The first time I met God (that I remember, mind you) I was about 13 or 14. Some local ministry set up a "trap" of sorts to get people to hear the gospel. It was dubbed "the biggest pizza party in the world" and it was supposed to have all the free pizza you could eat, no strings.
It was held at our local high school, and it is central in our county, easy to reach. That placed was PACKED. Shoulder to shoulder in hallways, company guys carrying pizza in by the tens. They had a band that played that I considered "lame" because I was a metal fan, but i listened to anyway. A guy got up to talk afterward.
Told the simple gospel. Told testimonies of people who were dying and seeing the beyond right before death...heaven and hell. Spoke of Jesus and what he had accomplished by going to the cross. Like I said, simple. What wasn't simple however, was the amount of conviction I was feeling. I won't attempt to describe it, it is just God, really close, urging you to come to him...and because he is perfect and holy, and we are not, at first it feels like two magnets repelling. Like you want to run at first, but somehow know you belong in Him.
I answered the alter call along with about 70 others. Looked like all that money and effort and prayer had payed off! I thank those guys so much for having the heart and vision to bring people, namely me, to Jesus. And although I answered the alter call, I was determined to give my heart to God when I got home where there were no people or distraction. There, in my room, was my first encounter with our Creator.
I got home, took a shower, got in bed and started praying. I told Him he could have all of me. I surrendered everything I was to him. Prayed for forgiveness, and repented of ignoring him. About 20 seconds into the prayer, his presence filled the room. Words can't possibly describe fully the experience...but I'll still try
It was such a feeling of overwhelming peace and love. It was so strong, as if Jesus himself had come to visit me. It felt like warm oil all over me. I didnt know about the lifting of hands in worship, never even seen it before, but that is what I was doing, with tears streaming down my face.
I don't know exactly how long this went on. Maybe an hour, maybe three, but I do remember wondering if I would feel this same peace when I woke up for school the next day.
That same peace that is indescribable was still there when I opened my eyes for school the next day. I got up, looked at my closet door that was completely covered in posters of rock stars, and ripped them all down, to the surprise of my mom. That was a BIG indication that a change had happened in me. Those musicians were my idols.
Everything that day seemed to look beautiful. Simple items like a desk at school, the view out the window, even my classmates I saw in such love and wonder. People saw a change in me, but since I didn't know to stay in prayer and read the word, the high wore off, and within a year I was backslidden.
I soon got into drugs and heavy metal. Learned to play guitar and was in a band. We tried to do any drug we could get our hands on. But being so young, it was mostly weed, alcohol, and the occasional pill.
A couple years later, something happened to me that I now see as a paradigm shift, a moment of destiny that forever changed my life...
Me and a buddy were hanging out with a few mutual friends smoking weed and drinking. We had some pill I don't remember, but the combination of these seemed to make us more aware of each other in communication. Like me and this friend were connected at the brain. We said some sentence that sparked a still-point in perception, so we left the others and went to his room to talk.
We talked for 3 straight hours about how everything connects, people's motives, how everything is a circle and we are all the same spirit, separated by different bodies. It was like wisdom was dropped on us that day. Like things we had in our subcontious were surfacing with the connecting epiphany. We started keeping observation notebooks on us at all times, writing realizations about life and people as they came.
Then we were introduced to LSD. Acid was my drug of choice because it put me where I wanted to be mentally to rediscover the amazement of life. Like you are a genius kid again, playing in a beautiful sandbox of mysteries unfolding. It gave me so much insight, and actually made me love people for who they truly were, because the walls we all put up are transparent to someone on acid who knows how to unlock doors. I didn't take it to party and giggle like some, but to expand my mind as the old cliche goes.
During all this, I felt I was years ahead of my time in wisdom, and I was...but I wasn't seeing the COMPLETE truth.
One night, while tripping acid, I wanted to go farther than I had ever been. Me and a friend were meditating back to back in a barely lit room. Adjacent to this room was a bathroom with a small window that allowed a little light through from the security light outside. It was around midnight. I stared into this window, using it for my portal into the other side. I would start to get deep into it when my buddy would say "dude, you're leaving me". I told him to shut up and not mess up my trip.
I said (outloud, mind you) "whatever spirits are around me that I feel right now, please show me something"...soon the window started making geometrical shapes inside it, and along the bottom, the equation or formula would appear below the shape. I'm horrible at math, but all this seemed to be spot on. The shapes would appear, then close up, and be replaced by another. It kept getting faster and faster with only maybe 2 seconds in between each shape...faster, faster, to where each shape was merely a second behind the previous one. I felt like I was going somewhere. After the mass of shapes stopped, one more shape appeared, and stayed. It was a circle, seemed about an inch thick, and was rotating counter clockwise. I looked into the circle and saw a desert that had spheres floating a foot or two above the ground casting a slight shadow to the right. As I peered into it, the room started getting sucked into the circle slowly, like a drain on a bathtub pulled. When the parts of the room closest to me finally started getting sucked in, I felt my spirit start to come out of my body to that place.
Right then, the alarm went off for us to go to school, and the vision ended abruptly. I was in shock, and couldn't wrap my head around what had just happened. We went to school, still tripping a little, and hadn't slept.
LSD was pretty plentiful back in 93-95, so we were tripping at least once a week, and it was taking a toll on my body. We tripped again that next weekend. We had a house full of about 8 of us all planning to trip together. I had an uneasy feeling soon as I took mine, but tried to ignore it.
Another friend who was saving his til his brother got there wanted to drive to a town 30 minutes away to get some weed to pacify him til he got to take his hit. I was the only one who knew where to get some, so he wanted me to go. I walked outside to his 1970's nova and thought "death car" and did t want to go, but I've always been a person of my word, so I didn't want to disappoint him.
As soon as we started down the road, my uneasy feeling turned into anxiety. I just didn't feel right both in my mind, and in my body. It felt like the left side of my body was growing numb. It was if I were split in half. I had an idea that from the constant acid trips with little time in between to recoup had taken it's toll on my body, and that I was maybe having a stroke.
I kept trying to ignore it, trying to find distraction (you know, that little buddy that helps us neglect the things we shouldn't) anything to take my mind off it, and nothing worked. Then I felt that same presence I felt the weekend before in the car. I felt them circling the car, as if they were back to claim their reward.
This freaked me out and I silently prayed, "God, please let me live, I won't trip acid ever again" all the while rationalizing "well, I can still smoke weed, that isn't as bad" then God answered me louder than I have ever heard him since and said
"WHY should I let YOU LIVE??? Why should I let you live, when all you have done is live for yourself?"
That voice was so strong, clear, and precise. I KNEW it was God. It startled me that he answered me so loud and clear, because I wasn't expecting an answer, just mercy to live.
Immediately I said, "take me to the hospital." my friend said "WHAT??? They are gonna take one look at you and know you are high, and they are gonna hound me with questions" I said "I don't care, take me to the hospital"
After a few attempts at changing my mind, telling me I was just tripping too hard, he reluctantly agreed.
We pulled into the hospital parking lot, and I got out, walked in to the admittance desk and said "my heart feels funny"
"what do you mean your heart feels funny?"
"I don't know, it just feels funny"
I looked her in the face, and her face started to melt. I quickly looked to the floor to change visual landscape, and it started to twist like a barber shop pole. Then I realized I didn't want to be in a hospital with people sticking needles in me, and said nevermind.
Are you sure??
Yeah, nevermind.
I walked back outside and got back into the car. We barely got down the drive to the highway when the feeling returned.
"take me back"
"WHAT???"
Haha, looking back, I can see how mad that would have made me. He took me back and I paced beside the car battling the choices before me. Do I get back in the car and feel that feeling, maybe die in a car wreck...or do I admit myself into this LOCAL hospital and risk being found out by my family that I freaked out on drugs. Then, logic tugged my shirt tail and offered "hey, if that woman thought you were on drugs and is now looking at you pace in this parking lot, she has probably called the cops"
I got back in the car and we started driving down the road. Same feeling returned, and this time, I gave up and prayed
"God, I give it all to you. Everything I am, my will, my life is yours"
Right then, that presence I felt back when I was 14 or so started at my feet, and filled me up to my head. That same peace, love, that same embrace revisited me, and I suddenly remembered that night in my room. My acid trip, along with that stroke/anxiety feeling left me instantly. I had my head buried in my hands and when I looked up I said, "God does exist Scotty" he just smiled and nodded.
I got back and told my other close friend "my war with God is over"
I soon met a girl in school who I started dating and going to church with. This church taught that God wanted a personal relationship deeper than any parent or lover could provide, and to stay in prayer and the word. I kept going consistently, and found a love like none other I've ever known
Cont...
It was held at our local high school, and it is central in our county, easy to reach. That placed was PACKED. Shoulder to shoulder in hallways, company guys carrying pizza in by the tens. They had a band that played that I considered "lame" because I was a metal fan, but i listened to anyway. A guy got up to talk afterward.
Told the simple gospel. Told testimonies of people who were dying and seeing the beyond right before death...heaven and hell. Spoke of Jesus and what he had accomplished by going to the cross. Like I said, simple. What wasn't simple however, was the amount of conviction I was feeling. I won't attempt to describe it, it is just God, really close, urging you to come to him...and because he is perfect and holy, and we are not, at first it feels like two magnets repelling. Like you want to run at first, but somehow know you belong in Him.
I answered the alter call along with about 70 others. Looked like all that money and effort and prayer had payed off! I thank those guys so much for having the heart and vision to bring people, namely me, to Jesus. And although I answered the alter call, I was determined to give my heart to God when I got home where there were no people or distraction. There, in my room, was my first encounter with our Creator.
I got home, took a shower, got in bed and started praying. I told Him he could have all of me. I surrendered everything I was to him. Prayed for forgiveness, and repented of ignoring him. About 20 seconds into the prayer, his presence filled the room. Words can't possibly describe fully the experience...but I'll still try
It was such a feeling of overwhelming peace and love. It was so strong, as if Jesus himself had come to visit me. It felt like warm oil all over me. I didnt know about the lifting of hands in worship, never even seen it before, but that is what I was doing, with tears streaming down my face.
I don't know exactly how long this went on. Maybe an hour, maybe three, but I do remember wondering if I would feel this same peace when I woke up for school the next day.
That same peace that is indescribable was still there when I opened my eyes for school the next day. I got up, looked at my closet door that was completely covered in posters of rock stars, and ripped them all down, to the surprise of my mom. That was a BIG indication that a change had happened in me. Those musicians were my idols.
Everything that day seemed to look beautiful. Simple items like a desk at school, the view out the window, even my classmates I saw in such love and wonder. People saw a change in me, but since I didn't know to stay in prayer and read the word, the high wore off, and within a year I was backslidden.
I soon got into drugs and heavy metal. Learned to play guitar and was in a band. We tried to do any drug we could get our hands on. But being so young, it was mostly weed, alcohol, and the occasional pill.
A couple years later, something happened to me that I now see as a paradigm shift, a moment of destiny that forever changed my life...
Me and a buddy were hanging out with a few mutual friends smoking weed and drinking. We had some pill I don't remember, but the combination of these seemed to make us more aware of each other in communication. Like me and this friend were connected at the brain. We said some sentence that sparked a still-point in perception, so we left the others and went to his room to talk.
We talked for 3 straight hours about how everything connects, people's motives, how everything is a circle and we are all the same spirit, separated by different bodies. It was like wisdom was dropped on us that day. Like things we had in our subcontious were surfacing with the connecting epiphany. We started keeping observation notebooks on us at all times, writing realizations about life and people as they came.
Then we were introduced to LSD. Acid was my drug of choice because it put me where I wanted to be mentally to rediscover the amazement of life. Like you are a genius kid again, playing in a beautiful sandbox of mysteries unfolding. It gave me so much insight, and actually made me love people for who they truly were, because the walls we all put up are transparent to someone on acid who knows how to unlock doors. I didn't take it to party and giggle like some, but to expand my mind as the old cliche goes.
During all this, I felt I was years ahead of my time in wisdom, and I was...but I wasn't seeing the COMPLETE truth.
One night, while tripping acid, I wanted to go farther than I had ever been. Me and a friend were meditating back to back in a barely lit room. Adjacent to this room was a bathroom with a small window that allowed a little light through from the security light outside. It was around midnight. I stared into this window, using it for my portal into the other side. I would start to get deep into it when my buddy would say "dude, you're leaving me". I told him to shut up and not mess up my trip.
I said (outloud, mind you) "whatever spirits are around me that I feel right now, please show me something"...soon the window started making geometrical shapes inside it, and along the bottom, the equation or formula would appear below the shape. I'm horrible at math, but all this seemed to be spot on. The shapes would appear, then close up, and be replaced by another. It kept getting faster and faster with only maybe 2 seconds in between each shape...faster, faster, to where each shape was merely a second behind the previous one. I felt like I was going somewhere. After the mass of shapes stopped, one more shape appeared, and stayed. It was a circle, seemed about an inch thick, and was rotating counter clockwise. I looked into the circle and saw a desert that had spheres floating a foot or two above the ground casting a slight shadow to the right. As I peered into it, the room started getting sucked into the circle slowly, like a drain on a bathtub pulled. When the parts of the room closest to me finally started getting sucked in, I felt my spirit start to come out of my body to that place.
Right then, the alarm went off for us to go to school, and the vision ended abruptly. I was in shock, and couldn't wrap my head around what had just happened. We went to school, still tripping a little, and hadn't slept.
LSD was pretty plentiful back in 93-95, so we were tripping at least once a week, and it was taking a toll on my body. We tripped again that next weekend. We had a house full of about 8 of us all planning to trip together. I had an uneasy feeling soon as I took mine, but tried to ignore it.
Another friend who was saving his til his brother got there wanted to drive to a town 30 minutes away to get some weed to pacify him til he got to take his hit. I was the only one who knew where to get some, so he wanted me to go. I walked outside to his 1970's nova and thought "death car" and did t want to go, but I've always been a person of my word, so I didn't want to disappoint him.
As soon as we started down the road, my uneasy feeling turned into anxiety. I just didn't feel right both in my mind, and in my body. It felt like the left side of my body was growing numb. It was if I were split in half. I had an idea that from the constant acid trips with little time in between to recoup had taken it's toll on my body, and that I was maybe having a stroke.
I kept trying to ignore it, trying to find distraction (you know, that little buddy that helps us neglect the things we shouldn't) anything to take my mind off it, and nothing worked. Then I felt that same presence I felt the weekend before in the car. I felt them circling the car, as if they were back to claim their reward.
This freaked me out and I silently prayed, "God, please let me live, I won't trip acid ever again" all the while rationalizing "well, I can still smoke weed, that isn't as bad" then God answered me louder than I have ever heard him since and said
"WHY should I let YOU LIVE??? Why should I let you live, when all you have done is live for yourself?"
That voice was so strong, clear, and precise. I KNEW it was God. It startled me that he answered me so loud and clear, because I wasn't expecting an answer, just mercy to live.
Immediately I said, "take me to the hospital." my friend said "WHAT??? They are gonna take one look at you and know you are high, and they are gonna hound me with questions" I said "I don't care, take me to the hospital"
After a few attempts at changing my mind, telling me I was just tripping too hard, he reluctantly agreed.
We pulled into the hospital parking lot, and I got out, walked in to the admittance desk and said "my heart feels funny"
"what do you mean your heart feels funny?"
"I don't know, it just feels funny"
I looked her in the face, and her face started to melt. I quickly looked to the floor to change visual landscape, and it started to twist like a barber shop pole. Then I realized I didn't want to be in a hospital with people sticking needles in me, and said nevermind.
Are you sure??
Yeah, nevermind.
I walked back outside and got back into the car. We barely got down the drive to the highway when the feeling returned.
"take me back"
"WHAT???"
Haha, looking back, I can see how mad that would have made me. He took me back and I paced beside the car battling the choices before me. Do I get back in the car and feel that feeling, maybe die in a car wreck...or do I admit myself into this LOCAL hospital and risk being found out by my family that I freaked out on drugs. Then, logic tugged my shirt tail and offered "hey, if that woman thought you were on drugs and is now looking at you pace in this parking lot, she has probably called the cops"
I got back in the car and we started driving down the road. Same feeling returned, and this time, I gave up and prayed
"God, I give it all to you. Everything I am, my will, my life is yours"
Right then, that presence I felt back when I was 14 or so started at my feet, and filled me up to my head. That same peace, love, that same embrace revisited me, and I suddenly remembered that night in my room. My acid trip, along with that stroke/anxiety feeling left me instantly. I had my head buried in my hands and when I looked up I said, "God does exist Scotty" he just smiled and nodded.
I got back and told my other close friend "my war with God is over"
I soon met a girl in school who I started dating and going to church with. This church taught that God wanted a personal relationship deeper than any parent or lover could provide, and to stay in prayer and the word. I kept going consistently, and found a love like none other I've ever known
Cont...
Last edited:
