Interactions with God #81

A couple of months after our cross-country move to Phoenix, Sybase began to have financial problems.  In response to a decrease in global sales, they began to have a series of layoffs.  I had survived three or four of these companywide layoffs by the summer of 1999.  However, while out on vacation in August, I got a call from Jesse, my manager.  She said that my territory was going to be taken over by the Sales Rep out of San Francisco.  My position was going be removed completely.  She did give me the option of taking the same role in Dallas, TX. 

We had only been in Phoenix for a little over a year.  Moving to Dallas, didn’t appeal to either Martha or myself.  Additionally, Sybase would not pay for this move, as they had for the move to Phoenix.  We just could not afford it.  I said no.  This meant that the next quarter, after I got back from vacation, my job would no longer exist.  I wouldn’t even get a severance package. 

I had to find something else to do within the company.  Since I worked with all of the sales teams, I was aware that one of the Los Angeles sales reps would be out on Maternity leave for three months.  Earlier that year, she finished treatment for a brain tumor.  They were still concerned that it might return.  Because of that, and having her first baby, her manager did not think she would come back from her leave.  He and I worked out a deal where I would fill in for her while she was gone. If she didn’t come back, I would stay, if she did, well...buh bye. I basically just bought myself three months.  I became a geographic Software Field Sales Representative from October to December.

In January of 2000, Pastor Brian met with me to discuss a plan to start a Vineyard church plant in Cave Creek.  He wanted me to start a new home group with people who would become my team.  I was terribly excited.  This was what I believed God had sent us to Phoenix for!  The very next day, when I got into my office, I found out that the woman, who I was filling in for, had returned.  My job would end by March 1st.

On February 27th of that year, just a day before my 6 years at Sybase would come to an end, John Paul Jackson came to visit the Vineyard Church North Phoenix.  For those who don’t know who he was (he just passed away), John Paul Jackson was a man considered to have been a gifted prophet. 

A prophet (yes they still exist), is nothing more than a man whom God will speak to others through.  They are not like a medium or spiritist.  God speaks to them and they repeat what He says, nothing more, and nothing less.  As impressed as many Christians can get over people with these type of gifts, there is really nothing special or holier about them.  No, God picked them just like He does each of us and we all know He didn’t pick us because we were so talented or good.

Here I was about to lose my job and embark on another attempt to plant a church.  The last one hurt a great deal. I really did not want to go through that again.  So, I went to a Sunday evening service where John Paul was speaking.  Along with me, came a friend from New Hampshire who was visiting with his family, Ken Delong. 

At the service, John Paul did a regular teaching time and afterward began pointing people out of the crowd.  Once he called on them, he would tell them something God wanted them to know.  It was a rather interesting event.  He wasn’t general at all, like the “prophets” I had seen visit other churches prior.  No, this guy was either on the mark or not. There was absolutely no middle ground.  No one, who he called out, challenged him by saying that he was wrong. Every one of them ended up in tears as they realized that the words this man spoke came from the God of the universe. 

I had hoped to be called out myself, but that didn’t happen.  I had a lot to be concerned about.  I was really hoping God would tell me something.  After that session, he did a time of ministry, praying for those who requested it.  I went up to get prayer. 

When he got to me, he asked what I wanted prayer for.  I offered him a quick rundown of my situation with the job, but focused mostly on the pending church plant.  I really wanted to know if it would work.  I was terrified about it.  So, I just asked him for any insight from God.  He put his hand on my shoulder and bowed his head.  Within seconds, he lifted up his head and gave me a very serious look.  Slowly, he bowed his head.  Again, he suddenly looked up at me. This time with an even more serious expression!  I began to think he was going to tell me that I would die in a few days!  For a third time he bowed his head…seconds… this time, as raised his head, he said, “God has a word for you… You are going to have a problem with the occult from within the church.  But, if you stay close to Him, He will get you through it.”

As a church planter, you have to be somewhat of an optimist.  I was…too much so actually.  I left excited because I figured the word meant that the church plant would work!  I mean, how could I have a problem with the occult in the CHURCH if the church wasn’t happening? 

I was wrong.  It wasn’t until 2006 that I finally understood what the word really meant.  The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus which means clandestine, hidden, secret.  Biblically, it is also interchangeable with rebellion.  So, I would have a struggle with secret rebellion against God from within the church.  Yea, that is what I have had to deal with…fun, fun, fun.

This period of “problem with the occult within the church” is almost over. As I write this, it is March of 2015.  Though this struggle is not fully over, I know from “interactions with God” that are much more recent, that it will end very soon.  Of course, my way to measure “soon” is much different than that of God, who sits in eternity.

The next day, after I spoke to John Paul Jackson, I fell off a 20 foot cliff while mountain biking with Ken.  I shattered my middle finger, fractured my elbow and made a nasty mess of much of the skin on my extremities.  Yea, this was going to be a fun period…