Dervish Dancing

18.  Dervish Dancing

 

“When in doubt ... dance!”[104]

 

 “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think

I have ended up where I needed to be.”[105]

 

“A grandfather was walking through his yard when he heard his granddaughter repeating the alphabet in a tone of voice that sounded like a prayer.  He asked her what she was doing.  The little girl explained: 

“I’m praying, but I can’t think of exactly the right words, so I’m just saying all the letters, and God will put them together for me, because He knows what I’m thinking.”[106]

 

Vicki and I were watching Brandon implode.  (He was putting himself in danger when he partied.  He was a high school graduate, just about to turn nineteen, and pretty aimless at the time.)  Our prayers became desperate.  We asked God to help us, and protect our eldest son.

God answered prayer on Sunday, September 14, 1997, and Vicki wrote about the joy that filled her soul.  After praying so desperately for weeks and months and yes, years, we saw Brandon soften.

What an incredible day!  After five years of rebellion Brandon reached out to God, and he did it in a way only he could do it.  During the worship service a song about God’s peace touched his heart.  He jumped over the chairs in front of him and ran to the altar area!  You never saw such weeping and hugging!  Nobody cared about the spectacle.  Everyone was so happy for Brandon, and for us.  His girlfriend Blair also came forward.  They both said they wanted peace.  They were tired of the consequences of making selfish decisions that hurt themselves and everyone around them.

Wayne Watkins prayed with Brandon and asked him to make a promise – to meet Wayne for a while so that what was happening this morning would stick.  Wayne and Brandon have such similar stories/backgrounds.  I believe he’ll do much to help Brandon.

My heart is so full and so happy.  Lowell and I have been fasting and praying for 2 weeks for several things:  (1) that God would bring the lost into His Kingdom through Trinity (including Brandon), (2) that He would bring personal holiness and purity into our lives as we humble ourselves before Him, and (3) that He would show His power through signs and wonders in our services.

Just this week I had prayed that God would remove the “blinders from Brandon’s eyes, destroy the hold the enemy had on his life, and set him free from his bondage.  Satan has no claim on Brandon!  In fact, when he was a child WE claimed him for God.

I had asked God to do these things this year – 1997 – and I really believed that He would.  I HAD NO IDEA it would be THIS WEEK!  God is so faithful, and gracious.

Brandon came home and asked for a Bible.  I gave him mine.

 

One thing we learned about prayer during those days of confusing heartache is that it was never supposed to be a monologue.  God prefers a dialogue.  For many of us, maybe most, we do all the talking.  I think most people see prayer as their chance to vent, or ask for something, and that’s it.  Not many people wait around and ask, “So, Father God … do You have anything You want to say?”

When there is chaos you better make listening a part of praying. 

While we were rejoicing over Brandon’s experience Vicki and I were also asking God for direction and wisdom.  We believed Brandon was vulnerable to discouragement; we wanted to be prepared should he become so.  For that reason we were doing our best to listen for God’s insights.

It wasn’t long before Brandon wasn’t hanging out with Wayne as he had promised.  He began to come home late.  Soon he didn’t come home for days.

The weariness returned.  We were bone tired of all the drama – the late night episodes, the disturbed weekends, and the school conferences.  It was then that God clearly spoke to us, and what we were hearing wasn’t what we expected or wanted to hear.  Honestly, we would have never chosen to go where He wanted to take us … not on our own.

January 5, 1998:

Brandon has been drinking again, and not coming home for days. 

God once again spoke to Lowell and me … that things were going to change for Brandon.  God told Lowell that He has been mercifully protecting him from the natural consequences of his lifestyle for many years now.  He has been given many chances to turn around and go in the right direction, but he hasn’t chosen to do so. 

We also believe that God told us both that we are to no longer pray that He would protect Brandon from the consequences of his ungodly lifestyle. 

God is actually going to give Brandon what he is pursuing.  He is going to “give him over to a depraved mind” (Rom. 1:28) and Brandon will begin to reap what he has been sowing. 

It’s scary, but we think God’s covering of protection will be removed at some point in time.  We continue to pray that Satan will not be allowed to take his life.

We cried together (bitterly) because we know Brandon may have to pay a very great price for the sin he is choosing to enjoy for a while. 

Lowell and I talked to Brandon Sunday afternoon about this.  We had a wonderful day together at church and lunch, and Brandon was warm and pleasant to be with.  It seemed a very odd time to tell him that we were releasing him to follow his own path … one that may lead to his personal destruction … but we felt we had to.  We wanted to warn him, again, hoping that even now he would choose to walk away from his sin.

He was very open – and saw our warnings for what they were.  Loving concern.

My prayer:  We leave him in Your hands, O Lord God.   We completely trust You to be fair, just and loving.  You are a gracious and merciful God, and none of us gets from You what we deserve.  Your kindness is overwhelming and Your promises are true.

 

The difficult thing that God told us to do was simple enough:  “Step out of My way, and let Me work.  Watch Me work.”

Not too many days after we released Brandon into God’s care Vicki and I heard the same peaceful impression come to us when we had prayed separately:  “I was just waiting for you two to ask Me to step in, and for you both to step back.”

Getting out of God’s way was really difficult for us, but we did it.  And over the next few months we watched God do what He alone could do.  We saw Him begin to apply loving pressure on Brandon.  And we were relieved.  We were no longer the bad guys – the ones stifling his fun or laying a guilt trip on him. 

While God provided us inward peace, all hell was breaking out in Brandon’s life.  He was arrested for assault and battery one week.  About three weeks later, in another county, he was arrested for evading a police officer.  We were in and out of court, juggling schedules, covering what Brandon couldn’t pay in fines, or taking him to the emergency room.

Thank God for this though:  Brandon, Vicki and I had a terrific, immensely enjoyable distraction that helped us make it through those months:  Chris’ wrestling schedule.  Chris was a senior in high school by this time.  He was the captain of the wrestling team, and he was having another fantastic year of competition.  The other kids on the team looked to him for leadership because he was a returning District Champion, Regional place-winner, and State tournament qualifier,

Not surprisingly, Brandon was Chris’ biggest cheerleader.  And the loudest!  When he could attend Chris’ competitions he would stand the entire match and yell until he was hoarse.  Because Christopher was winning consistently, he was hoarse a lot.  He had a blast!  We saw that Chris’s wrestling season performance provided him a bit of a break … an outlet.

Several other things provided Brandon some relief from the constant reminders that his life was complicated.  He was working hard for a roofing contractor and making some decent money.  Plus, he really liked his young boss.  They went out regularly.

However, court issues hung over his head like the Sword of Damocles, a constant reminder that he was in legal peril.  He was meeting with his parole officer, trying to stay out of trouble as best he could.  But he wasn’t always successful.  Pressure was always present.

Brandon was reaping what he had sown.

God was answering our prayers.  One long year had gone by.  (About two years had gone by since Brandon had run away from home.) 

Christopher’s senior year wrestling season ended in late February.  For the second year in a row he was the District Champ, a Regional place winner, and a State qualifier.  More importantly, Chris had a vibrant relationship with God.  We watched as a new kind of maturity bubbled up to the surface of his life.   Several of our closest friends – those who knew everything about everything – noticed how much Chris had changed.  They still wondered out loud, “Where is this kid’s love and wisdom was coming from?” even though they knew.

Vicki and I came to appreciate his development even more after discovering how often Chris prayed for Brandon.  We knew our parents, other family members, and many people in our church were praying for Brandon and for us, but we didn’t have a clue about the extent of Chris’ intercession for his brother.  Not until later that spring.

Chris would know before we would that his older brother was up to something that might get him hurt, so he’d forego sleep to pray for Brandon.

One night I heard him praying. 

Many times during the “Brandon Crisis Years” I had gone downstairs in our split-level home, to the basement where the boys had their bedrooms, to investigate – to find out if Brandon was in or out.  Dozens of times I had painfully discovered he had slipped out into the night to party.  But on one of those investigative trips I heard Chris praying for him, and that night has become a most cherished memory. 

I had gone downstairs to see if Brandon was home.  It was long past our family curfew and yet I heard words coming from Chris’ room.  I thought maybe Brandon and Chris were just up talking about God-knows-what.  I opened the door without knocking, prepared to put an end to a late night conversation, only to discover Chris, alone, on his knees beside his bed.

After he adjusted to the sudden flood of light coming from the hallway, Chris self-consciously wiped tears from his eyes.  As he stood up and slipped under the sheets, I sat down on the bed.  I wasn’t sure why he was crying; I hadn’t tried to decipher what the words were that I had heard through the door.

Before I could ask, Chris volunteered that he was praying for Brandon.  He told me he was afraid that one night Brandon wouldn’t come home … that he would die …  so he would get up and pray until his bro came home, or until God allowed him to fall into a peaceful sleep. 

That’s when his eyes welled up with tears again.  I hadn’t fully appreciated how much he loved his brother, or how traumatized he had been from Brandon’s running away from home.  I asked Chris how long he had been praying this way for Brandon, and what he specifically prayed when he was interceding.  He told me that he had been praying for his brother for over a year,  and he asked God to help Brandon see Jesus for who He really was.  He also prayed that Brandon would come to understand how loving and forgiving Father God was, and that He accepted him for who he really was.

Chris must have noticed the weight his words had on me because he added, “Don’t worry, Dad.  He knows YOU love him … he just doesn’t think God does for some reason.”

When I returned to our bedroom later than she expected, Vicki asked me what I had discovered.  She was fully anticipating bad news … that once again Brandon was out and about,  headed for trouble.  After I told her what I had learned about Christopher’s prayer life, we both had a GOOD cry – the kind you don’t mind having.  To top off the night, the moment we turned out the lights we heard Brandon trying to sneak into the house.  He knocked over something and whispered a profanity.  We both giggled, and tightened our hug.

Just a few weeks later Vicki wrote:

April 14, 1998

A real miracle is happening this week.  Brandon asked if he could go with Chris to the Brownsville revival over Spring Break.  Chris is checking out their School of Ministry and Brandon said he had a desire to go and “check it out”.  God is drawing him in and I believe that this will be the time that God reveals himself to Brandon in a way that he cannot walk away from. 

Lowell and I are fasting this whole week and praying that God would speak to both boys.  

 “Your sons hasten back and those who laid you waste depart from you.  Lift up your eyes and look around; all your sons gather and come to you.  As surely as I live’, declares the Lord,’ you will wear them all as ornaments; you will put them on, like a bride” … “I will contend with those who contend with you, and your children I will save.”(Isaiah 49:17,18, & 25)

 

Maybe you remember the Brownsville Revival.  It was all over the news.  Even Nightline’s Leslie Stahl did a report on it.  Brownsville Assembly of God, located in Pensacola, Florida, was having a huge revival.  It lasted for years, and about two hundred thousand people attended, coming from all over the world to see what God was doing.

I had attended twice by this time, and I loved going for the refreshing and fellowship.  I came back after both trips and reported to my family the impact God had had in my life as a result of my visit.  They all told me they could see the difference.

I also reported that in order for people to get into Brownsville A/G’s 2,500-seat auditorium they’d have to get in line … early.  Some people were so anxious to get into the meetings they’d camp out on the sidewalks, sometimes overnight.  I learned from one veteran of “the line” that if you got there by 4 AM you were likely to first in line … or in the first 100 people in line.  Being in line at Brownsville was like waiting in line for U2 tickets, or iPhones. 

When I was there folks would share their picnic food, chat, listen to music, pray, and sing.  It was a little slice of heaven.  After both visits I told Vicki and the boys about my experiences.  I knew that Vicki and Chris really wanted to go. 

When Brandon said he wanted to attend, we were too shocked to be excited.  We gave him our consent immediately.  An hour later he called his parole officer and asked permission to leave the state.  When the man asked him where he was going and why, Brandon told him, “I going to a revival at a big church in Florida.” 

The officer asked Brandon and me to come to his office for a visit that afternoon.  He said he didn’t mind going in on a Sunday … even Easter Sunday … because he wanted to see Brandon face-to-face.  And he wanted to see me, too; to ask if my son was on the level.  

Ten minutes into the meeting our boy had permission to go.  Just a few hours later Brandon, Chris, and Stacy Butler (a good friend) started driving south.

When Saint Theresa of Jesus said, “There are more tears shed over answered prayers than over unanswered prayers,” she was talking about tears of joy. [107]  She also said, “Prayer is nothing else than being on terms of friendship with God.”

God is such a great Friend!

Just four days later He answered another one of our prayers, and when He did Vicki and I shed a lot of tears of joy … and relief.

April 16, 1998

IT HAPPENED!!  Brandon was saved at the Brownsville youth meeting tonight.  He called and sounded incredible!  He fell in love with God tonight.

 

April 19, 1998

Chris, Brandon, and Stacy drove all night to be in church today.  Brandon wanted to give his testimony in both services.  Brandon went to the podium with his Bible raised over his head and was met by a massive cheer.  He shared his awesome testimony with such excitement.

He was saved, filled with the Holy Spirit, and had his call to the ministry renewed.  Afterwards, everyone was on their feet cheering and we had an incredible worship time.  Lowell had an altar call and masses of people came forward.  Brandon, along with the prayer team, was praying with people to be saved, renewed, and filled with the Holy Spirit.

God ALWAYS keeps His promises!!