New Testimony

My dad was a contemptuous atheist for about 75 years. He developed dementia. I put him in an assisted living facility at the end of January. In February, he forgot his atheism, and since then he has been very enthusiastic about God.

I always try to include a little background, so a person who comes here and only reads one blog post will have some idea what’s happening. If you want to know more about my dad’s change, you can read other posts here.

Things have been changing over the last week. I used to bring him brownies and cookies to eat during my visits, but he started turning them down, so I stopped bringing them. Day before yesterday, I started to feel guilty about not bringing him his newspapers. I had assumed he was not able to enjoy them, but three days ago, I saw him with a recent paper someone had given him. I brought him his newspapers again, and he looked at them and asked me what he would want with The Wall Street Journal. I took the paper back, and I realized there was no point in bringing newspapers any more.

Over the last few weeks, his habit has been to talk a great deal, asking me the same questions over and over. He stopped doing that. To fill in the time, I started playing the audio from Derek Prince sermons. Youtube is full of them. Instead of complaining, he listened intently, in spite of his diminished attention span. He took them in like a dry plant at the end of a drought. His thirst was obvious.

Yesterday, I wheeled him to a quiet place, and I played another sermon. He relaxed and seemed to sleep. This is how he always reacts. The sermon, if it matters, was about love.

Maybe 30 minutes in, he made a sudden exclamation. He said, “I’m on the verge!”

I didn’t know what that meant. I thought he might be referring to death. I asked him to explain.

He said he was on the verge of accepting what he was hearing. He was very excited, and he wanted to do something about it in order to get relief.

He prayed for salvation last year in October, but he backslid later and denied it. He has prayed for salvation since then at the ALF, and I had felt he was sincere. I didn’t understand why he was starting over again, but I realized he might have held something back.

I got up, laid one hand on him, raised the other in worship, and led him in prayer. I explained all the things he needed to believe and affirm. He had to believe Jesus was God and that Jesus had been crucified for his sins. He had to admit he had sinned. He had to ask for forgiveness. He had to expressly forgive every person who had sinned against him, and he had to ask God to forgive them. He had to ask God to fill him with the Holy Spirit. I’m sure there were other things. He complied, enthusiastically. “Desperately” is a better description.

I had him raise his hands in worship, and I had him say he was worshiping.

I asked him how he felt. He said, “Emptied.” Then he said, “I feel emptied, and Jesus Christ is my Lord and savior.”

I didn’t tell him to say that.

Then he said, “I had reservations.” He said, “Now they’re gone.”

It’s very strange to watch God do these things. I’m not pushing my dad. I barely do anything. I play audio and sit. I encourage him, of course, and I try to tell him useful things, but the effort is minimal.

On the one hand, there is something disconcerting about having God take over. It makes you feel a little bit like an attendant running a carnival ride, paid to sit in a chair and push the same button over and over. You don’t get to use your gifts. You definitely don’t get much credit.

On the other hand, I want God to take over, very badly. I don’t want to carry heavy loads any more. I don’t do a good job, and it’s an unpleasant way to live. I want to sit back and watch God act. Whatever disappointment I feel when I consider my lack of involvement is negligible. It means nearly nothing to me.

I don’t know why God gave me gifts. That’s a puzzle I can’t work out. They are clearly unnecessary. I enjoy them, however.

The Bible doesn’t say, “Get out there and fight, and let me know if you need help.” It doesn’t say, “Lift yourself up by your own bootstraps.” It says, “Sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool.”

As of yesterday, my dad has started to slur his words. I don’t know if that’s a permanent thing. It could be a new symptom, or maybe he was just tired. In any case, he’s kind of a rush job. He has to prepare for death before he loses the ability to think. Yesterday, he tied up another loose end.

I don’t know why we are so blessed. Maybe it’s because my dad’s hostility toward God was sown in him by a preacher. The pastor of the church he attended as a child told his sister to tell everyone her father had died from drinking moonshine, which was true. It’s strange to me that God worked for such a long time to save someone who was such a hard case. I can see how he might take accountability for offense caused by a foolish servant.

My dad’s sister was two years older than he, and she didn’t receive salvation. She developed dementia, lost her mind entirely, and died an atheist. Why didn’t she change? She was a cruel sociopath. My dad had a black heart when he was in his prime, but she was worse. Maybe the preacher wasn’t the reason for her unbelief. Maybe she was lost before her father died.

I made sure I worshiped in my dad’s presence. I lifted a hand while we listened to Derek Prince, and I lifted a hand while I prayed with my dad. I can tell it makes a difference. Every Christian should do this.

I wrote about worshiping the other day. I related an experience in which Jesus visited me. I fell asleep in his presence and then woke up with both hands raised in worship. I told about a friend of mine who was hospitalized. He had an episode in which he awoke with his hands raised. This morning, I listened to Derek Prince’s testimony, and he said the Holy Spirit raised his hands, too. He raised Prince’s hand at an altar call while he was seeking God for the first time, and later, when Prince tried to contact God in prayer in order to get to know him, the Holy Spirit raised his hands in worship.

Worship is very important. It’s like connecting a wire to a power source.

I believe failure to worship sufficiently was the blockage that caused me to plateau and suffer anxiety over the last few years.

It wasn’t because I didn’t give away all my wealth and wear a hair shirt on a street corner. It wasn’t because I didn’t go to Africa to preach to primitive people. It wasn’t because I wasn’t behaving well enough or confessing and repenting enough. It was a simple misunderstanding of the way things work.

I like to pray in tongues while I drive, because there is no better way to redeem the time. I’ve started holding one hand up while I do it. I turn it to the side when other drivers approach, so they won’t think I’m trying to signal them. Instead, they’ll just think I’m eccentric, which is fine, because it’s true. I combine prayer with worship when I can.

In other news, two days ago, I had an unexpected conversation with a lady I dreamed about twice in recent weeks. Not sure what’s up with that, but it shook me.

I don’t know what God is going to do next. I feel much better than I did even a week ago. I feel like important parts of the puzzle have fallen into place.

Give this stuff a try. If it works for me, it will work for you. God didn’t go through the crucifixion so one person could get a bunch of blessings while other people who were no worse got nothing.