Warrior's
Personal Testimony
I used to take a sadistic pleasure out of shaking Christians’ faith. I would say, “I don’t believe in God. I don’t go to church, and I don’t pray; yet I’m getting what I want out of life.” Unfortunately, that was true. I got what I wanted but not what I needed. And the closer I got to getting what I wanted the less it meant to me; so, by the time I received it it meant absolutely nothing. Life had no meaning.
I remember being in Washington, DC playing my saxophone in my Jazz quartet called “By Any Means Necessary” at Nation House Positive Action Center. I was soloing and the crowd was cheering and all the while I was thinking to myself, “What is the point?”
I eventually reached the point in life where I didn’t care whether I lived or died. But one day I felt these urges and didn’t know what they were. I tried playing my sax. That didn’t satisfy it. Eventually, I thought maybe I should read the bible. Once I started I couldn’t put it down.
I was unemployed. My gas had been cut off, my lights were about to be cut off, but all I could think to do at that point was read the bible, eat and sleep. I did that for one week then got a job. I read the bible from cover to cover once a month for two and a half months.
Then I went to play my sax at my Grandfather’s church called Faith Temple in Omaha, Nebraska, since he had just become a bishop in the church of God in Christ. I hadn’t been to a church in 14 years except for events like funerals and weddings. I considered it his happy “bishopship” present.
The choir was singing "Lord Let Your Spirit Fall on Me" by Shirley Caesar, and the Lord’s spirit fell on me. I yielded my life to God while playing my horn. That was September 22, 1991 at about 2:30pm on a Sunday afternoon. Since then, my life has been full of purpose, direction and focus.
I am a former proud sinner who was once foolish enough to say there is no God. I am now one who has had the paradoxical pleasure of being humbled by the consequences of insisting on his independence from God. The pain I experienced from the pleasure of sin became unbearable to the point where it resulted in a kind of sorrow that led to a craving for release from this addiction to immorality, no matter how big or small. I cried out to God who released me from this bondage. This was the most important experience of my life: my spiritual rebirth.
I am now committed to giving the reason for the hope that I have to all who are interested. This I do, not in my own power but, in the power of God's Holy Spirit who gives us wisdom, understanding and teaches us all things.
I am one who is no longer deluded by an exaggerated opinion of the power of the human intellect. I humbly admit no finite creature can understand the infinite. I know now that man does not discover God through intellectual analysis or speculation, but rather, God reveals himself to any finite being who is willing to admit his inability to fathom the infinite and has an insatiable hunger for what is true. I do not and cannot understand God, but I do know him in a way that is more intimate than the intimacy that is possible between any two creatures of flesh and blood.
The Scarlet Thread