OR the Lord... Did you - when you became a Christian - mentally give up EVERYTHING that meant most to you - up to HIM? or did you become a Christian thinking you could keep some things to yourself? Otherwise you have not surrendered your life to Him at all
The flesh always has its desires. I discover over and over old things I still cling to and new things I've started clinging to.
Here is a long story:
Back in late March 1986...no, actually it began earlier, in 1979 while I was stationed at Offutt AFB, NE, my first wife left me and our then 9-month-old son Daniel for another man. In the first three years of being a single parent with him, I pleaded with her to return: Letters every day, pictures of our growing son, and praying constantly for the Lord to change her heart and bring her back to us. But that didn't work. In that time, she had left the state, hooked up with yet another guy, and moved to yet another state. After three years I finally filed for divorce...and I still had a hope that when she was served the paperwork, it would stir something in her to come back and maybe I'd have another chance if we met face-to-face.
But she didn't come back for the divorce hearing. It happened that the Sarpy County district judge that handled divorces--Judge Ronald Reagan--was personally opposed to fathers having custody of children. He almost never allowed that to happen in his court. Even in my case, as I sat there before him he told me, "The only reason I'm allowing you to have custody is because his mother is out of the state and I can't order her to take custody. But if she ever returns and wants it, I will give it to her."
So I had that hanging over my head. About a year later, I met the woman who would become my current wife. We married in 1984. Around the same time, my ex-wife did return to the state, and although she never bothered to ask for custody, I quickly granted her the visitation she wanted--desperate not to wind up in Judge Reagan's court over the matter.
Then I received orders to Clark AB, Philippines, in late 1986. My ex-wife decided that since I was proposing to take the boy away for three years, she asked for holiday and summer visitation. Again, I granted it because I feared facing Judge Reagan.
So in early January 1986, I flew from Clark AB to Omaha to pick up my son from his Christmas visitation with his mother...and I was met with an injunction. She had decided to sue for custody, citing that the Philippines was too dangerous for children and my son was afraid to return with me.
"The thing I greatly feared had come upon me." There was nothing I could do at that point but return alone.
Over the next three months, I was engaged with my lawyer building up a case to win the custody battle. I built up a file of depositions from all the base officials, from the command staff to the hospital staff to the American school staff, the commissary, the health and saftey unit, the moral and recreation staff, the American Consulate...I had a dossier of depositions and photographs literally eight inches thick. I had spent thousands of dollars on legal fees, tapped our meager savings completely. And I prayed, prayed, prayed to keep my son.
Then I returned to Omaha in late March 1986, getting there on a Friday afternoon for the hearing that next Monday. My lawyer had two items of bad news. One, he had had a conversation with the judge and determined that the judge's attitude about not granting custody to fathers hadn't changed. He'd also discovered that the mother had hired a psychologist to examine our son and give expert testimony on whether it would be advisable for him to return to the Philippines with me.
My lawyer had contacted the psychologist and gotten him to at least interview me to get a "well rounded" evaluation. The psychologist had agreed...if I paid him a thousand dollars. I couldn't. I was tapped out. I had no money left. So we left that at that.
I spent that Saturday and into Sunday in desperate prayer. I had done all the work, we had the plan. I just needed God to do His part...change the heart of the judge.
On Sunday morning I left my motel room to get a quick breakfast. At the front of the motel was a newspaper dispenser with that Sunday morning's Omaha World-Herald. The main headline read in 1-inch letters:
FIGHTING IN THE PHILIPPINES!
It even had a large picture of Filipinos scuffling with the guards at the main gate of Clark Air Base.
I got back to my room and fell to my knees: "God, what are you doing? Seriously?
Seriously?" I prayed and prayed and prayed. "Let me keep my son!"
Then I heard a voice, an audible male voice, hard and clear but low, from just behind my right hear: "God didn't do what you wanted before, and He's not going to do what you want now."
I was literally knocked completely to the floor by the truth of that voice. God did not change my first wife's heart before, despite years of prayer. And he was not going to change Judge Reagan's heart either. I was enveloped in darkness. I was too heavy to stand up. I was done. I was lost. I was defeated.
I called my wife long distance back in the Philippines and found out from her that it was a strike of the Filipino workers that had begun before I left that had turned into a barricade and a scuffle at the gates, but on base they were okay. I told her about the voice I heard. She said this: "That was the voice of a demon. Don't listen to it. God loves Daniel more than you do. Let go of him and give him to God."
I knew she was right. I got back on my knees and prayed a different prayer: "Lord, I give my son to you. Like Abraham gave up Isaac, I give Daniel to you. And whatever you do, I will continue to praise your name."
In that moment, the room stirred. The motel room had been dark, but suddenly bright light seemed to blast through the windows and through the ceiling. It was like a scene in a movie where someone had been held hostage by terrorists and then suddenly the SWAT team burst into the room. The light whipped around the darkness and flushed it from the room.
I found myself standing. Then I heard another voice behind my right ear, a different voice. It said: "That's what we were waiting to hear."
I said aloud, "What now?"
The same voice said: "Be there...and watch."
I rejoiced the rest of the day, and into the night, and woke up rejoicing that Monday morning, all the way to the Sarpy County Courthouse. I entered the courtroom and my lawyer as well as my "adversaries" were already there--my lawyer had our 8-inch-thick dossier. My ex-wife was there with her lawyer and with the psychologist...and the Sunday Omaha-World Herald.
The judge arrived and the bailiff made his "all rise" announcement. Judge Reagan walked in, but he didn't sit down. He said, "I want to see counsel in my chambers." He pointed to my ex-wife's lawyer and said, "You bring your brief." Then the three of them left the courtroom.
About fifteen minutes later, the two lawyers returned. My lawyer looked at me and said, "We won."
I said, "You didn't even have our paperwork. What happened?"
Late that previous Friday evening, the Nebraska State Supreme Court had handed down a ruling on a custody case legally similar to mine. The Supreme Court had ruled that district court judges could not change long-standing custody simply as a matter of a difference in parental circumstances unless the custodial parent could be shown unfit.
The lawyers hadn't seen the case yet, but Judge Reagan had. Since my ex-wife had no case of my being unfit, despite Judge Reagan's feelings about the matter, his hands were tied.
I took Daniel back with me.
I've obviously thought about those days often since then and pondered all their various aspects. One thing of note was that the crucial State Supreme Court case has initially gone to court even before I was served that injunction. God had, in fact, the entire matter in hand even before it first confronted me. I could have given Daniel to Him from the very beginning.
