After I left the Corps, I worked for my stepfather a short while until a personality conflict led to my dismissal. I worked as day labor on the road construction crew for a while and bounced around trying to fit in. The people who attended every church I visited all agreed on one thing, I should attend Bible college. So I picked up my diploma from the Mount Clemens Board of Education and applied to the Southeastern College of the Assemblies of God (now known as Southeastern University).
I arrived early only to find out that my acceptance to the school was contingent on my paying the entry fee up front. I was devastated and started looking for work to earn the fee. As I brought it to one congregation of fellow believers for prayer, I was taught a lesson on receiving by God. A lady in the congregation decided to pay the entrance fee for me. I believe her when she said God laid it on her heart. But when I asked her to allow me to earn it by doing some form of work for her, she rebuked me in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Her words were basically that I must learn to put aside my pride and accept what God has given. If I could not accept a simple entrance fee donation, how could I accept the free gift of grace unto salvation? I meekly submitted with, “Yes, ma’am,” and went to the office of admissions with her check. This is not an easy lesson to swallow. My father worked for everything he had and gave to us, his children, first before he took anything for himself. I had been infused with the desire to earn my own way. But the impossibility of that was brought home to me in this lesson. We cannot earn salvation, it can only be given by God out of His grace. Wow!
My first semester, I was restricted to only twelve credit hours. I wanted to finish the course on time, but the rules of the school were inflexible. Because I had an honorable discharge from the Marine Corps, I was exempt from physical education. Apparently they felt I was taught how to keep fit in all the running, calisthenics and weight training I went through in the Marines. I took the attitude that I had run enough to last me a lifetime, and this was the time to study and pray. The college had a requirement that all students attend a daily chapel service before most classes started. This was my favorite period of the day.
I got into the habit of entering the chapel early with other students to pray before the service. It is here that my first introduction to contemplative prayer was made, but none of us understood what we were doing. Founded by the Church of God in Christ for white folks who might be uncomfortable in a black church, the Assemblies of God is a Pentecostal denomination that traces its roots to the Azuza Street revival of the early Twentieth Century. They may not have had Apostolic Succession or a Catholic view of the faith (I will cover the meaning of the word catholic in a future post), but they had a relationship with Christ that was often lacking in other churches. And they talked tongues. A lot.
It was through glossolalia that I began contemplative prayer. We would gather in the morning and let our mind go while our mouths were busy uttering words we didn’t know. I had visions, most of which I subsequently forgot, and laid hands on my fellow students for prayer that was answered as we expected it to be.
One prayer stands out in my mind. A student asked me to pray for him that the Holy Spirit would correct some deficiency in his life. I lightly touched the fingers of my right hand to his forehead and said, “Holy Spirit, have Your way in this life.” Immediately, he fell to the floor as though dead. I spoke without thought, “Get up, I’m not through praying for you yet.” And he stood, suddenly restored to full consciousness. I don’t know why he fell out. No one had ever done so when I prayed before or since. Yet I was witnessing so many miraculous events that I was not inclined to question it.
As a child, the Barefoot Sisters of Mt. Carmel taught me that miracles are happening every day, and that it is up to God to decide when and where a miracle takes place. But until I joined the AG, I had only heard of miracles elsewhere, never witnessing them first hand. Here miracles were so commonplace that people were not surprised by them, they were surprised by their absence. That kind of faith was very appealing to me, and still is. Yet I detected something lacking in the regular church practice of these Pentecostals that was only partly made up for by our very non-conformist morning meetings in the chapel.
To be continued….
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