All of us as people and as Christians have those special moments and events in our lives that stand out above the rest. Those times when our heart surged with joy or those times when things were so filled with awe and wonder that rivers of tears from praise to God came forth. Maybe it was something someone said to you, or a preachers sermons, or a move of the Lords presence, Spirit and grace upon you, upon your life or even upon your day. Maybe it was a gift or an act of kindness someone showed you. Or maybe it came from you showing someone else Gods love in action in Jesus Name. As believers we all have them and it is good and acceptable to the Lord that we share these experiences with others for blessing, edification and for the strengthening of our faith and hope in Christ.....deno
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Back in the early days of this grace as a simple teenager, after the Lord had visited me in a mighty way in my car (Read my other testimonies #1 thru #9), I was led into a personal wilderness to be tried and tested over and over again by the enemy,(Luke 4:1-3). I had no real deep meaningful idea that I had become a focus of his concern and attention and he was wanting to see what I was really made of. He wanted to know what I really knew, what I really spiritually understood, and what I really strongly believed.
I had no idea that he had lined me up in his heavenly guns site, nor that I had now become a person of interest to him. I still had blinders on all over the heavenly places of by brain. For, though my spirit had been filled with Gods Spirit and had become one Spirit with the Spirit of the Lord, my minds thoughts and thinking were still mostly my thoughts not the Lords. I still had a whole lot of hostility, wicked thoughts and lower thinking way way beneath the Lords higher course of thoughts and thinking. God knows how naive I was. I had so much to learn. So many things that I needed my eyes opened up unto. Friends when one gets filled with the Power from on high in a real endowment of its grace and glory, it is a glorious thing, but you can be assured a roaring lion is coming to pay you a visit. I assure you also this, he is not coming to take you TO LUNCH. YOU ARE THE LUNCH.
Well with that being said, when I tell you that deno was a very naive believer lacking all kinds of word of God knowledge and spiritual understanding, such was so true about me that it was true as the scriptures are true. It was the absolute truth. I was as blind as a bat when it came to the spiritual things and when it came to understanding the heavenly things of God. I had some bible story light but if you would have asked me to name one of the weapons of our warfare in Christ. I would have responded, WHAT IS THAT? What weapons? We have weapons? I was lacking so much knowledge and real heavenly understanding as Jesus taught (John 3:9-12). Such lacking was going to have about a three and a half year price. The bible tells us in Hosea 4:6 that lack of knowing and understanding Gods word has a heavy price. It can even destroy a mans soul and make a man miserable even perish.
Well I was miserable in those days. The delicious joy that I had constantly had from my childhood that stayed with me thru thick and thin all those years was now gone. The weightiness of an oppressing enemy pressing and wrestling against me to keep me distracted, off balance, and from seeing the presence, plan and purpose of God in my life and my place in the work of His grace was constantly attacking. My ignorance of his multiple multi-faced wrestling moves was allowing him to turn me every which way but loose. He was tossing me with this saying and with that doctrine and with this persuasion and with denomination high exaltation that I'm telling you I was beaten down and there was no telling how many darts of his attacks stuck in me. I needed knowledge and understanding to combat him but I had no idea that I needed that light. Deno was filled with the Holy Spirit, but his minds was void and empty of needful light to fight a good warfare.
Well everyday things just got worse. The Lord had filled me with His Spirit in a rushing mighty wind measure of grace in my car. I had seen that huge cross with a sea of people under it in a type of vision wondering what did all that mean. The Lord had shouted to me audibly, "WATCH YOUR TONGUE,'' but in the situation that He shouted that to me I was to dumb to make the needful connection and Satan was able to keep me in the dark about what that meant for a long while. And being in the dark about what that meant and of its importance, on and on I went not watching my tongue, but rather murmuring and complaining and whining about by problems over and over and over and things just kept getting worse for me in my inner world. In ignorance and in disobedience I was giving place to an oppressing enemy and he was the only one that was loving it. Deno was miserable. I cried and complained about how terrible I felt for days on end, weeks connected to weeks and for years.
One day in this oooom and gloom I was driving back from Alexandria Louisiana listening to a secular radio station in my car. This was in 1978 or 79. Folks I was fighting such depression that the joke about it was no laughing matter. This depression had taken over my life and it was extremely bitter to my heart and souls taste buds. God had told me the remedy, even audibly, but Satan was fighting over time against me to keep me from understanding the Word of the Lord that had come unto me and for a long time he was winning.
I would say I had been under this oppression at this time for a year and a half or so, God knows exacts. It had been with me so long that I started getting concerned that this must now be my lot in life. I must have done something real bad and this was my punishment maybe. I did not know that some things Jesus says in His Name dogmatically fight and resist and cast out. I did not know spiritual truths like I should have. I had been raised around the word of God all my life being my dad was a wonderful pastor and preacher but I had never ever got real serious with God or with learning His Word as we should. Deno just liked to play and have fun.
But friends when God has a plan for you in your days on this earth, even though it may be a long range plan for you. With His hand on you, and your life, the day will come when you will see your personal burning bush. You may go thru all kinds of adventures and questions about the events in your life as to wonder and say what in the world is going on here. It may be 40 years or even more in the passing, but I promise you when God has you also in His Grace Sites, you will in the dispensation of the fulness of your grace time see your burning bush. That's an added to bless someone reading this.
Back to me in that car that day.......But oh how awful tasting depression is. It is no friend. It is a merciless power against those that it lays hold on. Many do not even survive it. It beats you down. Attacks and robs you and your days and dreams of hope, drying up your wells of all their joy and gladness leaving nothing but bitter water to taste in the soul. It speaks to you daily its gloom and despair and even your bones begin to ache at the anguish of its oppressing weight.
Feeling all that in my car that day and with all its haunting hopeless chatter running thru my mind I broke down like maybe more than I had ever in my entire life in wonderment and self pity. My heart broke before the Lord. My world had changed and it was not in no way tasting for the better. Maybe it had been better to had stayed in Egypt? I was hurting that bad in all this. Crying, crying, tears so filled my eyes it was hard to see the road ahead due to the rain in my vision. I was miserable, desperate. That ugly depression had dried my soul up as with fire and no water of relief had been bestowed. But this day finally some water would be granted. This water of relief would not heal me, nor would it remove the aches, but it reassured me that God was with me and He understood what I was going thru.
Listening to that secular radio station I began to voice my cry unto God. God I screamed in my brokenness, WHY? Why have I been going thru all this? Why has my joy been removed? I have little strength Lord. What did I do to deserve this? God please, please hear my cry. I don't understand. Why has my life gone so south since You visited me in my car that day? Why I can't even enjoy fishing anymore. Even what used to be my favorite things bring me no joy any more at all. God what has happened to me?
As I cried unto Him I became even more broken within and I cried out even more intensely. God please, please, please I need some help. Do you even hear my voice? Are my tears out beyond your notice? I'm hurting here God. I don't understand what this is about. God do you know what I'm going thru? Then I asked him this prayer request and honestly I do not know why I selected this song but that's the song that came out and ever since that day this song has been special between me and the Lord. Even now when I hear it I often water up.
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