There is nothing that Jesus has shown me that was not first for me, that I might change – then in my testimony that it may be of help to another.
Is it my testimony, that I love God? Yes. But there is to be more to the telling than what already is and has been. It is needful to tell of some of the things that have. The beginning of this thing is within me. And the story goes both forward and backward from there. Within there lives a small child that hides in the corner of a room between the wall and the refrigerator. The young one, of five or six, lives in fear of everything. In the years past other boys, of different ages, lived in the rooms about him. Some of them were brave about a few things and feared other things. There was one that protected them all from everything even the heart that beats within this one.
As a small child I did not know that I had or did not have a father. He was not around. As I grew, at about four, I remember my older brother going to visit dad. Dad would stop in front of the house and pick up my brother. My younger brother and I would look out the window and cry, partly because our older brother was going somewhere without us and partly because we wanted to know a dad too. The tears of a child angered the mother and she would rant and rage and tell hate stories about “your father.” All I knew of my dad for years was the crying at the window and the hate in my mother. The mother would tell that the dad did not want to visit the two younger boys. Later, when I finally met my dad, I heard it differently. The mother had, not knowing this for myself but from a story, told my dad that the two younger boys were crying because they did not want to go with him and she was not going to make them. Who knows?
At times the mother was peaceful and life would go on about the young boys. At other times the mother would be full of rage and no one knew where the rage would end and sometimes feared it never would. The boys learned to play roles that seemed to ease the rage or point it away from them, sometimes. As the boys grew the rage seemed to grow and the endings became more predictable. Someone was going to pay for her anger and they were there. After a time the mother married a man that was kind, but not experienced in family matters. The rage was hidden from the man for a while, but not from the boys. In time the mother added alcohol to the problem and it blew up and so did she. The rage was no longer hidden from the man. At different times a different one of us would be in favor and a different one would be the scapegoat for her problems.
Not to say that there were not good times, but even they were marred with anger and fear of what could happen without warning. The young child that hides in the corner was created in me at a time just after the man came and we moved from Missouri to Illinois. The rage and fears got too much for the child that I was, so I went inside and left another to guard my awareness. During all of this I was reading of God and could not understand. A Father God seemed to be like my dad, He was outside picking up someone else. After a time the mother and the man had two daughters and the girls were added to the list of those living within the rage. After the birth of the girls the rage seemed to always be, it eased and worsened but never was far from us. From time to time the protective one would go inside to the young one and different parts of me would be the awareness. Each had their own way of dealing with and trying to control the rage. As I grew, I tried more and different things to stay off the rage. At about age fifteen, I found that returning rage and standing toe to toe with it seemed to hold it at bay. That lasted only a little while. Once the surprise of having her rage returned to her wore off, it only made things worst. But the rage was born in the one that protected the awareness.
The time came when I was on my own and at a young age took a wife and had a child. It was up to me now; I could no longer live within the fears and pain of my youth but where was the door out. Years went by and children were born and I was put under the water and prayers were said and God sent a spirit to talk with me. But I was hard and did not trust. I asked God for help and turned from it and everything good; but God did not leave me. He was not standing outside to pick up another. He was beside me waiting for me, wanting to pick me up. The spirit, that was about me, minister to me and I did not listen and I prayed and wanted to know why I was angry and why I was hurting. Why was I hurting those around me and myself with my searching for what God was trying to give me? I left my wife and tried relationships with women to please me. They pleased a moment and I destroyed the hours and days.
I married again, to a woman that I loved and wanted to share life with, but we both had anger and pain and could not deal with it. We had a child and brought my children into our lives and it was not good for any of us. I became a workaholic and left everything at home to the children, too young, and a wife that could not understand why. I continued down the wrong road and soon fell into another relationship, trying again what did not work. Continually I prayed the selfish prayer and the spirit ministered the love. During this time, my wife opened her heart and heard God. She told me that everything would be okay and that God had an answer and was waiting for me to return. She was given faith and kept it. She continued to tell me, no mater how I treated her, I was coming back to her and God was waiting for me. The Spirit also told me that I was coming to God now or my life was going to hell. In a vision I was shown how life would be without God in it. I was shown riches and possessions and pain and rage. I was shown relationship after relationship filled with immoralities and substance abuse. And then told, “It does not have to be this way, but it is the road you are on.” As soon as I prayed to God the unselfish prayer, He answered and carried me to the path that He had made.
It has never been kept a secret that God had a word that He wanted me to help pass on. During the vision mentioned above, God showed me that the word was to go out either way. But His way would be one of peace and my way one of strife. There is a calling on my life, by God, to deliver a message and it has begun. There is no past that God cannot deliver you out of – there is no sin that Jesus does not cover – there is no life that God cannot use to help another that is struggling and in pain. Reach out to God when you have a need and He will send His own to carry you to His path. We do not have to live in the pain of the past, that is not to say that we do not feel pain, but we do not live in it. The love of my mother is something I want and the pain of its absents is real, but I will no longer live in the pain. The Spirit that had been beside me always now resides within. Every corner of every room has been opened to it except the one where the young child is hiding and God is working on that one. God has put me on a path and the Holy Spirit lights the way and guides my steps. It is in Jesus’ name that I pray, but to the Father and He has answered and is answering. It is my testimony that I love God.AMEN
It is not a calling to condemn the anointed of our Lord. It is not a ministry to call to the called of God and say, this is how it has been for me and must be for you also. It is not a gift of the spirit to have a word that will say, the gift that the spirit gives to me is the gift that proves the love of God on you and only those that receive this gift is of God. Such a word is not the word of God that is Jesus. It is not love to require of others what God has called you to do – it is for them to find and hear from God what is theirs. A testimony of God is not about the messenger – Jesus’ testimony was of God and the Kingdom. God has called me to this place at this time, He knows who I am and will be – as I have died and am now alive only in the I Am, it is His words and glory and not mine – not the dead, but the living Jesus. Do not give testimony to the voice that God used (to me) but to the Holy Spirit that gives understanding. Understanding does not come from the tongue but from God. It does not come from the version of the book or another’s reading, but from God.
When I was on my way, outside the city, I understood the city to be tall buildings with bright lights. When I entered the city I understood the city to be a gateway that opened to well lit streets. In the middle of the city I understood the city to be men, women and children living in riches and poverty, laughing and crying and some with and some without. Living only brings forth life, death took sin (dying) to the grave and life came forth out of the tomb of Jesus. As I was on my way to the kingdom I understood it to be a gift from God. As I entered the kingdom I understood it to be joy and peace in a place where none could be found. In the middle of the kingdom I understand it to be the life of Jesus within and the Spirit of God flowing through, not to my glory but of God.
© 1999, Tim D. Coulter Sr.