Written June 16, 2008 by Lee Greer 
About 1961 I was baptized at the age of 11 or 12 in a Baptist church in the Bible belt where my parents belonged and I felt that they made me go. I had publicly accepted Jesus Christ as my savior, but I knew nothing about a relationship with him. I was not happy at home as a teenager. When I was finally able to leave home, one thing I knew I wanted to drop, was being made to go to church.
I lived life according to my own wisdom. By the early 1980s, I was divorced, miserable, had problems with alcohol, sick of myself and even a failure at being suicidal. I had no Christian contacts, no one to teach me, only my idea of prayer, which was as ignorant as a newborn. I needed help, so I prayed and cried out to the Lord for help. I had no reason to live.
In my prayers I could see the vision of a tornado with the wreckage of my life swirling around in pieces. In my prayers, I screamed at the top of my lungs. I could hear it echo in the heavens and that echo encouraged me to continue to pray, that the Lord and his court might be listening. I wept and wailed, trying to be heard over the Tornado, crying to the Lord for help for months, but no help came. I could not live and I could not die. Still, there was no voice, no guidance and to me, and the horrible doubt and fear that I had offended God so much that he did not love me or want me.
Still, I prayed desperately in a life and death prayer, hoping that something would happen, but it didn’t. I begged to the Lord that I wanted to hear his voice, that if he was truly the Lord of the Universe, surely he could speak to me. Finally at the end of myself, I told him that I had nothing of value, nothing to lose, no reason to live, so the rest of my life would be completely devoted to him. I would go anywhere and do anything he wanted and everything I had and always would have, was his. The tornado was still there in my prayers, but in the tornado, I heard a gentle voice. I asked the Lord if this was from him, my own thoughts, or from some spirit that I should not be listening to. He told me to write down the things he told me, to do them, and see what kind of fruit they bore, and by the fruit, I would know if it was him.
I began to write down and to do the things he told me, which were not what I was used to doing, or things I wanted to do. I struggled with him about the things he told me but did them knowing I did not want to go back to my former condition. My life painfully began to be placed in order. I came to understand scripture and to understand Christ and I was fed from many places. It all came with a new set of friends, new places where I spent my time and outside my old comfort zone. I never told anyone, ever, about living by hearing the Lord’s voice. I was ashamed and afraid of what I thought they would say or think of me. But still, my secret, private, prayer life continued to deepen beyond anything I had ever been taught or heard others speak of. I began to truly love being close to the Lord in prayer. I was proud and secure of my understanding of the Lord and because of my pride that I thought I really knew and understood him, he would set me straight, like he did his servant Job.
Summer of 2007, I was praying very big and very deep prayers not for myself, but as intercession for others, and praying with a faith that had become knowledge from many years of knowing without a doubt, that the prayers would be answered. As a result, an event happened to me that I did not pray for.
The blessings of the prayers I had prayed for others were poured out on me, against my will and in such a sudden and powerful way that I was shaken and changed to the core. I realized the age of miracles had not passed with the completion of the writing of the Bible, as I thought it had. The Lord himself showed up in more than just his voice, but in a very real presence that was overwhelming. I was with several other men who had no experience in what was happening to me, could not explain this to me or help me, yet to my surprise rather than thinking me crazy as I had always feared, they asked me to lead them to pray in the same way. Many were drawn to me for blessings from the Lord, and we prayed for hours over many men with all sorts of needs and the Lord’s blessings were poured out on all those who had the faith to receive them. The presence of the Lord was so intensely upon me, I could not emotionally handle it. I was at times on the floor and wept and begged for mercy and forgiveness while praising him for revealing himself so powerfully.
During all this, he showed me many things; that I had kept him in a box and to myself, limiting him by my own small understanding of him. I realized I could never reach a complete understanding of the Lord. He is the creator of infinity. He convicted me that I had denied him repeatedly. He made me aware of times in my past when he had given me spiritual gifts that I could have used to minister to others, but had not ministered because I feared more that men might think me strange more than I feared the Lord. As Peter, I had denied my beloved Lord who gave me so much and I was truly broken.
Now, if you ask me, I will confess to anyone, anything they ask about what I know of the Lord, no matter how crazy they think I am. I know these things to be available to any believer who will surrender his life, his worldly possessions, not look back and will completely follow Jesus. I pray that he will give me the courage and strength to be forever faithful and truly and completely his. I am an unworthy sinner saved by his grace but also was undeservedly blessed in abundance.
