ESCAPE to GOD

Nelson Books

Contents

1 The Glorious Pursuit............................12 Religion-Is It Enough?..........................103 A Life of Simplicity............................264 A Bundle of Choices.............................465 Where You Are-God Is............................686 Seeing Him Who Is Invisible.....................827 Selective Hearing...............................1068 Our Greatest Enemy..............................1309 Do You Really Believe?..........................14610 God As My All in All...........................15911 The Fourth Pivotal Point.......................17412 The Hesitant One...............................18613 Failure Is Not an Option.......................194Epilogue..........................................208Acknowledgments...................................211Photographs.......................................215

Chapter One

It shall come to pass That before they call, I will answer. Isaiah 65:24 NKJV

"Jim, what are you doing way up here anyway?" Warren asked.

I could read his thoughts. Clearly he was convinced that I was wasting my life in the mountains when I could be making big money down in the city. Warren had come to look for wilderness property, and, even now, Warren, his pregnant wife, and I were bumping over backcountry roads in my truck to look at a piece of land for them.

"Well, Warren," I began, "you see, I'm a Christian, and we came here because-"

"Stop right there, Jim!" Warren cut me off. "I'm not a Christian, and I don't believe in Christianity. I don't want to hear another word about it!"

The sudden hostility was unmistakable in the close confines of my vehicle. How can God reach a person like this? I thought. Nonetheless I felt constrained to say something more, and with a silent prayer I responded, "Warren, all I need is a couple of minutes of your time, and I will never say another word about Christianity. Warren, the God I've come to know in these mountains loves you so much that even though you are rejecting Him, someday when you need Him, He will be there for you. Someday you're going to need my God!"

If things were cold in my truck before, after those words they were downright frigid. It seemed I had made things even worse with my comments. We finished our business and Warren drove off, but the memory of our conversation reminded me of my own estrangement from God. The echo of my own words rang in my ears: "Someday when you need Him, He will be there for you. Someday you're going to need my God."

Memories

I certainly wasn't raised understanding my need for God, although my family did consider themselves Christians. When did I start pursuing God? As I reflect back over my life, I realize this might well be the wrong question to ask, for I was not the pursuer, but let me start at the beginning.

The stories my family tells of my birth come vividly to mind, and they run something like this:

"Sir," said a tired-looking doctor to get the attention of a man who appeared, if possible, to be more tired and worried than the physician.

"Yes?" Henry responded hopefully. His response seemed out of character in the worn waiting room with its lingering smell of tobacco smoke and the ever-present scent of fear and expectation, which haunts such rooms.

"It's a boy!" A ghost of a smile danced about the physician's sturdy face. "A nine-pound, five-ounce baby boy!"

"How's my wife?" Henry asked, already animated with the news of his son.

"It was a hard delivery." Concern was evident in the expert's face. "You may see her now," he answered before the question was asked.

My parents always looked at each other in a special way at this point in the story, and all of us understood both that the situation had been difficult and that the crisis had drawn them together even closer.

Reminiscing, I realize that as I lay in my mother's arms, I had no idea that at birth I had become a participant in the great conflict between God and Satan. Only much later would I come to see that even as I lay in the womb, God, in His infinite wisdom, had set in motion an individualized plan to awaken in my heart a longing, a need for Him. He knew I was being born into a world that was at odds with Him, in rebellion to His principles, His will, and His ways.

God knew I was to be born with a nature damaged by man's experimentation with sin. God also knew I would naturally follow my own impulses and inclinations and that the very thought of yielding my will and way to Him would be totally foreign to me. He knew all too well that Satan would oppose every effort He made to pursue me. In spite of these odds, God set His plans for me in motion.

After waiting thousands of years for Jim Hohnberger to be born, He now had the opportunity to try to win my love. God was in pursuit of me as He is every one of us. It is a glorious pursuit of love, born out of the heart of God.

My parents, Bernice and Henry Hohnberger, were pleased with me, their third child, and they took me home to their modest house in Appleton, Wisconsin, determined to do all they could to see I grew up to be an honest worker and a good citizen. As an infant, I had no conception of a loving God, but God still was speaking to me through my parents. They taught me my first lessons about the character of God through their interactions with me.

Parents stand in the place of God to young children, and by obeying parents they learn to obey God. Thus began the great tug-of-war in my life, in childish conflicts with my parents. As my selfish will made its demands, my parents either gave in and allowed some indulgence or stopped me from demanding my own way. At the time, none of us fully understood the implications-sometimes Satan won a conflict and sometimes God did-but always I was growing and learning.

Inside each of us from birth is the desire to find fulfillment and happiness. Unless guided by wise parents and the grace of God, this all too often means that we seek fulfillment in things. Things are not wrong, for when God made the earth, He filled it with things that bring pleasure, but the temptation is everlasting for people to place value upon the things rather than the One who is the Giver of such things.

Think back over your own experiences of Christmases past. After tearing the gaily colored ribbon and paper away to find some desired toy, you could scarcely express thanks to the one who had given such a gift. Perhaps you mumbled a few words of thanks under your mother's prompting, but all your eyes could see was the treasured possession. The possession had taken the place of the giver.

For me, it was my new double-chrome-plated, three-speed Schwinn bicycle. Oh, how I loved that bike! It was the finest in the neighborhood. Eventually, that love evolved into an affair with a fire-engine-red Pontiac convertible. I was slowly being trained by the world about me to equate happiness with the things I possessed.

Things consist not only of possessions, but positions, people, power, pride, and pleasure as well. Multitudes believe happiness and fulfillment come from attaining a prominent position invested with power and pride. Still others believe...