It was the winter of 1988.  I was in Arlington, Virginia and working for a company called Atlantic Security Agency - 1 year after an honorable discharge from the United States Marine Corps.  One night, after work, I begin to drive around the city of Alexandria, Virginia - in a brand new car I had just purchase.  I had over $900.00 dollars in my pocket.  And a loaded .45 pistol laying in the passenger seat.  I was looking for a spot where I could shoot myself through my head and kill myself...

You see, I was in a state of depression.  The previous week I had binged on hundreds of dollars worth of crack cocaine.  One weekend, I must have visited over 5 crack houses...stayed up the entire weekend...and ate virtually nothing.  I would always find someone to point me in the right direction as to where I could find the "good stuff."  Sometimes it was a woman.  I never had sex with her.  I only wanted the crack.  But this particular night, I had had enough.  I did not want to smoke crack anymore.  I did not want my weekends spent in states of paranoia, in and out of depression.  I just wanted to die....

But as I sat in a deserted parking lot, in downtown Alexandria, Virginia I could not complete what I had set out to do.  One memory begin to haunt me as I sat with many tears flowing and not having any sort of direction or meaning in life.  It was the memory of one day in my childhood - growing up here in Fordyce, Arkansas - when I was a 11 years old, and walking through the woods in the back of the house.  I would love to walk through these woods and look at the trees, the insects and hear the birds chirping.  On this particular day, as I was walking through the woods and looking at the beautiful shafts of sunlight shining through the trees, I became aware of an overwhelming prescence.  It was so overwhelming that it penetrated every fiber of my being.  Even though I was still very young, I knew what that presence was.  At that very moment I was aware of the presence of the Lord Almighty.  I had no idea that I was about to embark on a journey of much hardship and suffering before I became the preacher I am today...

That night in a deserted parking lot in Virginia, I felt His presence again.  But it was not time for my salvation yet.  In one night and day, I packed up what I could carry, left my good job, my apartment and all of its furnishings and moved back here, to Fordyce, Arkansas.  And not only did I leave these things behind, but I also left crack cocaine behind...forevermore.  No rehab.  No 12 step course.  Just cold turkey.  The Lord had other plans for me. 

But not yet.  As I write this, I am aware I am leaving out whole sections of my life.  Some may have had much influence on my personal road to salvation.  But these have been written to give you some idea of who I am.  And I am not ashamed of who I am and I am not ashamed of my past.  If it wasn't for the Lord allowing me to go through the many trials that I had gone through, I would not be the man of God I am today.  That is not boasting.  It is just a testimony.  "But he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord." - 2 Corinthians 10:17 KJV

I could talk about when I left Arkansas and went to Toledo, Ohio in 1990.  Or when I moved to Tacoma, Washington in 1992.  Or when, in the year 1999 I left and went to Houston, Texas.  I wasn't moving because I got bored.  I wasn't moving because I had an long-distance relationship with someone.  I wasn't moving at all.  I was running from the Lord.  During the time I was in Tacoma, Washington...a preacher I had met on the street gave me a pamphlet concerning salvation and told me that the Lord had placed a serious call on my life and that I needed to stop running from Him and submit to His will.  I was given Ezekiel 2 and 3 and told what that ministry was.  My response?  No way.  My attitude was that I wanted nothing to do with preaching and after having a father who was a preacher and seeing how corrupt other so-called "men of God" were, I wanted no part.  I threw the pamphlet into the gutter...

I shouldn't have done that.  Because you can run, but you can't hide.  "Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?  If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there." - Psalms 139:7-8 KJV  When Jonah ignored God's call to preach to Nineveh - and instead turned and tried to flee to Tarshish from His presence, God came after him, causing a tempest in the sea to toss the ship around that he had gain passage on.  He knew why this was happening, that the Lord was after him, and convinced the sailors to toss him into the sea - and right into the jaws of a certain big fish...where he spent three days and three nights inside this creature's belly.  In Houston, Texas in the year 2000 I experienced the consequences of ignoring God's call on my life and trying to run from His presence.  I ended up serving 6 months in the Texas Department of Corrections...

The details of why I ended up in prison are closed and sealed because they deal with Enron and the resulting scandal.  I was a corporated security supervisor.  But the real reason why I was in prison for 6 months all had to do with God's plan.  I immediately knew why I was there.  That night, as I sat on the end of the bed, in a state of deep depression and confusion, a light shined right through the window in my cell door and as I looked, it illuminated a Bible that had been placed on my bed.  I was born and raised in church.  My father was a preacher.  But I did not know what it said.  That night, sitting on the floor beside my bed, I flipped through the pages of this Bible and ended up on the Gospel of John.  And I begin to read it.  And as I read it, I came to the following Scripture:

At that moment, in the spirit, it was if I had been supernaturally transported into that upper room on the night that Jesus was about to be arrested in the garden of Gethsemane - even though I was sitting in a jail cell in Houston, Texas.  And at that moment, I broke down and wept, telling the Lord how sorry I had been and then surrending my entire life and will over to Him...

During that 6 months, I read and absorbed the entire Word of God.  After I was released from confinement I went and read and absorbed the entire Word of God, again.  As I left Houston, Texas and moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin and begin to absorb sermon notes, study notes, commentaries from Matthew Henry, Charles Spurgeon and John Calvin.  And I begin to preach and haven't stopped.  I can't stop.  How can I when I know that men are being damned each hour by thousands, and that each time my pulse beats another soul lifts up its eyes in hell, being in torments?  How can I, knowing how men and women are speeding on their way to destruction, how "the love of many waxeth cold" and "iniquity doth abound."  Is there not a necessity laid upon me?  Is it not woe unto me if I preach not the gospel?  Can we not see thousands annually ruined?  Up from the hospital and the asylum there comes a voice to me, "Woe is unto thee, if ye preach not the gospel."  Why don't we go to the huge places built around with massive walls, enter into the prison cells and see the thieves, murders, and child molestors who have for years spent their lives in sin.  A voice shall come from each house of correction, from each prison saying, "Woe is unto thee, if ye preachest not the gospel."  Go to the thousand death-beds, and mark how men are perishing in ignorance, not knowing the ways of God.  See their terror as they approach their Judge, never having known what it was to be saved, not even knowing the way; and as you see them quivering before their Maker, hear a voice, "Minister, woe is unto thee if thou preachest not the gospel."  Put your ear at hell's gate, and for a little while listen to the commingled screams and shrieks of agony and despair that shall lend your ear; and as you come from that sad place with that doleful music still frightening you, you will hear the voice, "Minister, Minister!  Woe is unto thee if thou preachest not the gospel.  With these things before my eyes, I must preach...

Stop preaching?  Let the sun stop shining and I will preach in darkness.  Let the waves stop their ebb and flow, and still my voice shall preach the gospel; let the world stop its revolutions, let the planets stay their motion and I will still preach the gospel.  Until the fiery center of this earth shall burst through the thick ribs of her brazen mountains, I shall still preach the gospel; till the universe and earth dissolve in fire and matter shall be swept away, these lips, or the lips of some others called of God, shall still thunder forth the voice of Jehovah!  We cannot help it!  Necessity is laid upon us, yea woe is unto us if we preach not the gospel!

I was a former crack user, alcoholic and smoker.  I have also done prison time.  But, I am also much more than that.  I am an ambassador of Christ: "Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." (2 Corinthians 5:20 KJV).  I am a minister of Jesus Christ: "But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses..." (2 Corinthians 6:4 KJV).  And I am part of Christ's royal priesthood: "But yea are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light." (1 Peter 2:9 KJV).  Thank you my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ from saving and delivering me from a path destined to hell!  Thank you my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for calling me into the ministery to teach your Holy Word and to lift up your name before the congregation of the saints.  I will serve you all the days of my life...

Not renouncing, but repeating, and ratifying all my former covenants with God, and lamenting that I have not lived up more closely to them, I do solemnly make a fresh surrender of myself, my whole self, body, soul, and spirit, to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; my Creator, Redemer, and Sanctifier; covenanting and promising not in any strength of my own, for I am very weak, but in the strength of the grace of Jesus Christ, that I will endeavor this year to stand complete in all the will of God."

Thank you, my 360 friends for your mail, your comments and your encouragement. Words cannot express the gratitude that I feel for each and every one of you.  My prayers are place before God's altar continuously for you and many blessings I pray for you all.  Pray my strength in the Lord.  May God continue to bless you all and to keep you...

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