The Purple Barn

Guest Presenter:   Jeffrey L. Haynes
   forward e-mail to: wmclemmer@hotmail.com

How Many Take The Gift God Gives
And Throw It Away?

I was born into a Christian family. We lived in the east side of Detroit, in a nice neighborhood and I went to church very regularly as I grew up. My mother and father made sure that I had all the basics provided. They also taught me about the importance of Christ and Church to my life and about the difference between right and wrong.

I guess you could say that I was one of the privileged few to have a family that made sure that they tried to instill these principles in me. When I was young I used to love to go to Church and sing and praise the Lord. I played the guitar in Church, even though I was not that good, but I don't think that mattered as long as it was for the glory of God. My father became very ill and for a few years my sister and I had to do everything we could in order to take care of him. My mother had to work every day to pay the bills, so it was very hard on her. At the age of 51 he died. I was eight years old.

I didn't really know how to take it at the time because I guess I was just too young to understand. My mother worked very hard after that to take care of my sister and I and she did very well at it also. She made sure that we were in Church and that our lives centered on Christian principles.

My mother started to see a very good friend of the family that we had known for years. His wife was deceased, too. Their seeing each other lead to a relationship and they ended up being married. He was a very good Christian man and I had known him ever since I could remember. After they were married about a year, we moved to Pensacola, Florida. My sister and I were very happy about that. I was eleven years old, and on that trip down to Pensacola was the first time that I was introduced to drugs. I didn't really think much of it back then because it didn't really do much for me.

I stayed in church for a few years after moving to Pensacola, and I was even baptized. My faithwas pretty strong back then, and I had even felt the Holy Spirit move in me several times. I can't really tell you where it all went wrong, but it did.

I believe it was when I started High School that I first drank alcohol, and from that point on I never stopped. But going to church and living the way God wants us to, did.

The bible says in Proverbs, 20:1 "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is a brawler, and whoever is intoxicated by it, is not wise." That was me, very unwise, very unknowing of the path I started to take to destruction. I began to use drugs, and I drank every chance that I had. My drug use began to grow more and more, because in the teenage years it's easier to get drugs than it is to get alcohol. So I started smoking and eating all of them I could get my hands on.

In my later high school days I began to get into a lot of trouble, and eventually it led to my parents putting me in a drug program. I stayed there and graduated, but it did no good, because went back to the same old friends when I left there. The drinking and the drugging started all over again, but this time at a much harder and faster pace.

I became rebellious, and would not listen to my parents. I was going out every night and sometimes not coming home for days. I was living in adultery, and doing so with several women, not even caring or thinking of the consequences. I lived with a couple older women, and they had lots of money, and would buy me just about anything I wanted, including drugs and alcohol as long as I would give them sexual gratification. But that was still not enough for me.

I needed and wanted more than just one sex partner, and I wanted more and more drugs and alcohol, and more of the high class lifestyle that I was becoming accustomed too. Alter the new wore off on one adventure, I would move on to another, using everyone in my path to get what "I" wanted.

I was having a great time, I thought. I expected the party was going to go on forever. When I reached the legal drinking age, all hell broke loose! I went out every night, and got so drunk that most of the time I would black out, or pass out. Is Proverbs, 20:1 ever right: "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is a brawler, and whoever is intoxicated by it, is not wise." That was truly me, very unwise.

I was getting into fights almost every night, most of the time with people I didn't even know; and, the next morning not even remembering. Acting a fool, and doing mean and evil things that surely were not good in the eyes of God, as well as in the eyes of my fellow man. And my hangovers and my shame were very great the morning after. My feelings of guilt and embarrassment, and my feelings of uncleanness.

Proverbs, 23:29-32 says, "Who has woe? Who has Sorrow? Who has contentions? Who has complaining? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes? Those who linger long over wine, those who go to taste the mixed wine. Do not look on the wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly. At the last it bites like a serpent, and stings like a viper." I was bit, over and over again.

But the pains of the hangovers, and the shame and embarrassment I was bringing on both myself and my family were still not enough to stop me. The next day I would do it all over again. And the more I drank, and the more I drugged, the better I would feel for a little while, and the further my problems would seem to go away. But were they really going anywhere, or getting any better'? I think not. And unknown to me, the worst was yet to come.

It's kind of funny how when you first start on this path, you go to the nice places, and hang out with the upper class, and you feel welcome every time you enter, and everybody knows your name. But now when I look back, it all gradually moved down hill. It went from the champagne, to the rot gut. The same thing happens with the places you go to. You start out at the high class places, and by the time it's over with, you are going to places that you would wipe your feet off on the mat when you leave. That's the way it was for me, anyhow.

I was going into places that the worst criminals in the world would probably think twice about entering, and I was calling these people my friends. It did not matter how far I was gone, the bartenders would still serve me, as long as I had money. And when I would run out of money, someone was always there to buy me another round, or run me some credit.

The Bible says in Habakkuk 2:15, "Woe to you who make your neighbors drink, Who mix in your venom even to make them drunk, so as to look on their nakedness.

I can't even recall the times I would be so drunk that I couldn't even walk, and would still be served drinks because the bartenders wanted to get all of my money. And they didn't care what happened to me, or who I might have killed, or even if I ended up seriously injured or dead, just as long as I kept handing out the dollars".

The troubles with the law that I had were very many. But that didn't even put a speed bump in my way. I was like a jet airplane, wide open, and no pilot on board. DUI, PUBLIC INTOXICATION, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE. And, I was almost killed several times.

The Bible says in Isaiah 5:11, "Woe to those who rise early in the morning, that they may pursue strong drink, who stay up late in the evening, that wine may inflame them."

In the last few years before I realized that my life had become out of control, I would wake up in the morning and start drinking. I would usually be out of it before mid afternoon. And if I was not, I would go on drinking until early into the following morning. I used to get "ten feet tall and bullet proof". Now, I wonder how I'm still alive, or not locked up in some prison or institution. It has to be by the grace of God. God has been very gracious to me! So has my loving Christian mother.

Sometimes I sit and wonder how they could still have anything to do with me after all the shame and embarrassment I have given to them. After the nights that my mother lay awake till the early morning hours wondering if I was all right, or if I was dead or in trouble. I don't know how I would react to the things I have put her through. But I can only hope that, if one day I am put in the same shoes, I would be as loving and forgiving.

Some people say that they get high or drunk because everybody else is. "The peer pressure alibi". But the Bible says in Romans 14:21, "It is not good to eat meat, or drink wine, or to do anything by which your brother stumbles." So I know I have no excuse but to blame myself.

When it was all over, the alcohol and drugs had stripped me of everything except my life, and I was ready to end that myself. I thought that I had nothing else to live for; I thought I had no one left to care about me. I thought even God had turned his back on me.

I know now that the Lord had his hand on me the day I tried to end my life, as well as at all the other times that I was near to death. When I stepped to the edge of the twentieth floor of the building I was working at, and released my safety line, a Christian man that was working there on the same floor called out my name. I decided to turn around to answer him, and act as if he wouldn't be aware of what I was about to do. But he knew. I think he could read my mind, and he ask me if I was all right? I told him "no."

He knew all along, I think. Everyday before "that day", he would witness to me about the good things that God could do, and wanted to do for me. And, this guy didn't even know me.

I wish I knew that man's name now, and where I could find him, because he saved my life that day. I believe that God put that man there in that building, and in that same area that day, to let me know that everything was not lost, that there was still hope, and that I still had so many more things to offer in life.

I walked down off that building that day, and I went to get help, the help I had needed for such a long time. I thought I could do it on my own, but I couldn't.

Psalm 34:6 says, "This poor man cried out, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles."

That's what it took. To get down on my knees and ask the Lord to help me, and deliver me from the grip that the Devil had on my life. To beg the Lord for forgiveness, and ask him to come into my heart, and deliver me from alcohol and all the other things that were perverting my life.

Psalm 102:17 says, "He has regarded the prayer of the destitute, and has not despised their prayer."

Even when I thought I had burned my bridge to the Lord, he was still there for me. And, even when I thought I had burned my bridge with my mother, she was still there, praying for me to come back to the Lord.

Isaiah 41:10 says, "Do not fear, for I am with you. Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God, I will strengthen you. Surely I will help you, surely I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."

He has, his word is true, and he has lilted me up out of the black hole that I was falling so deep into, and he is doing for me what I couldn't do for myself.

Psalm 46:1 says, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble."

He has helped me in so many ways, that it is amazing to me. All I had to do is ask him, and believe in him.

It sometimes doesn't come fast. But, Psalm 27:14 says, "Wait for the Lord: Be strong and let your heart take courage, yes wait for the Lord."

I am finding when I trust and believe, and have patience, that God does answer prayer. It might not be in an instant, but I believe that if God wants you to have what your asking him for, he will give it to you in time.

I have so many dreams of how I would like my life to be. Some are probably too much to be expected, but I know without the Lord that none of them will ever come true. But the ones that God wants for me, I believe will be. And, I think he has a great plan for my life. But it will never happen if I return to the way I was.

Proverbs 31:4 I 5 says, "It is not for Kings to drink wine, or for rulers to desire strong drink, for they will forget what is decreed, and pervert the rights of all the afflicted."

I believe God has a plan for everyone, and he wants all of us to be Kings in some way or another. But it will not happen if we keep listening to Satan, and following what he would have us do.

What I have to do is keep focused and trust in God, and I think many new doors will open up for me, for us. Isaiah 26:3 says, "The steadfast of mind you will keep in perfect peace, because he trusts in you." All we have to do is ask his forgiveness, and ask him to come into our hearts, and he will. He will help us resist the Devil, and he will take away the cravings for drugs and alcohol.

Matthew 21:22 says, "All things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive."

I still have troubles, and it still scares me when the thoughts of alcohol come into my mind, but I have a peace of mind now, and I know that God is watching over me, and protecting me.

I know that my journey has just begun, and I am by no means out of the woods. Maybe I never will be. But, I know that the life I have now is a lot better than the one I had before.

Isaiah 40:31 says, "Those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength: They will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not get weary."

That is the path I am choosing to take today. The one that leads to happiness, joy and everlasting life. The Devil cannot stand in my way, because I have put on the anmor of Jesus Christ, and he will be beside me all the way to the end.

Philippians 3:13-14 says, "Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet, but one thing 1 do: Forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."

My Testimony to the World of Unbelievers.
Jesus Saves!