The Secret to a Long and Happy Marriage 2

This is the right place, the secret to a long and happy marriage, part 2.

People ask my wife and I what is the secret to our staying together for 46+ years. Of course, every couple SHOULD stay together for all of their lives: "Each one gets one," and that is all that you get--your one. There is no hopping around.

In 1975 I was living illegally in a pickup truck in Honolulu, Hawaii. I had a homemade camper (a windowless box, actually) mounted on the back, and the police assumed it was just a mobile storage shed in the yacht harbor I parked in. I was one of the "van-dwellers."

Only occasionally and informally employed, I listened to rock music and read a lot of books about Eastern religions and philosophy, spiritualism, meditation, opening chakras and the like. (I was a sixties hippy, literally in San Francisco in 1967 and 68, and had become enamored with "spiritual" stuff while in the Navy.)

During a metaphysical-meditation class, I encountered a demon feigning to be Jesus Christ coming to teach me personally. Suddenly, I could see into the spirit and saw that its light was a façade; it was all darkness within. Three things were immediately apparent to me:

1) the spirit thing was real, and if it was real, then what he was a counterfeit of and trying to lead me away from was also real.

2) while the deceiving spirit had been influencing my thoughts for years, it had needed me to lower myself to allow it to actually enter me, whereas the one who had opened my consciousness to see the spirit for what it really was did NOT need my permission to act within and upon me.

3) I was going the wrong way.

I went to my camper and dug out the old zippered Bible my mother had given me when I was seven. I looked up 'deceive' in the concordance and found Revelation 12:9: "And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him" (King James Version). Oh, the Devil is still around, unannounced and working continuously to deceive us away from God and lying about Christ. I figured that Christ was the way to go.

I went with a friend to the House of Praise in Kaimuki. It was a Pentecostal-church-sponsored communal residence. Friday nights Rod Wilson, the overseer, led a Bible study. There was much praise and worship, healings and testimonies of miracles, and almost everyone spoke in tongues. God was real. I went forward and accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I felt good about being "saved," but I did not speak in tongues.

At another church I was asked if I wanted to pray for the gift of tongues, which my friend was already praying for. I asked once, I asked twice, I asked once again. Nothing happened. I realized that Jesus rejected me. I had "accepted" Him, but he did not accept me--wouldn't touch me with a ten-foot pole! I cried and sought desperately to find out why. What must I do, or stop doing, to become accepted by Jesus?

From that sobbing I entered a trance state. I followed a trail to a block I could not get over or around. I discerned that I needed to go under it. Then I was underground. I saw a man's figure scooped from the mud, and the mud-man was formed into a living man. He thought of what he needed to do, and I followed him as he set off to do all those things. I was hearing his thoughts and seeing through his eyes. I became him.

Suddenly a realization came to me--I was honestly gob-smacked--for only a moment ago I had been a lifeless blob of mud who was made to live, and here I was directing "my" life. I had STOLEN God's lordship over me!! This wasn't my life; it was His! God must have had a reason to make me, a purpose of HIS to fulfill, and I was robbing Him of that purpose. I directed my life, and I had NOT given that up when I "gave" Him my life. I was in rebellion, sin as witchcraft.

I was so ashamed and repentant. I resolved to undo my control over my life. I cast my control, my self-lordship out of myself. I thought I'd fall as a spineless blob. Instead I found myself high in the mountains kneeling beside a felled pine tree. Surrounded by aspen-glow, the sky above me became rosy with the presence of God. I dared not look up. In total surrender I submitted to Him: "You are Holy God; I am but a mudman. Whatever you tell me to do, that I will do." I shut up and listened intently. After a few moments I heard a very soft voice say, "Remember this, and it is all right."

I was accepted! My emotions soared. I couldn't express the thrill and gratitude and appreciation and adoration I felt for God. I could feel quivers of living water flooding my bowels. They rose up my throat. My mouth shook, moving on its own. The church minister who all this time had his hands laid on me said, "Don't try to control it." I didn't. Out of my mouth flowed praise and worship and adoration I could not speak in English. It appeared to be a Chinese dialect, most like Cantonese I now think. My mouth ran on its own for some time; I exercised no control or direction over it. I just listened to this unknown worship by the Holy Ghost and agreed with it.

Yes, this is still the secret to a long and happy marriage.

After this experience my life took an odd turn. I saw Jesus scourged and crucified, and He spoke to me. I decided to go to school to find out what He has said to other men. I got back to California, without any scholastic qualification got accepted into an experimental seminary course as an upper division student, got funding through the GI bill, and found a room in a local apartment for 90 dollars a month.

My point is: not qualified, nor deserving, yet God takes care of His own miraculously. There is a Holy Ghost. I completed my Bachelors before my Associate degree, and apart from the AA began graduate school without any accredited schooling. Doors have opened, monies have come, and though living as an idiot I am still doing okay. I stand in my home and wonder, "How did I get here?" I know that I didn't do it; it's been the grace of God. He has intent for my good, for the Milta to be advanced to completion, for the world to be in the abundance of His reality. I DIDN'T DO IT; IT HAS BEEN A GIFT--LIFE, AND JESUS IS THE LIFE-GIVER. That is what the Aramaic word for Jesus, Eashoa, means--Life-giver. And His is an invisible force, a power with good intent for us to become HIM, and a plan from anywhere to get us there.

The Life-giver is the secret to a long and happy marriage, and He says He is knocking on YOUR door, "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me" (Revelation 3:20 King James Version).

"Behold, I am before the door knocking. If a human [being] hears my sound...and opens the door, I shall enter to them and dine with them,...and they with me. And the victor...shall be given to be seated with me on my throne*,...just as I was victorious and sat with my Father on His throne" (Revelation 3:20-21 Alexander).