Hey, it’s me again. Roscoe.
I thought I’d continue to tell you about what happened to me that led me to become a Christian in Training. Like I said, I continued to come to church. Months went by, prayers were said, hymns were sung, baptisms were conducted. That voice inside of me that had screamed and ranted incessantly during services gradually began to quiet down. But it didn’t go completely away. It just seemed to stop yelling. I continued to question God. I asked: Why? How? What kind of sense does this make? But, I didn’t get an answer. At least not one that I heard.
But I continued to come to church.
I came and I listened. I watched the people around me. I began to see a ‘sincerity of spirit’ that I have never seen before. What looked like genuine praise and worship. Endless hours of toil and labor all for the benefit of other people, but more importantly for the glory of ‘God’. This was new to me.
I grew up a ways down south, I was raised as a baptist but the Church I attended and was baptized in I remember only as a huge bunch of hypocrites. My Dad was a member of that Church, and as he lingered on fighting the cancer that would kill him, not once did the pastor of that Church ever come to our door or call on the phone to talk to him. Nor did any of the Church membership call or visit as I recall. The Church was a huge building, with big stained glass windows and a membership roll over five hundred I bet. There were thick, plush cushions on the pews. The choir wore nice purple robes. Easter Sunday was a fashion parade to rival the red carpet at the Academy Awards. It was not about the resurrection of Jesus. It was all about those people and their fancy clothes. I can remember only two men in that Church that stood out as true Christians. Maybe I will tell you about them someday. But looking back, I don’t think God spent a lot of time in that Church.
It wasn’t too long ago that I listened to a Sunday School lesson on the Holy Spirit. As I understand it, when you accept Jesus Christ into your heart, God leaves the Holy Spirit within you as ‘the Comforter’. Coincidentally, it wasn’t long after this that the preacher spoke on this same topic. The message stuck. It just seemed to make sense. 
I thought about it, and I reflected back on my life since I accepted Christ in 1966.
All of the turning points where my life could have taken a totally different turn. The time I could have gotten busted for ‘Pot’ when returning to the base. The time I fell asleep at the wheel, trying to drive that five hundred mile trip when I was too tired. I woke up to a gravel road, that just happened to start at the sharp curve that I didn’t make. That one phone call to the personnel guy for orders to a new Duty Station. Did I want to go ‘Here?’ or ‘There?’ for my next duty station he asked. Just a simple question. It didn’t take but a couple of seconds to answer. But had I chose ‘there’ I would never have met my wife and without her and her steadfast commitment to the Lord, I wouldn’t be writing to you right now.
Looking back on this, I can see many, many times like this where God had influenced my life and kept me on the ‘Right’ course. Avoiding self destruction and on a path to Him.
This was my first ‘Gift of Knowledge’ from God.