As presented to the Rochester Chapter of the Christian Motorcycle Association, November 2012
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Against all odds I’m here tonight to testify to you about
the power of God working in a man’s life.
When I was born, I came out of the chute a blue baby. Legend has it that the cord was wrapped around my neck. But after three days I was still messed up and they had to yank one of my kidneys out to save me. And that’s how it’s gone ever since – it’s like satan has been trying to take me out from day 1. At 7 I went thru a storm door head first, by God’s grace I put my arm in front of my face and collected 47 stitches out of the deal. At 15 I was sleeping in a campground at Watkins Glen for a race and got run over by a truck. Broke my leg, nose and cheekbone and collected a bunch more stitches. I got my first real motorcycle at 17, a rust and flat black 46 Indian Chief. But by 20 I was told if I wanted to prospect, I’d have to get a REAL motorcycle and start coming around. And that was it – I never really fit in to any peer group in school. I wasn’t a hippie but I liked to smoke their weed and hash. I didn’t connect with the jocks or the honor students. I got along ok with the greasers but they didn’t ride bikes. I finally found a bunch of guys where I fit in – we were all the outcasts of society – rebels with a cause – to put down and reject the very society that had cast us out. At 20 I was prospecting and went to Springfield Massachusets to sell my Indian. When I got back in town I hadn’t slept for 2 days and my body was craving sleep. I stopped by the clubhouse and was told that we were going on a run to the Webster dumps, to saddle up and get in formation. By that night I was falling asleep on my feet and a member told me “when you see me go to my bike, don’t say anything to anybody just get on your motorcycle and follow me.” We rode down Bay road and down Creek st. I shoulda known better but I raced him into the S turns on creek st. Well I won the battle but I lost the war. On the right turn my pipes were scraping and throwing up a wake of sparks. When I took the left, my primary cover hit and lifted the rear wheel off the ground. I planted my foot like I was riding a dirt bike and brought the ol girl back up. I veered off the road and hit a 4x 4mailbox post with 4 boxes on it and then hit a telephone pole with my right foot being the connecting point between my 55 mph Harley and a pole that just wasn’t budging. Once again God spared my life. We got into 3 brawls where guns were pulled, but never fired. Up in Old Orchard Beach Maine we were there for a funeral of a member and got into a brawl with another club. It was 2 in the afternoon and I was already so drunk I passed out on a bench outside a bar. All of a sudden I heard like a stampede of horsemen and somebody shook me and said that someone just pistol whipped one of our people. I said just point him out, he’s mine. I charged him full tilt boogie, not thinking clearly that this guy is packing and has already pulled it once. Well he pulled out the pistol, pointed it at my chest and squeezed – I put on the brakes, but nothing happened. God had intervened yet again. I hit a deer on my motorcycle going about 65, riding with consummate tough guy Charlie Scott. I can remember sliding down the road and seeing something out of the corner of my eye, I thought I was gonna hit another telephone pole but I looked over and it was the deer – I coulda reached out and touched it with my right hand. Then I looked behind me and there was my bike all sliding down the road at the same speed. Charlie turned around and I just laid on the ground playin possum. He nudged me with his boot and said You ok? And I opened my eyes, got up and said “it takes one tough son of a pup to hit a deer and get up and walk away from it.” I never once acknowledged that God had intervened once again and spared my life. One night I was partying with a member and he told me how he had read the Bible. I said why would you do that? He said the book’s been around for centuries and I had to see what it said. I said well what’s it say? He’s like you gotta read it for yourself . I replied “Yeah like that’s ever gonna happen.” I got out of the club in good standings when I was still in my 20’s but by 30 there was this constant gnawing that this guy had read the Bible and I hadn’t. I just had to pick up that book and read it to see what it said. I was reading a study Bible and came to the part where Jesus asked His disciples who the crowds said He was. And they said the prophet or John the Baptist come back to life. And He said “who do you say I am?.” And Peter answered and said “You are the Christ, the Messiah the Son of the Most High God. Well this book I was reading said who do YOU say Jesus is? Well I knew the answer to that – you see I had head knowledge – I said well he’s the Son of God. Then the book asked the toughest question I had ever read: “What are you gonna do about it?” You see there’s 18 inches between heaven and hell. There’s knowing about God and knowing God. I had head knowledge but my heart was far from God. I was terrified I knew what He wanted – total surrender – but I wanted one toe in the kingdom and the rest in the world. I wanted to be saved in case I got shot or in a bad motorcycle accident, but I wanted to call the shots in my life. I didn’t want Him Lord of my life, just Savior thank You very much. |
Eventually I gave in and let him be King. I wont tell you I never looked back cause I have. – and way too many times. I now realize I’m just a lost sheep without Him and He’s the Good Shepherd.
When my wife saw me reading the Bible she said “what are you doing with that book?” I said “I’ve gotta see what it says.” She said “that’s BS.” “Why do you say that?” I asked her. She said “because it talks about forgiveness. And I will never, ever, ever, ever forgive my brother for what he did to me.” You see her brother had raped her from the time she was 4 until she was 13. He would sometimes come in for her little sister and Pam would say “you don’t touch her you take me instead. By the time Pam was 11 her little sister died at age 7. Her mom started drinking a quart of vodka a day to kill the pain. Her father would beat his wife for the drinking and then he would turn on Pam and beat her and say to his wife “look what you made me do.” So she told me she would never forgive her father for that matter. I said look, I can’t tell you what to do, but here Jesus says if we don’t forgive we won’t be forgiven. “That’s BS!” was her response. You see I got her a shirt back in the day that said EVIL WICKED MEAN and NASTY. And she wore it with great pride. “Check it out!” she would say. Pam gave her life to the Lord on a couple occasions but you never saw much fruit in her life, you basically saw Evil, Wicked, Mean & Nasty. When Pam was in her early 40’s she got diagnosed with a rare brain disease and the prognosis said death in 2 to 10 years. There’s no way of slowing or stopping the illness. She recommitted her life to the Lord and tried to read the Bible again. But she said it was like reading a foreign language. You see you need the Holy Spirit in your heart to interpret what the Holy Spirit wrote. Meanwhile my 2 daughters were devastated by her illness. She was the mama bear and they were her precious cubs. Don’t nobody wanna mess with her cubs or here comes Evil, Wicked, Mean & Nasty all over you like white on rice. Without going into graphic detail, they were reacting in very dangerous and harmful ways. I came close to losing them more than once. Now thru this I had been reading a book called Prison to Praise. It’s all about having constant joy by praising God for all things and watching Him work all things for good. Easy concept to understand but hard to put into practice. And there I am riding down 104 with both my precious babies heading for the hospital and the Lord speaks to my heart “are you gonna thank me for this?” And I said “you want me to thank you for this? That’s a pretty tall order Lord.” And He said “I thought we said ALL things.” And I said “you’re right Lord, that’s the deal.” And so I started thanking Him and praising Him FOR my kids hurting themselves and FOR my wife’s illness. And I said “I don’t like it Lord and I don’t understand it but I’m gonna be obedient to you and thank you in ALL things. (1 thess 5:16-18.) Well my wife continued to go down hill. She couldn’t continue to read to murder mysteries she enjoyed: big, fat 500 page novels that she could get thru in a week. She couldn’t remember where she left off. But she could read the Bible. In fact it became the only book she could read. And she would ask me questions about the Bible and the kingdom of God and they were deep. Somehow the word of God was touching her but she couldn’t even tell you what she had just read. Well after about 2 months of her reading nothing but the Bible and me praising God for ALL things she came to me out of the blue one day – I never pressured her or coerced her – and she said to me “will you pray with me to forgive my brother?” Well people I said right there “I will see this woman in glory.” Because that’s fruit! What she was completely powerless to do on her own, the Holy Spirit empowered her to do, just by reading the word of God. You see, whoever you are and wherever you’ve come from and whatever you’ve done, God loves you. Read John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” I challenge you to read the Bible and pray that God would speak to you as you do and He will touch your heart and change your life from within. |