Surpass All Understanding - UBM [David Eells]

I was a backslidden Christian. Every year I seemed to wallow a little deeper in the mud. After about five years of this, I couldn't have drifted any lower than I was. The Lord in his graciousness had truly given me over to the reprobate mind that I was chasing after. In our American microwave society we are taught that to search for gratification and to find it as soon as possible and as much as possible. I believe the philosophical term for this type of attitude is Hedonism. There is a point however at the height of this that the person seeking to fulfill that emptiness left by the lack of a relationship with a loving Father, will be completely frustrated and his/her physical life will start to deteriorate. That is the point that I had come to. I believe that if I hadn't moved on the Lord's calling at that time I would have had a heart attack and divorced. My wife hated me, I have a small heart condition that was acting up about twice a day before I started to seek the face of the Lord. I believe that my life was changed the day that I told my wife that I had to go and find God. My prodigal son story and the grace of God is much more detailed than this, and some day I will write to you about it. Just let me say that after searching for the Lord, He started to reveal Himself and His ways to me. I was blessed to be delivered from my heart condition. It is relatively rare that I have incidents of irregular heartbeats, and I am still married, and this is two years after it almost seemed a certainty that I would be divorced. So I knew that I was having many difficulties because I was living a wrong life. And I knew that I would have to work through some of those problems that I had created.

However, after a short reprieve in the difficulties, I seemed to step right back into much difficulties. Now I had given up most of the problems of the flesh, I was hearing from God, and my heart was on fire for the Living God. I was wondering, "what am I doing wrong". My faith was starting to falter, I was not understanding that it is possible to be in the will of God and yet be going through very difficult circumstances. So I was having great difficulties trying to assess blame for my current condition and I was becoming depressed. At about the lowest point that I had, I contacted you. I had felt led by the Holy Spirit almost a year earlier to contact you. I wanted to have you pray for me that I would receive even deeper revelations and my ears would be opened more in order to hear from the Holy Spirit. Well as it turned out I was too shy to do this, but I did send you a love offering because I was moved to sow back into your ministry from the articles that had touched my heart on your web site. Because of this you contacted me and asked where I had met you. I told you that the Holy Spirit had brought me to your web site. After some communication, I told you that my faith seemed to be wavering and I was distressed over this. You suggested that I read your book Sovereign God For Us and Through Us. Well a couple of days latter the book came to my house and I was at my lowest point that I could have been in a while. Not as low as I was when I wasn't walking with the Lord, but very low.

My business was failing that I had built out of nothing and with my hands, and back and sweat and blood. Literally, as it was a construction business. I had no peace other than prayer. As I started to read your book, this seemed to change for me. It was amazing that as I would turn page by page, more and more of the peace of God would settle on my spirit. I would read and the more I read, the more I wanted to read. It seemed that I was turning the pages slowly at first and that every page I would read faster and faster and the pages would turn quicker and quicker. I was a starving person sitting down to a meal that was being served fine cuisine at a six star hotel. It seemed that you had the ability to lift the words right off of the pages of the Holy Bible and expound on them to give them deeper meaning and understanding. It truly inspired my soul at one of the darkest hours of my life. And even though the Lord was trying me with fire, I started to realize the peace of God that Paul says will surpass all understanding. You can not have this type of peace without understanding the sovereignty of God. But it seemed to settle on me as I read more and more of your book. One of the things that I truly appreciated about the book is that you put the scripture right into the pages. This was very beneficial in order to be able to read the book and have a continuity of thought. I have tried to read other books since this book where they just site the passage and that seems to not have the same impact on the reader. So what I am saying is that you have taken some of the very principles that are very difficult for a young Christian and broken them down into simple understandings that penetrate right into the spirit and yet retain all of their profound truths. I would read parts of your book then go to the scriptures and read the scripture and then pray and meditate on this, and my day was uplifted. I thank the Lord that he has raised you up in this hour. Darkness seems to creeping over the land that used to shine from sea to shining sea. I have a feeling that the Lord is preparing his people for a serious walk in the wilderness through these trying times. I now see that the church has become as silly women who are sitting at ease in this land and the Lord is not going to have it.

Since having read your book I have been able to stand on God's promises with a better understanding and footing. It seems that my prayers have been more effective because I have a stronger faith in God's promises. I know that you are a very busy man so I will only share one experience with you that my prayers were miraculously answered.

A good friend of mine recently had a health issue in her family. Her father was bleeding internally and no one at the hospital could figure out from where or how to stop it. My friend contacted me and I went into prayer for her father on Wednesday morning. Part of the way through the prayer I found myself envisioning myself under the Lord's table picking up the crumbs. (I had prayed that way in the past sort of speaking as the woman did to Jesus who said that even a dog gets to eat the Master's crumbs that fall from the table). I felt led by the Holy Spirit to declare that I am not a dog, that I am a son of God and by Jesus Christ's redeemed work I had every right to sit at that table and ask the Father for whatever was on my mind. Having a mind that is renewed in Christ Jesus that is, in other words I wasn't asking for something that was outside the will of God. So I asked the Lord at the supper table to heal my friend's father. I stood on Isaiah 53. Then I went over to my friend's house and gave her a tape from your seminar with the prophecy club and told her to listen to this immediately. That evening at bible study at the church that I attend, had decided to move the bible study back a week and have a prayer meeting. I thought that I should have this congregation join me in my supplication to our Father in Heaven. Then the associate pastor was moved that morning to share a verse out the bible about a woman who reached out to Jesus and her blood was dried up. I knew right then that the Lord had laid that passage on this man of God that morning I was in prayer. He moved the bible study back and now was giving a confirming word that my friend's blood would be healed.

I didn't hear from that friend all week. I knew that her father was healed because of the confirmation at the prayer meeting. Finally, I called yesterday, and asked how her father was doing. Turns out that he is out of the hospital. I asked when he stopped bleeding. She said that the doctors noticed it Thursday morning. The doctors never found the source of the bleeding; they only know that he stopped bleeding. She said that she listened to your tape on the way to the hospital and her faith became strong that the Lord was going to act on her supplication.

I thank the Lord that he is the same yesterday, today and always. That he didn't fall off his throne after the first century. And that he hears the prayers of the righteous, and still heals the sick.

With all the false teaching that is out there in the present age your book is sorely needed. There are the hyper faith people who treat God as if he is a puppet on a string to answer all of our prayers whether they are in the will of God or not. There are the prosperity teachers teaching that you should be blessed in the flesh or you are low in faith or lacking with God. None of them have ever read the second half of Hebrews 11. And finally there are the dispensationalists who have taken all the power and authority out of the gospel. Because of their lack of belief in the scriptures and wanting to justify themselves before God and men they say that certain scriptures no longer apply.

It can be very confusing to a young or even an older believer. I hope that the Lord continues to get your message out. You are in my prayers as always.

God bless you and yours, and your ministry.

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