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to knock me down off my imaginary high perch -- again, and again,
and again! I had to come to realize that all this
self-'IMPORTANCE' was pure illusion! I was brought down to earth
and reality with a THUD!
"Instead of ego, vanity, and self-IMPORTANCE, God fed me,
for 28 long years, on the raw and scanty diet of humiliation and
poverty!
"Had God merely let me suffer financial reverses, even to
the point of experiencing real hunger, for short periods of a few
weeks, I would have bounded back and quickly set back up my idol
to serve again! Had God let me suffer that kind of humiliation
and poverty even for a period of a year -- or even six or seven
years -- I probably would have resumed the same sense of ego once
back on my financial feet.
"But God had in mind, as life-long events have since proved,
using me as His instrument in preparing the way for The WORLD
TOMORROW -- for world peace -- for universal happiness, joy and
prosperity, for a growing worldwide work involving tremendous
expenditures in HIS SERVICE. And He knew that He could never
entrust me to handle HIS money, in the administration of HIS work,
as long as I set my heart on money or the things money would buy.
"Please do not misunderstand. It is not wrong to have or
enjoy the good material things of life. What is WRONG, and there-
fore harmful to our own selves, is setting our hearts on these
things, instead of on the TRUE VALUES! The LOVE of material things
-- the VANITY of wanting to exalt the SELF instead of God -- of
wanting the worshipful praise of MEN by being considered
'IMPORTANT' -- these are the wrong things to set our hearts upon.
When the heart is set on such false values, the soul shrinks
inwardly and dries up! THANK GOD! He saved me from such a fate by
that 28 years of poverty and humility!
"I was never converted until I was brought to the place
where I realized my own nothingness, and God's all-encompassing
GREATNESS -- until I felt completely whipped, defeated. When I
came to consider myself as a worthless burned-out 'hunk of human
junk' not even worth throwing on the junk-pile of human derelicts,
truly remorseful for having imagined I was a 'somebody' --
completely and totally and bitterly SORRY for the direction I had
traveled and the things I had done -- really and truly repentant
-- I told God that I was now ready to give my SELF and my LIFE over
to Him. It was worthless, now, to me. If He could use it, I told
Him He could have it! I didn't think, then, it was useable -- even
in God' hands!
"But let me say to the reader, if God could take that
completely defeated, worthless, self-confessed failure to which I
had been reduced, and use that life to develop and build what He
has done, He can take YOUR LIFE, too, and use it in a manner you
simply cannot now dream -- if you will turn it over to Him without
reservation and leave it in His hands! What has happened since
gives me no glory -- but it magnifies again the POWER OF GOD to
take a worthless tool and accomplish HIS WILL through it!