The Lord gave me a prophetic experience one spring that went a long way toward dealing with the guilt I’ve felt over NOT being successful in bringing change to the institutional church I attended for several years.

But first, I need to share a little background. I was born and raised in a suburb south of Seattle and lived there for 42 years before the Lord directed me to move to the rural Midwest. The good ol’ boys had themselves quite a time kidding me about being a city boy and I often joked about corn, bugs, stifling heat, and hog farms common to the area. I’ve written song parodies about farm life and sang them for the locals, along with the inspirational and worship music I write.

This episode is excerpted from the first short inspirational article I wrote, about the fall of 1999. I had forgotten about it until recently when the Father thought I needed encouragement and reminded me about it. The message is simply for the family of God in Christ who are down and discouraged by the evil goings on in the world today: WE WIN! I hope this blesses and encourages you as it has me.

When I was 14, I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. Not long after, some of my new Christian friends introduced me to various beliefs about the Rapture of the Saints. That was the 1970’s, and Hal Lindsey’s book “The Late Great Planet Earth” was causing quite a stir, and prompted many rapture debates. I can remember one friend who asked me: “are you pre-, mid-, or post-trib, pre-, post-, or a-millennial”? Biblical scholar that I was then – after all I knew John 3:16 inside and out – I gave her my most profound answer: “Both!” and then I changed the subject. She was one of those Bible Baptist kids and us Presbyterians knew better than to engage one of them in a debate. Eventually, I adopted as my own the popular beliefs at the time. Certainly that was easier than searching for the answers myself.