From sickness to health
David Robinson
21/8/2001
The day the healer set me free....
It started on a Saturday morning for me, what began as a typical morning as a landscaper turned into a second chance for someone who never cared about God. I had completed a landscape project that week and had gone round for payment, my client had always made known his beliefs and I had no problem with that as I believed that was his right. Me,I couldnt see what all the fuss was about I mean to say God was good wasn't he? this being so hell could not be real. It was just a few weeks after the day my son Glenn came and sat down in front of the fire in our home. I watched him gaze into the dying embers raking them over now and again deep in thought. I had said 'whats wrong son? he stopped what he was doing and looked at me before saying 'Dad,I have become a Christian' For some reason I said 'well done son I wish I had the courage to do the same'
It had been left at that, perhaps both of us felt too embarrassed to continue, but it began a series of events that changed my life forever.
Sorry for digressing, let me return to that Saturday morning, this dear man had given me the cheque and just after that he spoke asking me a question, 'David where will you be a thousand years from today?' I was totally stumped, totally without an answer. If he had began a discussion on religion I could have held my own as I always enjoyed such things; but no this man in wisdom and by the prompting of the Holy Spirit merely asked a question which left me wondering. As I drove home cheque in my pocket, this question churned around in my mind, as I had lunch it ate away at me, and for days to come it was enacted in every dream and in every moment. As the days past the question still unanswered, began to be set aside as life continued in its usual busy way.
However all that was about to change forever....
Part 2 of my life had it's beginnings on a friday evening around 7.30, I was trying to be a builder instead of a landscaper, doing something on my own to save time and money. I had decided to create a window opening on the second floor of a 100-year-old barn which we were turning into a home for Glenn my son. As I worked with too much haste thinking to myself this will help speed things up for the builders little did I realize that my secure world was about to fall round me.
Minutes after I started removing stone after stone the wall collapsed onto my left foot and leg. I was in no pain but I realized that I was badly injured and in serious difficulties. To cut this story a little shorter I found myself in hospital surrounded by concerned doctors and a few nurses. The prognosis was not good, '6 months to heal and 6 months or so of physiotherapy before you will get back to work' I joked and said, 'just bandage it up so that I can get back to work tomorrow' the doctor turned back and spoke 'you do that and you will lose it'.
I spent the next few days in dread and fear, fear of loosing my business, fear of loosing our home and our small farm.
Monday came and my son who had been in Scotland came home to see how I was, he never asked me how I was, he just asked had I a bible? 'no' I replied. The only time I had ever handled one was when I sat in hotel rooms bored enough to read a Gideon bible. He ran out of the room and came back moments later with one which he had opened as he ran back.
Read that, he said, 'read it out loud' pointing to verse 24 in First Peter chapter 2, I began uneasily to read it aloud, 'who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we being dead to sins should live unto righteousness'. I almost stopped at this point to ask what does this mean to me? but the rest of the verse caught my eye, ' by whose stripes you ''were'' healed' This is stupid, I said to Glenn who just smiled and said, 'read it again dad' so again this old man listened and took heed to his son.
When I had finished I knew one thing, God did not lie, so later that evening as a precious man and his family prayed for me I was expecting a miracle. The first thing that stunned me was that these people prayed in earnest, with passion and love and yet they had never met me.
Within minutes I knew I was healed, I didn't look it, I didn't even feel it but something inside me knew it.....
The following morning as the doctors removed the plaster and the bandages they were astounded to find the hole gone as though it had never been there and more so when they saw that the broken bones were completely restored.
Minutes later I walked out of the hospital and back to work without a thought for the one who healed me.
You would think that a miracle would have changed me but not this guy I needed more than a miracle, I needed changed....
Surely church would change me?
Hell never meant anything to me, after all that was a place where murderers and rapists went not good people. I had never done anyone any harm except myself that is with my excessive boozing and smoking. Hell? why should that bother me? And yet for the rest of the week that followed my healing every sin I ever committed was before my face. I found myself weeping even when I was watching a comedy on the telivision, I thought I was going crazy as my once secure world suffered earthquake after earthquake.
Sunday came and I dressed for church thinking that I might find the answers there but the singing was boring and reminded me why church did not figure in my weekly itinery.
I looked around and I saw people who were on the face of it suffering more than me, no smiles, no joy, then came time for communion and the minister called us forward. As the queue passed by the end of the pew where I was sitting I got up to walk forward and suddenly felt a hand between my shoulder blades. I looked around and there was no one near enough to touch me so I sat back down wondering at the strange happening, in a moment I knew why the hand had touched me, I knew that I had no right to take communion with someone I never really knew!!. I began to weep again and getting to my feet in embarrassment ran out followed by the eyes of those around me....
The newspapers that had the answers....
And so part three of my life began, a Sunday morning which had brought no answers, a waste of time and yet, what was that hand print all about? I could still feel it as I drove home. I stopped off for the Sunday papers and later as I settled down after lunch began to engross myself in the usual rubbish, which is called news. At my side was old faithful, my daily bottle of Bacardii and a clean glass, as I turned the last page of the News of the World it stared at me, the words 'Born Again' blazed across the page in letters 2 inches high. It was a play on the name of Bejorn Borg the tennis player, in frustration I threw it aside and picked up the Sunday People. As I turned the pages I came to a full page article by Billy Graham the Evangelist, I carefully picked my way through the words until I came to the last paragraph which read; 'Behold I stand at the door and knock, if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and sup with him and he with me' It was out of the bible, the last book called Revelation chapter 3 verse 20. I stared at it in unbelief as it unfolded its truth to me, the only one who ever really loved me, the only one who ever really cared for me, was the only person I had never invited into our home never mind my life.
The door of the lounge opened at 4.15 that afternoon and suddenly I knew what I had to do as I saw the handle turn, 'I had to open the door because the handle was on my side' this Jesus who died in my place because of my sin had been waiting all these years to be asked into my life.
It was Glenn who came in and I blurted out asking him to take me to a meeting that night, we ended up at the local town hall where a gospel meeting was taking place.
I never heard the singing nor the preaching as I sat weeping by now uncontrollably, I though I was going mad, I just could not get any peace. At approximately 7.45 that night I heard the minister ask, ' is there someone here tonight that would like to invite Christ to be their saviour? Before I knew what I was doing both hands shot up in the air in reply and immediately I felt a huge weight slide off my shoulders. It was a though someone had dragged all my sin off my shoulders and dropped it to the floor and I was free... free of every sin I had ever committed in my life, forgiven by Almighty God and free!!
And so began the greatest adventure of my life...
Did I say adventure? how can a word with just 9 letters in it explain the joy of being free, of not having to pretent to be someone else, of knowing that God himself is saying of you 'this is my son'. I had never known such peace, such contentment, I thought that booze killed the pain of life but it only dulled it for a moment, I though I knew what love was but it was a shallow as I was.
Sin, my sin in all its ugliness was paid for in full not by me but by God's innocent Son Jesus Christ. Church had never told me that, it merely reminded me of my sin, God showed me what he did with it instead!!!
Adventure? it began that evening as I finished reading the small booklet on Gods salvation which had been given me, in it was a passage of scripture where Christ commanded that 'this Gospel this good news be preached to every creature'
I headed for the door and the dog pen reasoning with myself that they were creatures just as I was, foolish? I didn't care as I sat down in front of my first audience and told them of Christ who had died for me. They sat quiet staring intently at this nutter who spoke softly to them for the first time. They looked at me almost in unbelief because normally I would have been shouting at them or kicking them out of my way. My first sermon went down well, okay they may not have clapped their paws but hey, they wagged their tails as I spoke.
Have I ever lost the joy? not once, not even for a moment, is life easier did all my problems dissapear? no, but I do have someone I can share them with, someone who has the answers to life's seemingly endless trials. Would I change my mind? no my friends I was out of mind for 42 years without Christ now i'm in a place that I have always wanted to be with a future I have always dreamed of.
Perhaps today you too are wondering what life is all about? well I can only advise you to seek the Lord of life because he alone has the answers.
Life starts when you simply open the door and invite Christ Jesus to be your Lord and saviour, go on, do it you know it makes sense.