Meeting the Person and Some of His People

I’m a teacher, but I wouldn’t have been if it hadn’t been for my meeting the real Teacher. When I met the Lord and some of His people I was majoring in music composition and theory at an excellent college in Portland. I had barely been married for three months and my life was centered on myself. You might think my life was focused and I was doing something with it, but not really. I had very little idea of my purpose in life and what I was doing here. I was a wanderer. My wife even affectionately called me “a wandering star”. I remember one time before we were married sadly sharing with my future wife that “I just wanted to go home!”—not meaning where I grew up, but something far deeper.

When I met the Lord it was through some of His people in the local church who really knew Him and His precious Word, the Bible. I’d heard about these things before, and even had grown up in a religious family, but they were stories and precepts until I met the Person and found out about my human spirit. That was a huge discovery! In the local churches they knew the Bible well, and about the organ for touching the things in the divine realm: our spirit. Witness Lee directly, and Watchman Nee indirectly through his writings, really helped me in this respect. Their ministry unlocked all the riches and depths of God’s economy.

In the army, in college, and beyond I had read a lot and looked into so many things in my quest for the truth. So when I met the brothers and sisters in the local church through a friend, I was ready for the truth and knew I had touched something genuine. I was 27 at the time. I was impressed by the spiritual light in my first meeting, but I thought it was a physical brightness of this large meeting place where I met so many caring people. Later I realized that inside myself I’d seen the light of God’s shining into me through His Word. God’s speaking in the local churches has always been very clear and bright.

I’ve never been cared for nor accepted so much as I have been by the brothers and sisters in the local churches. Even people from anywhere on the earth that I never met until meeting them at a conference have cared for me. The fellowship among us is always so sweet and enjoyable. Speaking of enjoyable, it wasn’t until I began meeting with the local churches that I began to enjoy and experience God. Since I came to know Him and some of His people, my life really has been put in order and has taken on real significance. That’s because Christ is now my center, and because of Him and His people everything has such meaning and purpose. For 24 years, with more than 20 of those years as a teacher of elementary kids, I’ve been enjoying getting to know the wonderful Person, and the dear believers. It gets sweeter and sweeter, and He’s a definite anchor even in the trying times of life, of which I have had my share. Jesus is truly Lord!

T.B.