My grandfather was an old Spirit-filled Methodist preacher who joined the Pentecostal folks. Every day he read the Bible to me, taught me from the Word. Every day he told me stories, every day we prayed. He told me Bible stories about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Samuel and Solomon. Those stories were great, but he also told me stories of what God had done for him. I didn’t realize it then, but he planted seeds of faith in me that would last forever.
Grandfather presented God to me in a very real fashion, where He was not someone far away, but a very real person who worked in our lives. I saw how He worked with David, with Samson, with the Bible heroes, but then I saw how He worked in Grandfather’s life.
He told me of the time some folks were coming to kill him - they didn’t like what he preached and had even tarred and feathered him once. This time, an old scrawny rooster stuck his head up on the porch, and began to crow. My grandfather understood everything that old rooster was saying. God warned him through the rooster saying, “Leave, I’ve made a way of escape for you.”
Grandfather picked up his Bible off the altar, walked out the side door and there was a man with a buckboard and a team of horses. He jumped on the buckboard, and the driver took him down to the train station where another man with a ticket was ready for him. Through his stories I saw the delivering power of God so clearly, so precisely. He showed me how God always causes us to triumph. (2 Cor. 2:14).
Grandfather also showed me God was his supplier. He told me of the time he had been out preaching and had to use all the offering he had received just to get back home to his wife and four kids. There was no food in the house, no money to buy anything. But he had made an agreement with God: “I’ll go where you want me to go, but it’s up to You to supply my needs and those of my family.” He used to sing this little song, “Jesus said, ‘If you’ll go, I’ll go with you, preach the Gospel, and I’ll preach it with you.’" That was how he lived, preaching the Gospel, with God supplying the needs of him and his family.
This time when he had come home, there was no food, no money in the house, and he had no money left from the trip. He had been out, obeyed God, preached the Gospel, done all he knew to do. My grandmother said, “What will we do?” He said, “We’re gonna act like God’s Word is so. He’s my supplier. Call the kids in the house.” She called them in and said, “What will we do now?” He said, “Set the table.” Next she asked, “Now what do we do?” He said, “Let’s sit down - we’re going to offer thanks.”
So they sat down at the table; he lifted up his head and hands and began to praise God. Reminding Him of his promise, He said, “Lord, You said if I’d go, You’d go with me; if I’d preach the Gospel, You’d preach it with me. You said You’d supply my every need, and I want to thank You, Father, that You always honor Your Word.”
After he prayed that prayer, he opened his eyes to a full course meal sitting on the table. It had never happened before, and it never happened again, but a woman preparing a meal across the street was just finishing up when the Spirit of God spoke up on the inside of her and said, “I have need of that, take it over to that preacher’s house.” She walked in with that meal and put it on the table while Grandfather was giving thanks!
I saw the delivering power through my grandfather’s life. It pierced my heart so that even later, when I had gone astray, I couldn’t get away from the truth. Those stories and the Bible stories forever lived in me, stirring my heart. God’s Word never returns to Him void!
Years later, when I was eleven years old and paralyzed with polio, I remembered Grandfather’s stories about God’s delivering power. I was so stricken, laying there, scared silly in that hospital bed watching the boy next to me who was in an iron lung. I cried out, “God of my grandfather….” I knew he knew Him, so I said, “God of my grandfather, I need Your help now - I need it now!” And while I was crying out to God there, my grandfather was at home, praying in the Spirit. Something hit me in the head and went all the way through my feet, and a week later I walked out totally healed by the power of God!
I firmly believe I am what I am today because of the influence of my grandfather’s word on my early life. He even told me how he had prayed for me when I was in my mother’s womb. What a powerful effect our words have on other’s lives, and especially children, during those first highly impressionable years of their lives.
How vital and important it is that we share ourselves and not just our philosophies with our children!
Because Grandfather told me how he had faced dire circumstances in his life and how God had delivered him from crisis and calamity, I developed faith in God’s delivering power that has always stuck with me. I know I need never be embarrassed or ashamed of the God I serve, regardless of how others try to ridicule or belittle. I know He works on my behalf, just as He did my grandfather’s, just as He did with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Grandfather’s faith was passed on to me because he taught me just as the Word says for fathers and grandfathers to do. I thank God for his obedience!
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers