I was saved at the age of eight. Oh yes. I will never forget that day. It was at a Christian Camp in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. Although I was just eight years of age and fearful of being away from home, God spoke to my heart at one of the chapel meetings under those big pine trees. I was amazed that Jesus loved me so much and died for my sins on the cross. Such love. How could I turn Him down? “Yes, Lord, come into my life. I love you so much.”

Then ten years later I sat at my desk at Bible College looking over my courses: Bible 101, Intertestamental History; Homiletics; New Testament Survey, etc. Why Bible college? Because of a hunger God put in my heart for more of Him. “Blessed are they which hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” (Matthew 5:6 NIV) Oh I just wanted more of Him. No matter what I had to do to get it I wanted more of Him. I just had an insatiable hunger for more of Jesus.

But, as hard as I tried, the study of my Bible courses at college wasn’t doing it for me. Why? I wasn’t sure. It seemed I was getting it all in my head but my spirit at the same time was starving for more of Jesus. It was as if I were starving for food but instead of taking the food in, I was learning more about it, — its ingredients, or chemical formulas. I can remember sitting in the chapel service each morning hearing the chorus to that wonderful hymn by Fanny J. Crosby, “This is my story, this is my song praising my Savior all the day long...” But I simply could not sing it. It wasn’t my story. It wasn’t my song. What was the problem? I kept on keeping on and right out of the blue one day received a word of caution from one of my peers. “It’s hard to get in the grove up here but after you do, you will have a hard time pulling out of the rut.” Interesting comment.

Before the Sunday night meeting at 7p.m., there was a pre-service prayer meeting at 6:30 p.m. Stan Firth, a carpenter on staff at the Bible College, oversaw the meeting. He was just a carpenter. Just a carpenter, but so filled with the Glory of the Lord that it was amazing. When you were near him you felt God’s presence. He only stood about 5’3” tall and couldn’t afford a nice suit so always wore a gray double breasted suit that was far too big for him. He shared for a few minutes before we prayed for the service and spoke of “The Good Land — God’s rest” using Hebrews Three as his text. He shared that God wanted us to enjoy the riches of Christ, God’s Rest and not experience a spiritual desert. He got so animated that spittle would fly from his mouth as he spoke. Many times he quoted Hebrews 4:9-11:

"There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; For
anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as
God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter
into that rest, so that no one will fall following their example
of disobedience.”

God spoke to my heart and gave me a vision, “Where there is no vision, the people perish;”(Proverbs 29:18 KJV) Yes, nothing else would do. I was struggling, not resting, and didn’t want to waste my time as a Christian in a spiritual desert; instead I wanted to experience the Riches of Christ. So what did I do? I tried my best the next three years at Bible College to do everything I could think of to accomplish the vision. I wanted more.

I sacrificed going home during the summers to do missionary work hoping that by serving the Lord I would experience more of Christ. It didn’t work.
I religiously attended all the missionary prayer meetings in the mornings but nothing happened.
I walked around with an open ear yearning to grab on to anything that might help me to experience God’s rest.
I took to heart every sermon that was shared trying my best to put into practice anything I could.
One guest speaker shared that the answer to the Christian Life was experiencing the Mind of Christ. I tried to do that. It was awful. The harder I tired the further my thought life went into the opposite direction.
Another speaker shared that prayer was the secret of the victorious Christian life. He used the example of John Hyde, (“Praying” Hyde) a missionary to India who had a burden to pray constantly and was instrumental in praying in the Sialkot Revival in 1904. My first thought was “WOW! This might be it.” So I waited until my roommate was gone one weekend and covered myself with a blanket and started to pray. I must have been tired because I woke up 20 minutes later feeling quite condemned.

Hungering for the Rest for the people of God, for the next three years I tried everything I could think of to experience the Riches of Christ. You might understand that I wasn’t the most cheerful student as I was striving but failing at every turn. As a consequence I got a summons to “The Deans Office.” I was advised not to return to school my final year because I was so unhappy. Instead, I was told to seek some outside counseling. I was desperate. I went into my dorm room and cried out to God, “God I am not satisfied with my walk with you now, and I know that You have something more for me. I have tried and tried and tried, and failed and failed and failed. What can I do?” In desperation, I opened my Bible and read this verse: “Thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far off.” (Isaiah 33:17 KJV) These weren’t just words to me. It was a promise from God and so real as if He were sitting across the table from me. I knew then that He was going to show me the Good Land. I knew that He was going to take me into the Good land that He had promised me, the Riches of Christ. I didn’t know when, but I told Him, “Lord, thank you. Even if I have to wait until I am seventy years old I know that you are faithful and you will do it.”

What God revealed through Stan Firth was right. There IS a Rest in Christ, which I hadn’t experienced. I didn’t have to wait seventy years either. Thank you, Lord. Now I have a new song, a new testimony, that hymn by Miss Clara T. Williams:

Back to Barnabas Letter Home

Back to top