I Can See Clearly Now, Part 1
With My Glasses On!
From Chapter 22 of “Something to Ponder”
With the last name of Swann I have had my share of problems, I never could understand why college graduates like doctors, nurses, and school teachers, and at times people who even knew my name well and said it out loud before on more than one time, could not pronounce a simple thing as my name when reading it, and in case there are any of you wondering it is pronounced like the big beautiful bird “Swan” you just add another “N” and you have my name.
My name is not Swain, Shawn or even Swannnnn, and I have been called each one of those on more than on one occasion. But since the name that I go by is DeWayne I guess they think my name should rhyme, so we get DeWayne Swain more than any. Or even Dewand Swand. I just don’t get it.
But my most difficult problem was when the teachers would put us in alphabetical order, not a lot of last names that started with T, U, V, W, X, Y, or even Z. So, as one could guess, I ended up in the back of the class on most occasions. Which gave me more opportunities to talk and play than if I were on the front rows. So, I took advantage of that more than not.
When I arrived in the third grade the teacher did just that, she put us in alphabetical order, and in the back of the class I went. I did pretty well in science, math, and even history, but my problems were in English and spelling and still is. (Thank the Good Lord for spell checkers and grammar checking programs.) The teacher would write the spelling words and grammar sentences on the chalkboard. (Yes, I am so old that we used chalkboards)
The teacher would write the things down, and we had to copy them in her words “just as they are on the board.” And I did just that, and then we were to study them, and we would have a test on Friday. We were then instructed to get a parent to go over the words and help us and make sure we were spelling everything correctly.
As I arrive home hoping and praying my Mother could help me with what I had written down, so I could study, and maybe pass the test on Friday. But as my Mother looked over the page, she asked me what this was. I said my homework to study what the teacher put on the board. She then said that she could not read it, and I said neither could I but it was as close as I could get to what I saw written on the board, I didn’t understand why the teacher wanted us to scribble down, but she did. I guess it did look like scribbling, but it was what I saw, and that what I tried to put down.
The next day on our way to Marietta, to go to the eye doctor we discovered what my Mother had already figured out on her own and that was that I couldn’t see too well, so bad that what the teacher wrote down was just lines and scribbling to me because that is what I saw. I am sorry to say I had to wait a week for my glasses to come in so the teacher, with a note from my Mother put me on the “you have to behave” front row.
My Mother recalls the day that we went back to Marietta and picked up my glasses. She said that I was reading every sign, every road post and looking from side to side to see what I have been missing all this time. To this day I have a pair of glasses on my nose, sometimes I wear contact lenses, which are called mono vision because, I need to have bifocals now. But without them I still can’t see too well.
And that bring me to the next pondering point I wish to make. Again, I am not trying to start an argument over what you believe. That takes me back to the chapter “It’s Not My Fault” I would like for you to study this out personally and if you still believe the way you do then that is fine I am not trying to convert anyone from their denomination, I just want you to “Ponder” on the rest of this chapter by putting on your Spiritual glasses, and let us see where we end up.
As you may recall in the last chapter “Is the Honeymoon Over” the song I Surrender All by Judson W. Van DeVenter, the question is had you surrendered all, I could have gone the rest of my life never receiving my glasses, or even having access to them after receiving them and never wearing them, and as a result going around half-way seeing all that I needed to see. Do you see?
I believe it’s the same for Christians they get their ticket into Glory, and for some, that’s all that they want. But for God, I believe that’s not all that he wants, He wants us to be wholly sold out to Him. As I said in the last chapter that I was searching for something and as a result that got me deeper in the Word and I started reading every Christian book I could get my hands on, thinking and hoping that the answer was in them somewhere and somehow. I asked my friend Snyder Turner what to read, never letting him know what I was going through. He recommended to me the book “They Found the Secret”. “They Found…” sounds exactly what I needed. Someone to FIND my happiness, because I seem to have misplaced it somewhere.
The book helped me; I mean that it really helped me. As a Baptist, I was taught that once we accept Christ, we get all the Holy Spirit we will ever get. I do believe that at the moment of conversion, we are filled with His Holy Spirit, just as I believe that at the moment of conception life begins. But don’t get me wrong I also believe that the moment we take our first breath do we put into practice of that life. I believe that we have all the Holy Spirit of God within us we will ever get but the question is does He have all of you, that He will ever get? So, the question is had you taken that first breath?
In the book “They Found the Secret” story after story we see them surrendering more of themselves to God and then God using them and flowing through them with His Holy Spirit. So, if you will, I took a few excerpts from “They Found the Secret” of we see Oswald Chambers, Dwight Lyman Moody, and Walter L Wilson just as an example of the book:
They Found the Secret
Chapter 5 The Highest Life
Oswald Chambers,
“But how could I, bad motivated as I was, possibly ask for the gift of the Holy Spirit? Then it was borne in upon me that I had to claim the gift from God on the authority of Jesus Christ and testify to having done so. But the thought came—
if you claim the gift of the Holy Spirit on the word of Jesus Christ and testify to it, God will make it known to those who know you best how bad you are in heart. And I was not willing to be a fool for Christ’s sake. But those of you who know
the experience, know very well how God brings one to the point of utter despair, and I got to the place where I did not care whether everyone knew how bad I was; I cared for nothing on earth, saving to get out of my present condition.
“At a little meeting held during a mission in Dunoon, a well-known lady was asked to take the after meeting. She did not speak, but set us to prayer, and then sang ‘Touch me again. Lord.’ I felt nothing, but I knew emphatically my time had
come, and I rose to my feet. I had no vision of God, only a sheer dogged determination to take God at His word and to prove this thing for myself, and I stood up and said so. “That was bad enough, but what followed was ten times
worse. After I had sat down the lady worker, who knew me well, said: ‘That is very good of our brother, he has spoken Uke that as an example to the rest of you.’
“Up I got again and said: ‘ I got up for no one (else’s) sake, I got up for my own sake; either Christianity is a downright fraud, or I have not got hold of the right end of the stick.’ And then and there I claimed the gift of the Holy Spirit in dogged
committal on Luke 11:13”.
Luke 11:9 “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 11 If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? 13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” NKJV
“I had no vision of heaven or of angels, I had nothing. I was as dry and empty as ever, no power or realization of God, no witness of the Holy Spirit. Then I was asked to speak at a meeting, and forty souls came out to the front. Did I praise God? No, I was terrified and left them to the workers, and went to Mr. MacGregor (a friend) and told him what had happened, and he said: ‘Don’t you remember claiming the Holy spirit as a gift on the word of Jesus, and that He said: “Ye shall receive power . . .?” ‘This is the power from on high.’ Then like a flash something happened inside me, and I saw that I had been wanting power in my own hand, so to speak, that I might say—Look what I have by putting my all on the altar.”
He then went on to say:
“It was with implicit obedience that Oswald Chambers learned, on the basis of Luke 11:13, that by faith we receive the fullness of God’s Spirit, just as by faith we receive the Lord Jesus as Savior And what did the immediacy of God mean in the life of Oswald Chambers? He himself said again and again, “It is no wonder that I talk so much about an altered disposition: God altered mine; I was there when He did it ”
This was Oswald “My Utmost for His Highest” Chambers. And he came to understand that through obedience all we have to do is ask.
Next week we pick up with D. L. Moody.
