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CHAPTER 1
Nonbeliever to Believer
We had such a close, caring, loving relationship, although I was a nonbeliever in God and she was a strong faithful believer. She never pushed or demanded that I become a believer. On occasion I went with her to church, not so much for me but for my love for her.
She accepted me the way I was and I am sure she prayed that one day I would see the light and come to the Lord. Because I was hurting and in pain from losing her, I made a commitment to start reading some of her Christian devotionals and books to see if that would help heal the hurt inside.
I also did some praying, mostly the Lord's Prayer and the Lord Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace prayer found in one of her books. I also read and used the Serenity Prayer and would read the words from scripture she requested for her service.
The other thing I did was start asking her for forgiveness since I was away from home a great deal as an over-the-road truck driver. I had lost a job as a field manager in the satellite industry several years earlier and at age sixty wasn't able to find a job, so I became a truck driver.
I kept reading for over 15 months and then one day while driving through Wisconsin, God's Grace happened to me. It was the most glorious thing that has ever happened to me. My whole body and my heart was filled with a warm radiant glow and I felt the Lord's presence within me.
It was an explosion of a thousand lightbulbs going off in my head, and a joy, an exhilaration beyond words. I was ecstatic, excited, and most of all in reverent awe. I was like a little child come Christmas morning to see all those wonderful presents under the tree. Tears rolled down my eyes and it was at that moment that I became a true believer in God the Father almighty and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ
It was April 2017 that this amazing journey of mine started. From that moment on I have not stopped thinking about, meditating on, praying and reading God's holy words of truth. Revelation after revelation is being presented to me now on a daily basis and I just can't seem to get enough of His message. His never-ending Love, Grace, Mercy and the many blessings He abundantly pours out to us just leaves me speechless.
My prayer life is as an Indy 500 formula race car on high-octane fuel running at full throttle. I am on an amazing journey, and He has put me on a path that is hard to explain. His presence and His grace have given me a peace and a calm unlike anything I have ever experienced in my life.
He has called me to write this book so that through my life's struggles as a nonbeliever, I can hopefully inspire other lost souls to live a more satisfying and peaceful life through Jesus Christ.
It's as though Christ has prepared me all my life to spread His words of truth and give hope to others in living a better way, a better life, and having a better future.
For as Jesus said in John 14:6:"I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father except through Me."
I am sixty-six years old and a man of very modest means. I don't have a lot of money, don't have a large nest egg to fall back on, still have a mortgage to pay off, and still need to work to pay all my bills just like many of us. While most people my age are looking to retire, I am just discovering my real purpose in life. My struggles and experiences that I will share can hopefully shed some light on how you can lead a more satisfying fulfilled life through Christ.
As a nonbeliever for over fifty-three years, having never once read the Bible or prayed, I wasn't aware of the knowledge, the truth, and the wisdom contained in the words of God. As a nonbeliever, I still considered myself a Christian because I did attend church and knew about God but never felt the need to get to know God. Just somehow never was really convinced or had the conviction to truly believe what was said during church services.
I grew up in a small Midwest town in Nebraska, went to Sunday school, church, was in Boy Scouts, and participated in sports. I learned right from wrong, honesty, how to treat others and how to work hard, respect others, and how to get along with other people, how to share and how to be a responsible person. I just didn't make the connection with God in my life: other things simply seemed much more important at the time. If there is anything I can get you to understand as a person who is struggling with their life, it is this: Get to know God and His loving ways starting today, and your life will forever change unlike anything you can possibly imagine!
I was thirteen years old when my younger brother Stephen died of leukemia in 1964. He and I were very close and I was, needless to say, devastated with his death. I knew he was sick and something wasn't right but I thought he would recover and get back to his normal self.
When my parents told me the news of his passing, I was in shock and angry with what I knew about God at that time. How could a God let this happen? Why did my bother have to die? It just left a huge void in my life at that time and my heart was hardened. Somehow I just never understood the why until now, fifty-three years later. God, I am convinced, didn't want him to be exposed to the evil that is present in this world and had a better purpose and a better plan for him in Heaven with Him.
The next greatest loss I had occurred in 1985 when the bank closed down the family farming operation due to the farm crises of the late seventies early eighties. I was living my dream providing for my family and after seventeen years of hard work all came crashing down. It hit me like a freight train head on, my world shattered like a broken window hit by a rock into a thousand little pieces. I was beyond devastated, I was in shock, numb, fearful, angry, and could not imagine what or where I should turn next to relieve the hurt and the pain. Because of embarrassment and guilt, I felt we needed to move and start life all over again. We lost everything — house, investment in the business, and savings. Had to move in with my in-laws until we could save enough to put a deposit down on a rental.
I poured myself into self-help books trying to come up with solutions to dealing with my anger, guilt, disappointment. Still as a nonbeliever, I was going to figure this all out on my own. I was going to control my feelings and my thoughts to try and get some sense of direction in my life. I was living in a fantasy world and lacking a great deal of motivation. I simply could not accept this loss and finally through marriage counseling, decided to go back to school to learn new skills and get my life going again.
I went back to school, became a nursing home administrator, went through divorce, got addicted to gambling, lost my job after nine years as an administrator, got into retail management, car sales, field manager at a satellite company, and now an over-the-road truck driver. All this is just to show you the struggles and the experiences I have had in my life. If nothing more than to show you what not to do with your life.
As I reflect back over my life and the struggles, heartaches, and events that have occurred to me, I realize that all really have been God's plan. After all those years as a nonbeliever, the Lord was still working within my heart, my mind, and my soul even though I never acknowledged Him or accepted Him as my Lord and Savior. Matthew 28:20:"I am with you always. God has been patiently, steadily, consistently and faithfully waiting on me." Psalm 119:90: "Your faithfulness endures to all generations."
He has always accepted me, unconditionally loved me as one of His children, and knew I would someday see the light and allow Him into my heart. Romans 8:39: "Nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ our Lord." Galatians 3:26: "We are all sons and daughters of God through faith in Jesus Christ."
This book will help you learn to deal with whatever issues, problems, or struggles you are having right now. It will hopefully inspire and encourage you to seek out the Lord and with His helping hand will lead you, teach you, and guide you to everlasting happiness, peace, and joy. It will also enable you to gain confidence, strength, and courage to find a better purpose, a better future, and bring more meaning into your life.
CHAPTER 2
True Happiness
True happiness is not a when, a what, or a where: it is a now. It's not what you have or what you do or even the people closest to you that bring about true happiness. Happiness is quite simply who you are! And who are you? Well, for starters you are:
A child of God created in His image - Genesis 1:27
You were created for a purpose to do His will and were given a gift that only is unique to you.
- 1 Peter 4:10; Romans 12:6-8; 1 Corinthians 7:7
He knows your name.
- Isaiah 43:1; Isaiah 49:16
A set of fingerprints that no one else has. (not found in scripture)
You are loved beyond comprehension by God, and he cares deeply about you and wants nothing but the best for you
- Romans 8:39, Jeremiah 29:11
You cannot find happiness in a When I — make or have more money, get a better job, find a mate, have a nicer car, own a bigger house, have nicer clothes, jewelry, etc. This is because those are all things outside of yourself. They are external things. Chasing after material things, relying on others for your happiness, and wanting things is truly a lie that you have accepted as truth.
You are wanting them because society, friends, family, coworkers, advertisers say you need them to be happy. Trying to impress others with what you have or own is the real reason you want them. Trying to show how successful you are and trying to keep up with the Jones is a futile exercise that will leave you empty inside. Regardless of how much you possess in material things, there will always be people with more.
As a nonbeliever and living my own selfish ways, I have chased after material possessions, compared myself to others, defined my life by what I was making, believing this would lead me to happiness. This way of thinking about how to be happy in life has done nothing but bring misery, disappointment, heartache, resentment, anger, guilt, fear and doubts. More destructive was the anger turned inward on what I considered to be failures of my life. The goals I had set for myself on where I should be, what I possessed have never been realized. In a word I was not loving myself and was angry at myself for failing to meet my self-imposed, greedy, selfish ways of thinking on how to be happy in life
Happy is the man who finds wisdom and the man who gains understanding and all the things you desire cannot compare with her. Proverbs 3:13, 15
Do not lay up treasures for yourself on earth, but lay up treasures for yourself in heaven. Matthew 6:19, 20
True happiness, joy, and peace is when you turn your life over and completely commit yourself to Jesus Christ our Lord and God's holy words. Embrace this truth and you will have anything and everything you ever wanted. Place your trust and faith in our heavenly Father and He will enrich your life tenfold. Everything you need is right within you to help you achieve the desires of your heart.
If you are not completely happy, satisfied, content, and at peace with yourself it's because you have been looking in all the wrong places. You have allowed the evil temptations of this world to direct and guide your life. Just as I have done for most of my life.
Make God the Father of us all your top priority. Start today, right now, and find the only source that can and will bring you everlasting peace, joy, and true happiness. God was not a priority in my life and, as a result, I have struggled to find real meaning, contentment, and purpose. Don't let this happen to you and in your life. Psalm 43:3: "Oh Lord send out your light and your truth and let them lead me."
Once you allow and accept God's love, His grace, and His truth to fill your heart, your life will forever be changed. You will no longer chase after envy, desire, want, or seek material worldly possessions to find true happiness. You will search a life filled with joy, peace, purpose and meaning in the spirit of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
CHAPTER 3
What is Truth
There are essentially two kinds of truth. There is human truth and then there is gospel or divine truth. John 14:6: "I am the way, the truth and the life."
The definition of truth in the dictionary is: what is true in accordance with fact or reality. A fact or belief that is accepted as true. The quality or state of being true.
The question then becomes: are you a true believer in God? For if you are, then you believe that the very words of God are the truth as written in all the scripture of the Holy Bible. John 17:17: "Sanctify them by Your truth, Your word is truth."
In my early years, I simply wasn't understanding or convinced that all the words and stories contained in the reading of scripture during church services were in fact the truth. It then was my imperfect interpretation and lack of knowledge of the scripture that I could not accept what was being said as the truth.
The words of Jesus as spoken 2,000 years ago is as much if not more prevalent today than back then. Matthew 13:13: "Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand."
That, my friends, is where I was all my life and it could be exactly where you are in your life as well.
The parable of the sower best describes how foolish and ignorant I have been. (Matthew 13:19, 20, 21, 22, 23) When anyone hears the word of the Kingdom and does not understand it, the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in the heart. This is the one who received seed by the wayside. But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and when the cares of this world and deceitfulness of riches chokes the word, he becomes unfruitful. But he who receives seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.
Is it possible that right now you are struggling in your life because like me you haven't accepted or been convinced that the word of God is truth? Could it be that your problems, worries, fears, and your regrets in life are because God and His words have not been in your life?
There are many reasons that we aren't accepting God's word as truth, but I think the biggest one is our inability as humans to put faith in something that is unseen. We can read about it, hear about it, but if we can't see it with our own eyes then it somehow just doesn't seem real to us. What we then accept as truth becomes the world that we live in. Our reality then is what can be seen, not what is unseen. Since God is spiritual and beyond our understanding and comprehension, we just simply drift away and live according to our own ways and our own truths. He becomes out of sight, out of mind so to speak.
My defining moment of faith, while driving that day in Wisconsin, was when I felt the presence of God within me. When His grace filled my heart with a joy beyond words and consumed my whole body. It was then I became a true believer of God the Father almighty, creator and maker of all things, seen and unseen.
1 Corinthians 8:6: "There is one God the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live."
For as Christ our Lord said in John 6:63,"It is the Spirit who gives life, the f lesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit and they are life."
My friends, the living laws and commandments of God were made spiritual through faith in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ when He was crucified in the flesh. Jesus died for us so that we could live through Him and for Him in the spirit.
Let this sink into your heart and mind to find a better way of living. John 14:17: "The Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells within you and will be with you."
Make no mistake about it: we as humans exist because of the love, wisdom, knowledge, understanding, and supernatural power of our heavenly Father. God is the source of everything in our world and beyond. He has created all things for His pleasure and for His glory so that we could do His will and fulfill our purpose for Him here on Earth. There is no other truth nor logical explanation.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Finding Calm"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Theodore M. Stuckey.
Excerpted by permission of Thomas Nelson.
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