Immanuel Moments

Judged!
In 1986, I had got back together with a young lady that I had dated off and on over the past ten years. While I cannot speak for her, I know at that time in my life I loved this young lady deeply. At ages 26 and 22, we wanted to spend time together like most adult couples that are in love do. We wanted to be intimate. The only problem was we were not in the financial position of getting married and living on our own. At the time I was out of work and trying to go back to school, so I was either stuck living at home or in the dorm. She was still stuck at her parents’ house. It was a tough situation.
While I was in school, we found creative ways to be together. We would either meet in the town she worked or the town I went to school, and sleep at an area motel. In order to pull this off, we had to tell lies to all parties involved. While I lived in the dorms, I would check out and tell the Resident Parent that I was heading back to my home town for the night and would be back the next day. Hopefully, if my parents called, no one would figure things out, but would take a message and I would call them when I came in. My story would be that I was out with a few friends and it was late when I got in. My lady friend would tell her parents that she was staying with a friend and would be home the next day. This worked well for several months.
In January of 1987, I began having trouble with my arm. I found myself either dropping things that I should not drop or waking up in the night and my arm would be too numb to move. After going to the doctor and having things checked out, the diagnosis was called a Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. This occurs when the arteries and nerves running to the arm become pinched between the top rib and the collarbone. Turns out I was slowly killing off my only arm. The procedure used to correct the problem was known as a Rib Re-section. In this surgery they would go in by the collarbone, remove the top rib and any muscle tissue that was squeezing on the arteries and nerves, thus relieving the pressure. The procedure was a success, but I had to quit school for awhile, and lost any alibis or ways of getting together with my lady friend.
After several weeks of not being together, my friend and I decided that we needed to be alone for the night. We decided to meet at a motel in Tulsa just a few blocks from where she worked. While she had an alibi, I did not. It was hard to do, but I went against everything I had been taught, even by a father who had no religious beliefs but was a moral person. I went up to my Christian mother, looked her in the eye, and said, "I am going to Tulsa to spend the night with my friend. I'll be back tomorrow morning." I could tell by the look in her eye that she was hurt and angry all at once. She never raised her voice but quietly said, "You're unsaved father would not even do something like this." While I did not understand her remark until later in life, I simply said, "I'm not my father." I got in my truck and drove away.
Never tell your Christian mother that you are going to spend the night in a motel with your girlfriend. A good Christian mother never screams or rants at you, she simply prays for you. She gets alone with God and talks to Him about you. She tells Him how bad you are and how you are doing harmful things. She agrees with Him that a soul bent on living like this deserves hell, but she also reminds Him that He takes no delight in the death of the wicked, but desires that all men come to a knowledge of the truth. She reminds God that His Son, Jesus, came to seek and to save sinners, and her son needed saving.
It takes 45 minutes to drive from my mother's house to the motel in Tulsa. I pulled up to the motel, checked in, got the key, and found the room. My friend pulled up right as I was going up to the door. We unlocked the door, turned on the light, and she went in first. Just as we stepped in the door there was a writing table to the left and on the table was a Bible. That Bible was left open. She looked down at the pages, pointed to a place on the page, laughed and said, "I don't believe that." I looked down where she had pointed, read the words, and for a moment my blood ran cold and my heart shuddered. But I closed the Bible, put my bag on top of the book as if to hide it from view, and went about our sinful evening.
About four o'clock in the morning I woke up. I looked around the dimly lit room. I saw my friend sleeping next to me. I looked over and saw my bag sitting on the desk. I remembered what was under the bag. As I lay there looking at my friend and my surroundings, I softly whispered, "What in the world am I doing here?"
Within the next hour we were both up and getting dressed because she had to be at work by 6:30. We gathered our stuff and once again I saw the Bible laying there. We stepped outside and were saying our goodbyes with plans for that evening. She looked at me and asked if I was all right. Naturally I said I was fine. She shook her head no and said, "Something is wrong. I can tell by your eyes. Your eyes look worried, even scared. What's wrong?" After a few minutes of urging, I convinced her I was fine and she drove away.
I got in my truck and sat there for a few minutes. I was not ok. I was scared. I was worried. I was a nervous wreck. You see, within the 45 minutes it took to drive from my mother's presence to that motel, God had moved on her behalf. He prepared a room, a table, and an open Bible to bring me to a knowledge of His truth, as painful as it may be. That night, the Bible was not left open to passage of scripture talking about love, or mercy, or grace. It was a verse about divine judgement. The words on the page my friend laughed at, yet made my blood run cold, said, "Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous” (Hebrews 13:4). That night I stood in judgement. The next few weeks were a whirlwind of confusion and bad decisions. I did things that drove my friend away. I was all alone and standing in judgement. Little did I know at that time, God was in the process of bringing my sinful world to an end and to walk me into the glorious life He had prepared for me. I later learned that God's judgement is not for the purpose of destruction, but rather it is redemptive in it's nature as it brings us to the end of ourselves, causing us to cry out to Him. And when we cry out .... He answers.
One thing to learn from this experience is that God still judges sin. He still holds people accountable for their actions. The beautiful thing is, however, He will not let them go into eternity lost without giving them every opportunity to see the light. Remember, God takes no delight in the death of the wicked, but rather that they should turn from their ways and live (Ezekiel 18:23). He desires that all men come to a knowledge of His truth and the gift of eternal life and He will go to great lengths to reach that person.
A second thing we can learn from this experience is that when a lost loved is at their worst, God is at His best. When that person is determined to go the pigpens of life, God will meet them there. He will be waiting for them with waiting arms. Pray for them. Pray His will over them. Trust Him. He can do amazing things when we let Him.