We got side swiped! We got T-boned! Call it what you may but something happened. I now know why financial advisers jump out of windows! We care so much for our clients. We never take it for granted that our clients’ money is in our hands! It’s a business of trust and friendship. We rely on investments that are well managed and well protected. When things go wrong and people lose money, it’s like ripping the heart out of our clients as well as ourselves. Without a heart we all die. To have 70 million dollars stolen from an investment from another part of the country was unbelievable. To think my clients would have to go through losing their life savings was too much to bear. I truly wanted to be done. But I love my sweetheart!
The desire to die was like a great winch pulling at my mind. I again sat like a dead man, saying under my breath, “Oh God, Oh God, Oh God…” What else could I say! Then a still small voice, a gentle voice; a kind voice would whisper in my ear, “Jack, I’m here! I Love you!” Again under my breath, “Oh Lord, Oh Lord, Why?” He gently asked if I remembered the story of Saul the Pharisee, who thought he knew so much. The Saul that truly felt it was good to murder Christians, which he did many! I nodded my head very slowly up and down. “Jack do you remember the ‘Holy Shift’ on the road to Damascus? He wrote three quarters of the New Testament Jack! He moved from self-reliance to Christ reliance. He moved from Saul, being all about Saul, to Paul, being all about Christ. No longer self-absorbed but Christ absorbed. He had a ‘Holy shift’. Jack, you are in a ‘Holy Shift’ too!”
Then God showed up again in a way I never thought of. He showed me a packet of carrot seeds in one hand and twenty full grown carrots with the tops still on in the other hand. He put the ripened carrots down. He took the packet of seeds and showed me the picture of beautiful fat orange carrots on the front of the packet. He then proceeded to say, “Jack, if you open up this packet you will not find the large plump carrots like the front shows. The front of the packet is a big promise! If you…then you will enjoy the promise.” He opens up the packet and what falls out are very tiny carrot seeds. Then he says, “These seeds are full of potential and promise! If you notice Jack, they are dried and look dead. In order for a resurrection to happen there must be a death Jack! This ‘Holy Shift’ starts with you dying like these seeds. They are ready to burst out and germinate and become carrots for your dinner today as well as produce dozens and dozens of seeds for future dinners. To be put in the ‘ground all alone with Me’ is the beginning of this ‘Holy Shift’. You’re all alone, quiet, and feeling so abandoned. Then the warmth of My ‘Son’ heats up the soil and the water of My word is poured on the dead seed. The miracle transformation has started and before you know it, out pops a green sprout. Now let’s move forward a couple of months. Jack, what do you see?” “Huge orange carrots”, I responded. Jesus replied, “They became exactly what they were designed to be. That’s what a ‘Holy Shift’ does. It makes you into exactly who you were designed to be?
Again I sat there knowing I’d had a God encounter! My tears came easy. I finally felt that the suicide thoughts I’d been having were deeper than about taking my life. I needed to give up my life 100% and give it to God to do with as He pleased. This was a ‘Holy Shift’. The promises in the scriptures took on new meaning as I looked at the picture on the front of the carrot seed packet. He would say, “My promises are sure and Jack you can depend on Me to transform this situation into beauty.” Now the tears really began to flow. To think God would want me! That He knows what Bev and I are going through, was like salve on a burn.
Again I was encouraged to go on a few more days. That old hymn started to play in my head.
“All to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I freely give.
I will ever love and trust Him. In His presence daily live.
I surrender all! I surrender all! All to Thee my blessed Savior, I surrender all! “
God did show up that day to tell me, He wanted me, for His very own!