WHO AM I THAT YOU LORD WOULD CONSIDER ME

WHO AM I THAT YOU LORD WOULD CONSIDER ME

Then King David went in and sat before the LORD and said, “Who am I, O LORD God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far?” —I Chronicles 27:16

I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.  They will come in and go out, and find pasture—John 10:9

            Who am I that my Lord would even consider me?  Who am I that my Lord would even want a relationship with me?  Who am I that my Lord would want me to be with Him forever?  Who am I that my Lord has done such great things for me?

            With King David I say, “Who am I, O LORD God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far?”  When I consider that my Father drew me to Jesus (John 6:44) and enabled me to find the Gate, to enter the Gate and to be saved, I am astounded.  He has done so much for me— to save me and to provide for me… to love me.

            Now, after coming through the Gate/Jesus to be saved, may I share/testify Who He is and how wonderful He is!

            Oh, how I lived so selfishly before coming through the Gate.  It was back in February 1979 that our Father drew me to and through the Gate/Jesus.  How patient and kind He has been to me.  How wonderful to be able to serve Him.  Oh, yes, may I tell of the wonderful things He has done for me!

Yes, Dear Father, may this be so by the power of Your Holy Spirit and in the authority of Your Son Jesus.  Be pleased to work in and through me to bring honor and glory to Yourself.  I know that I cannot do one thing that is eternally beneficial without You.  You have promised to be with me to the end of the age and I will take You at Your Word!

 

A LIFE IS CHANGED

By Ted White

 

BEFORE I KNEW JESUS

I was a junior in High School when my grandfather died.  It was the first funeral that I had ever been to and it shook me to the core.  My Grandfather was a mason, working with stone and brick.  I worked with him when I was a teen.  He was a hard, rough man.  He drank hard and smoked a lot.  Unfortunately, he got me started drinking at a young age.  He had been warned by doctors to stop drinking and smoking or he would not live very long because of his emphysema.  He told the doctors he would live like he wanted to.  He did live the life-style he chose, but he also ended up dying as the doctors told him he would.  The last picture I have of him was at the old Hitchcock Hospital when it was in Hanover, NH, tubes running out of his body and a tracheotomy having been established so he could breathe and be attended to.  Tears flooded my eyes when I saw him in that state.  A week later he died.

 

The reality of the finality of death hit me hard at the funeral.  People began filing out after the funeral, but instead of going out the door, they turned to pass the open casket.  As I passed the casket and looked in, there was my lifeless Grandfather’s body and great emotion welled up inside me.  The end of life was not pleasant.

 

This experience of my grandfather’s death caused me to start asking questions.  Did God really exist?  Was there really a heaven, a hell?  What was death like?  Nobody I knew around me could help me with those questions.  It would be another seven years before I found the answers to those questions.

 

Even though I had started asking questions about life and death after my grandfather died, my life-style did not change.  I really had the same philosophy of how to live life as my grandfather had. “I’ll live like I wanted and nobody will tell me any different.”  I drank a lot and often- trying to find some reality in life… or to escape it.  But this behavior drove me from reality into an escapism that could have easily led to my death.  There are many things I have done that would shame me to repeat and there were more than a few close calls with death.  There was this emptiness inside that I just could not fill regardless of what I tried to fill it with.  It was always there, a deadness inside.  Once I thought suicide was the answer, but the attempt failed and nobody knew about it.

 

HOW I CAME TO KNOW JESUS

Living a life-style that I knew could have easily ended in death.   I decided to enter the military, just to get away from the place and people where I had been living.  So, I went into the Seabees of the Navy for a four-year hitch, thinking that I would know what I wanted to do with my life by the time I finished the four-year commitment.  I went in as a heavy equipment operator, something I thought I would enjoy.  Trouble is I brought myself with me.  People and places can change, but if the person fleeing doesn’t change, things remain essentially the same, but just in a different location.

 

The military did help me in the area of discipline and to acquire some valuable skills, but my life-style did not change.  My four-year enlistment passed with much more partying and there were situations that could have led to my death or the death of others.  Then my roommate, Andy, made a decision to follow the Lord.  Well, that was good for him, but I didn’t need that stuff.  Although, when he wasn’t in the room, I would pick up his New Testament that he left on our desk and read it. 

 

 

Andy had invited me to a church picnic on a Saturday at 7pm and I accepted the invitation.  When that Saturday came around, I went to the beach in the morning and partied with some friends, but I planned to keep my word and attend the picnic.  I went back to the barracks, took a nap and got up in time to shower and get ready.  I was at my metal door locker and reached in for a shirt.  I hung it back up saying to myself, “No, I really don’t want to go to this thing.”  A second time I reached for the shirt only to hang it up again and say the same thing.  Then I reached for it a third time, hung it up and sighed.  At that very moment I remembered what I had said before I enlisted, “When I get out, I will know what I will want to do with my life.”  I would be getting out in less than a month and I did not have a clue what I wanted to do with my life.  Immediately after that thought came this impression which I would have told you at the time that it was an audible voice which said, “Turn from your evil ways or be condemned forever… and become a priest.” 

 

This shook me to the core.  I went over, sat on my bed and was literally shaking…  Andy came into the room at that very moment and said he had forgotten something.  From his locker twenty feet away he said, “Ted, what is wrong with you!  You’re white as a ghost!”  (We had been in the Bahamas for 8 months and I spent most of the time operating an asphalt paver and was black from the sun.)  He sat next to my bed and I told him what happened and that I was not going anywhere.  This really shook me up. 

 

Two days later I talked with a pastor that led services on the base.  He shared the gospel with me and revealed a piece to me that I never understood before.  It was about what was really happening at the cross and how it affected me today.  When Jesus died on the cross, He was taking the penalty for my sin as well as the sin of the whole world.  He was dying in my place so I could be forgiven of my sin, come into a relationship with God through Him and become the person the Lord desires me to be.  I trusted the Lord in a back side room of the church while it was getting dark.  The shadows may have hidden the tears that streamed down my face, but they were tears of gratitude and relief.

 

SINCE I CAME TO KNOW JESUS

A short time after I had trusted Jesus my roommate said, “Ted, God could call you into a public speaking ministry.”  I laughed and laughed.  “No way, not me,” I told him.  But that is exactly what the Lord did.  See God is in the transformation business.  He can take a person like me who dropped a class in high school because of having to talk in small groups of people I didn’t know and change him to desire to lead and speak to groups of any size.  That is what He has done.  I have had the great joy to share His love in prisons, nursing homes, at campgrounds, in children’s & Teen groups, at high school graduations, in adult groups, in the U.S., Russia, India, Australia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Guatemala, on tv, on radio and through writing in various venues as well as pastoring a local church.

 

Who would have thought… when I was in high school… that I would be doing what I am doing today.  Surely, I would not have thought it would be so.  (www.new-hopechurch.com) or Ted White on Facebook.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYZw0dfLmLk