A Dream, A Boat, and New Life – A Personal Testimony
It has been an emotional week for Judy and me. But through this week I have learned some really important Kingdom truths. When I began this blog, I promised God I would share personal testimonies that release and advance His Kingdom. This is one of those testimonies. Here is the story of what happened.
Those of you who know me know that I have always had a passion for sailboats. Over the years I have owned 8 sailboats ranging in length from 8 feet to 41 feet. During the last week, this ‘passion’ became the battleground for my wife and me.
Several years ago I felt called by God to sell the last of my big sailboats. I did, and shortly after that I heard God again calling us to move to the mountains of North Carolina. The city we moved to is about as far from the ocean as you can get and still live in the state. But – they do have really nice, big lakes. No problem. I am done with sailboats. I’ll just hike.
So far, so good. About 2 years ago I began to casually look at small sailboats online. Maybe once every 3 or 4 months I would check out different types of boats. Somehow I found a small boat made in Colorado. It is 17 feet long (really 16’10”) – really small. But it is beautiful! Uh Oh. That urge has not completely left my heart. But for the most part, I didn’t pay any attention to the ‘boat bug”.
And then about 10 days ago, for some reason the thought hit me – really just a random thought – look online to see if any of these small boats are for sale. So I did. And guess what? There was one in perfect condition for sale in a city about an hour from my house (turns out it was on a lake about an hour and a half from the house). A switch was flipped in my heart. I guess Paul would call it the lust of the flesh. What I thought was dead and buried came alive more powerfully than I had ever known. I wanted a sailboat, and this was the one!!!
While I was looking at the broker’s website admiring the boat and calculating where the money was going to come from to buy the boat, Judy asked what I was looking at. When I told her, a look came over her face that I had rarely, if ever, seen. Bottom line – she was not in favor of a new boat, even a small one. I guess you could say she was adamant in her opposition. “No worries”, I thought, “she will come around when she sees the boat and understands my passion”. “She would never deprive me of my dream”, I thought.
The next day, she didn’t say I couldn’t buy the boat. But she did say, “This will be your boat. I won’t have anything to do with it. In fact, when you sail, you will sail without me. I am done with boats.” “Well, at least she didn’t say no”, I told myself. The storm clouds were forming, and I was too preoccupied with “the lust of the flesh” to notice. But God noticed, and I was about to take a trip on the wild side, at least spiritually speaking.
Full-speed-ahead-John makes an appointment to see the boat and meet the owner. But before I made the trip, I had a little come-to-Jesus meeting with God early one morning this last week. During that prayer time I asked God about this intense desire to have another boat. I was truly puzzled about the way the thought of owning a sailboat had seemed to take over my life – I could hardly think about anything else. I had begun to feel like someone in the bible, maybe Paul – I do what I don’t want to do and don’t do what I should do. Who is in control here? So I brought this emotion to God. At least I could still do that. And here is what I heard.
During this prayer time God showed me an image of a hole in the ground – a circular hole about 100 feet wide, extending straight down into the earth, like a straight, deep mine shaft. It was so deep I could not see the bottom, and it was black. No light in the shaft at all. In my spirit I knew that the shaft cut through many layers of rock. And then the Lord gave me another spiritual insight. This shaft also cut through many layers of time. And not just generic time, but through the time representing the lives of the generations of my ancestors, those in my genetic lineage who lived before me. Somehow, through that shaft I was connected to those generations.
God told me that I am the spiritual, emotional, and physical product of the men and women of those generations to a degree I never realized. Their sin, unforgiveness, pain and woundness, hatred, love, and goodness are all a part of who I am. Or, I should say, are all part of who I was when I was born into the world, and to some extent still am today. I am also a product of their passions, experiences, and expertise. In that moment God reminded me that for generations on my Dad’s side of the family, the men were men of the sea – fishermen and sailboat captains on the Hudson River upstream of NYC. One that I read about was called Captain John Van Wagoner. They all owned, worked on, and even relaxed on boats. My desire to have a boat, God showed me, is deeply rooted in this generational heritage.
So, God told me, “That is why you have this almost spiritual attachment to boats”. It is on a boat I own that I find comfort, joy, peace, and contentment. It is here that I am the captain! And then God spoke two things to me: “I (God) want to be that comfort, peace, joy and contentment to you”; and “Do you want me to fill the mine shaft with dirt?” What !!? Fill in the hole and shut me off from my generational roots, to take away my generational identity? It is who I am. I can’t live without that. A wave of anxiety and fear swept over me. “No way, God”. I need that connection. God spoke again. He said, “Really? Is that your life?”
You need to know one other thing. I am embarrassed to tell you, but I will. Three days before this vision and before the boat thing got stirred up I spoke to God during one of my early morning prayer sessions. I told God, “I want to be totally yours. All I have and all I am are yours. I lay down my life and give it to you.” I know, dangerous prayer. But in the moment I meant what I said. I had never prayed like this before. And then the struggle with the boat hit, God showed me this generational idolatry, and I found myself telling God, “No, you can’t take that away from me.” What a mess. The enemy found that point of generational weakness, and he struck. His timing was not coincidental. Owning another boat seemed so right. After all, it is part of who I am. I was born to boat! Proverb 14: 12 says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.”
So, I told God I want to stay connected to those generations. Again He said, “Really, is that your life?” I knew He was giving me a choice. I responded, “God, you are right. You are my life. Fill the hole.” He did. I looked at where the shaft had been, and it was gone. Filled with dirt. And I asked God, “Can you be all that I need?”
In that instant revelation flashed through my mind. I saw that when we are born into the world, our generational heritage – the good, bad, and even evil – define who we are, how we think, what we like, and how we respond to external actions and events. But when we repent (and this is a big deal – a serious and solemn decision) we enter a new life, the Kingdom life. We are reborn into a new generational lineage – the lineage of Jesus. This is what God means when He says, through Paul, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God . . . “ (2 Corinthians 5: 17, 18 NIV). ‘Born again’ means a lot more than I thought it did. From birth backward in time, I am a new creation.
If I had told God, “God I chose to keep the hole open”, I would be choosing the kingdom of the world over the Kingdom of God. So, God called me to choose Him as the source of my comfort, joy, peace, and contentment; and to live my life as a child of His generational lineage and not the lineage that I had inherited from the world. I chose His life, or thought I had.
It is not wrong to be interested in our ancestors. It is not wrong to honor their memories, and to adopt, within reason, the customs handed down to us by them. It is wrong to worship them, to pray to them, and to desire their ways over God’s ways. In prayers I am continually breaking away generational sins and renouncing generational curses.
After the prayer time I saw that my lust for a sailboat was rooted in generational history from which I could not be set free without Jesus. I saw that the sailboat I wanted to buy was really a powerful idol in my life and that I had to relinquish that idol to God and find all that I needed in Him. In fact, I couldn’t even give the idol to Jesus. He had to reach in and take it; I needed to give permission. But the story does not end here. God had more to teach me, and it was going to involve some pain.
At the end of my prayer time, I repented and gave all of this to God, thanking Him for the revelation and insight. There was just one problem. I had made an appointment to see the boat and I decided to not cancel. I was going to drive to the lake. What can that hurt? For several years I had wanted to see this boat in the water, sit on it, and find out if it was as well made as I thought it was. So, just for information I would go. In the car driving to the lake I heard from the Lord again. He said, “I want you to pray for the boat owner. He has a medical condition. Pray for him to be healed.” “Ah, good” I thought. “That is why I am driving to see the boat. To pray for Him.”
I parked at the marina, walked onto the dock, and there about half way down the dock was the boat. It was beautiful, everything I thought it would be!! And that old lust returned, even stronger in spite of all the words Jesus had spoken to me. If it wasn’t for Judy I would have bought the boat on the spot. But I didn’t. The owner and I spoke for about an hour about this boat, the other boats we had owned, and how much we loved being on boats. We had a great time. I told him I wanted to buy the boat but I had to clear it with Judy. He understood.
Just before I left, I told him the Lord told me to pray for him. He said, “Sure I would love your prayers. Funny thing, just the other day my chiropractor found something that he wanted my doctor to look at and tomorrow I am having an MRI”. He told me what was found and I prayed for that condition to be healed.
On the drive home, all I could think about was the boat – when I would get it, where I would keep it on the trailer, where I would sail it, and how I would put up the mast, and do all this alone! It was as if I had never had the prayer time with God. That boat would be mine; it would be my comfort and my joy. I was filled with an excitement that took control of my entire body, my emotions, and my spirit.
Well, I didn’t buy the boat. I got home and to make a long story shorter, Judy said no. In fact, she said more than “no”, but you don’t need to know exactly what she said. She shut down my dream! Sad, hurt; resentful, disappointed, and a bit angry with Judy I called the owner and told him I couldn’t buy the boat.
It was a hard day for me. I guess I gave Judy the silent treatment. I was broken-hearted. How could she do this to me? Couldn’t she see how much this meant to me? Didn’t she know how important this dream was to me? That night (which was last night) I slept way over on my side of the bed.
Early in the morning I got out of bed and sat in my prayer chair in the other room. I knew I needed to bring this resentment to God. Before I could speak two words to the Lord in my spirit, He spoke to me. He said:
“You were about to make a big mistake. You chose the wrong thing. I could not let that happen. I have prepared a major spiritual breakthrough for you. If you had bought that boat it would have gotten in the way of your future with me. Not that I would leave you or remove the gifts from you that you already have. That would not happen. But the breakthrough would have been more difficult for you to receive. So, I used Judy to keep you from making this mistake. Honoring your wife’s wishes was the smartest thing you did. Because, in your own power, you would have messed everything up”.
I chose poorly, but God showed up and used Judy to bless me. What I saw as bad, God used for good. He gave me new life. Wow! We can get so confused and off track. We might stray, but if we stay connected to Him He will put us back on His way. As Isaiah writes:
“Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it.’ Then you will defile your idols . . . you will throw them away . . . and say to them ‘Away with you!” (Isaiah 30: 21, 22 NIV).
That is what happened. But I needed help. All grace. Hallelujah!
Needing more of His grace,
John
PS. God told Judy and me that one day He might deliver that boat to me. Just not now. It is His timing, not mine.
PSS. If you have read this far maybe you are thinking, “A boat! How trivial. There are people starving in the world and dying for their faith. How can he write about something as insignificant as a boat?” You might even think, “Typical American!” But God meets us where we are. Every human has something that they lust after. It is not about the boat. It is about our lusts, passions, and dreams that are not focused on God. Paul wrote, “The love of money is a root of all evil.” It is not money, it is the love of money – money in this case representing the ‘thing’ that a person dreams about and lusts passionately for. Such a person can be rich or they can be poor – they can live in America, Africa, or China. It is not the money. It is the lust, the idol, and the power that the idol has over us. For me it was a boat, for you it is something else. But in the end, the boat or whatever – they are all the same.
PSSS. After I wrote this post, I had some more thoughts. It is true (at least for me) that God was calling me to make a choice — which master would I serve, where would I find my treasure, which rock would I build my life on. But closer to home, God was also calling me to choose — my wants, needs, and desires vs my wife’s wants needs and desires. Even more basically, would I choose my self-life, which is really life in the kingdom of the world, or would I choose the selfless-life, which is life in the Kingdom of God. Would I deny myself and pick up my cross, following Jesus and honoring my wife’s (firmly held) wishes or would I turn my back on her and follow my own path, fulfilling my own needs? This is another way of asking the question: who is the most important person in my life — me or Jesus, because by honoring her I am honoring Him.