. Simple, plain and very carnal in the head was a whole lot of my thinking.
Then one day dad came home from being in town for a while and he said to me. Son I was in town today at the DeRidder Vac & Sew shop and the man there said he was looking for some part time help from a student. Why don't you go down there and talk to the man and see what might happen? I said ok.
Well dad taught me and my brother and sisters of the importance of work and I think he started on each of us as soon as we came out of the womb. Dad believed in family work and family chores. He was raised on a dairy farm and for all his growing up life he had to get up like at 3:30 AM in the morning. Go help milk the cows. Do the farm chores. Go to school. Come back home and he and his brothers had to go milk the cows all over again etc., plus keep up with all there school work. That was my dads upbringing in the forties and fifties. So he learned about work very early in life.
Recently I was told that when my dad and his two brothers uncle Delton and uncle Howard were growing up together on that farm, that they were known as the three hardest working boys in Lincoln County Mississippi. So as you can imagine. There was not much room for being lazy around our dads house. He was a preacher, a pastor, an evangelist, an Army Chaplain, A Patriot, A man of high work ethics and standards. It was me and my brothers responsibility every army work day for a long time to spit shine our dads army shoes and boots. Brasso his insignias and pin his military ribbons on his army shirt and we had better accomplished these things up to dads standards. If we fell short of it, he certainly would let us know. Thank God I had an older brother about me in this. He got the most of the brunt if you know what I mean. Yalahoolahoo on you Danny. Love you bro. Your the best.
Just to note. Our dad was the most loving, honest man I and we have ever known next to the Lord. He was a man of the highest integrity. The love he had for people was Gods Love. Dad was so special.
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Well being raised to work before play, I went to that place dad told me of and talked to the man Howard Issac the owner. Howard was a Pentecostal man. This didn't mean anything to me at the time, but boy it sure was going to mean something to me in a few more days. God as my witness deno's mind had no idea what being Pentecostal was or meant. Pentecostals? Wonder what that means? I'm a baptist. He's a Pentecostal. Ok thats cool. He is a believer and so am I, so lets move on.
Howard interviewed me. Immediately a connection was made and he hired deno. Howard took me under his business wings and taught me the vacuum cleaner trade. He taught me how they functioned and how to even overhaul their motors and fix them. I got to where I liked that and plus it put me some money in the pocket for all the fun deno liked to do. Plus that money helped me buy a car and the gas to put in it in those high school years. There was no free ride with dad. Nope. You worked for what you got or with food and water therewith you had to be content. Dad always provided for us our needs plenteously. But he believed in teaching us life's valuable lessons. This world will not give you a free ride. You must set goals, dream and work to accomplish those dreams. That was dads daily sermon in the way he raised us kids.
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Well after that I had been working there for awhile, some weeks had past and Howard hired a lady to work the front part of the store. She would greet people. Work the cash register. Sell the vacuum cleaners etc., and answer the phone. I noticed that this lady wore her hair like the empire state building on top of her head. It was high and lifted up. Hmmm, that looks different I thought. Wonder what that's all about. Simple people ask that same question about a lot of things. lol. Well its the truth. I have asked that question about a lot in my life's journey. I'm nearing 53 this year and I still ask that same question about many things. The Lords knows I'm a simple man and he directs me to keep it simple.
As time went on that word Pentecostal began to more amuse me for some reason. At first I did not talk much about it. Just pondered it in my heart now and then as I lived out my what I would call normal teenage frantics. (I'm not going to go too deep into that, but deno loved to have his fun just like others in High school ville in the great 70s).
Well one day at work after school I was in the repair shop of this place of business working on a vacuum cleaner for a customer. I was changing out the motor brushes to the armature. Basically doing an overhaul to it. I had been back there in the repair shop close to an hour when it all began. I knew and thought and felt something different about that day, even in that morning, but had no idea why. All I knew is that something seemed to be up. It was in my atmosphere.
The pentecostal lady that I told you about was in the front of the store and a man walked in. After he had been there a few minutes, they began to discuss things from the bible. Their discussion somehow intrigued me. For some reason my interest into their conversation soared and at the moment I did not understand the reason why. My hearings hearing was somehow being enhanced and magnified. I thought what in the world is going on here. Hmmm. More of this strange stuff again that seems to be following me around these days.
The more they talked the more intrigued my heart was becoming. As their conversation more blossomed, they entered the subject of the bible of the Day Of Pentecost when all the disciples and the followers of Christ in those days were all in one accord, gathered together in the upper room waiting for the promise of the Holy Spirit. They began to lay out in their conversation the settings of the day of Pentecost. They spoke about how the Holy Spirit was poured out that day and entered the place where they were gathered together like a RUSHING MIGHTY WIND AND THEY BEGAN TO SPEAK WITH OTHER TONGUES AS THE SPIRIT OF GOD GAVE THEM THE UTTERANCE.....Folks I was in the back room with two walls between my ears and them and somehow God magnified their words in my hearing way above the norm. I could hear those two people as clear and as loud as if I was in the room with them or they with me. This was for me an unusual hearing the word of God experience.
They talked and in a strange like focused trance I listened. A thickening swelled up on the inside of me. I was feeling a presence but being the simple that I was I had no idea what was going on. I said to myself, I have got to go and ask these people a question. I dropped what I was doing and took off. I made it up to where those two were in the front of the store, and I asked that lady. I said, Mam, I have got to know something. Is what you two are talking about really in the bible? This precious lady just looked at me and smiled and said. Yes it is. I said. Ok then would you mind showing it to me. She smiled again and said I certainly will. Of course she would have a bible with her. Pentecostals do that sort of thing I guess in case some denos show up.
She went and got her bible and opened it up to the second chapter of the book of Acts. She pointed with her finger to verse one and said start reading from there so I did. (ACTS 2:1-4) And the day of Pentecost had fully come.....they were all in one accord in one place.....and suddenly there came a Sound of a Rushing Mighty Wind and it Filled the whole house where they were sitting.......And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire and it sat upon each of them....And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. I thought to myself. Well there it is. Its definitely in the bible. I was mainly a children's bible story boy in those days. Never had gotten to deep or to serious about biblical studies yet. Just child like simple faith, hope and love was my faith in God and in His Son Jesus Christ, much like my mom's faith. Beyond John 3:16 my heart had seldom roamed beyond or past that verse. But in days to come, starting with this day, my inner world was going to be effected for an up and coming change and that by the long suffering Spirit of God. I was soon to be apprehended for that road God apprehended me for. A place of grace full of patience, long suffering, and extreme mercies multiplied. A road full of fore known intercessions. A place where Carnality & traditional thought and the Spirit of the Lord would collide and clash. A road that for a long long long time deno would feel the every impact of the collisions of truth verse's traditional thought and thinking that had dominated my life until the fruit of my apprehension would be brought forth to the glory and honor of Jesus Christ from the span of many years even decades....
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Well after I read that I said to her and the man thank you, and I went back to the repair shop in the back and finished that days work. About an hour was left after the conversation before we closed the shop and what an hour it was. Over and over again her words, his words and those scriptures were echoing in my hearing. I could not turn them off. Rushing Mighty Wind, Tongues of fire, they began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them the utterance. Still I sensed this presence with me. Strange it was. It seemed to be following me around. No matter where I was so was that presence. Hmmm.
Well we said our goodbyes and closed the shop. I got in my car, cranked the engine and took off down the road. I haven't even gotten a mile from the shop and my heart was pumping with the words I had heard earlier. Rushing mighty wind deno. Tongues of fire. They began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit of the Lord in them gave them the utterance. Then somehow floating around in my atmosphere I heard these words. If you who are evil know how to give good things to your children, How much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him. Ask deno. Ask.
So I did. I said in my own child like faith way, Heavenly Father I know Jesus is Your Son and that he died for my sins and rose again from the dead and he is my Lord and Savior. But Father I have never heard of this infilling of the Holy Ghost as happened on the day of Pentecost. So I'm asking....and folks as surely as God is God no matter what the blind say of Him, and as surely is the fact that Jesus is seated at Gods right hand fully risen from the dead to where death can touch Him no more, All of the sudden, my car was full of a Rushing Mighty Wind. I heard it. I felt it. Jesus said in the scriptures that the things of God and His word shall be measured unto you according to the WAY YOU HEAR IT. Jesus said that He felt Gods power flow from him. I was feeling Jesus and the Father flowing together in me and in my car as One. The Spirit was filling me and my car up. It was circulating this way and that way, every bit tangible to the touch. It was so awesome that God somehow helped me drive in the evenings traffic, stopping at stop signs and red lights that I hardly even noticed were there. Then on green somehow I went thru them. I was in another world for a while there. Crying and crying. Praising and praising. I don't know the full of what went on during those minutes of this immersement into the Spirit of God and His Sons resurrection glory, but Yahoo, deno was having a yalahoolahoo time in this grace where in I was somehow driving. Scroll down.
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