My Eyes Have Seen The Glory!

MINE EYES HAVE SEEN...(Part 1)

My Kids have always told me that they love to sit and listen to my stories. The stories they seem to love the most, are the ones pertaining to the times in my life where God has intervened, or spoken to me in a powerful, and extraordinary way.

There have only been maybe 3 or 4 of these events in 3+ decades of having believed in him. I know my kids love to hear my stories, and I don’t assume that those who read this web site will share in that, but I recently felt inspired by the Lord to put these things down, and I do so, that perhaps one person out there may be affected by them enough to begin their own search for my Lord. Some of the occurrences in this document will not be believable by some, and I know that even before I write, so I leave the results in the hands of him who works all things according to the counsel of his own good will.

Having been brought up in a Evangelical Christian family, I have enjoyed an advantage in life that some will surely not enjoy. I do not take that advantage for granted, nor do I see it as a special endowment of faith that no other has received, or that it means that I am special, or any different than any other Joe Shmoe that has come down the pike.

I cherish it as a fortune that I received as a result of being born into the family that I was, and I render tremendous thanks to my Mother, who in spite of all the trials and tribulations involved, made it a point each and every Sunday of my young life to educate me whether I went willingly or begrudgingly. And trust me, this is no small task for a parent, a lesson I now have learned first hand, since I am the Father of 4 Daughters and a Son myself.

It is easier to say “I want my kids to choose it on their own”, (the path I foolishly decided to take with my own), it is easier not to fight that battle, than it is to put on the determination of a loving parent, and do what is right for your kids, knowing that they will someday thank you for it.

I would encourage all parents everywhere to fight this fight for your children, teach them of the Lord, because as the scripture says...

1 Corinthians 2:14 “But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness to him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned”.

In other words, your children, being the natural bunch that they are, will not “choose it for themselves”, apart from a longstanding effort on your part to educate them regarding the importance of making God a part of their lives. I’m sure there are more than a few exceptions to this rule, but for the most part I think it holds true.

In this respect I have failed my kids to a certain degree, in that I did not take the same stance as my Mother did, and as expected, my kids have shown much less interest in the things of God in their lifetimes so far. Don’t get me wrong, I am pretty sure my kids all believe in God, and I believe that as they grow older they will see for themselves that he is worth their attention.

That, coupled with my constant prayers, I believe one by one, my kids will come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, because the point on which I did not fail them was that they have grown up with me, in that I have tried to be there with them, and I speak of God with no doubt in my heart. The scripture teaches...

Proverbs 22:6 “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it”.

All of that not withstanding, I have had a different experience than my kids and I know probably different than a lot of people, in-so-much that this document will probably not carry a lot of weight with some, due to the nature of the experiential content.

What I am saying is, if you have not experienced the presence of God in your life, you will find it difficult to process some of the things I will say here, but I promise you this: God is worth a serious effort to find him, and any such effort will not go unnoticed by him. I have seen this first hand in my life, and it rings true again and again. The bible teaches that...

Hebrews 11:6 God is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

The first instance I can remember in my life where God had a profound effect on me was at the age of 7. I had been attending Church with my Mother for a couple years since her conversion, and I had actually found a feeling in the Church that I liked. It was peaceful, safe, and welcoming. The tool God used to keep me interested in Church was the music ministries. There was a man who would sing solos during the service, and he had a deep, spiritual voice, that rang of masculinity, yet at the same time a humble recognition of God’s greatness. I remember telling him that I loved his singing, and I remember his humble thank you. That eventually led to my own personal involvement with music as a service to the Lord, later in life.

In the summer of my seventh year, I gave my life to the Lord by my own decision, and was baptized according to the traditions of the Baptist Church. This was the beginning of one man’s walk with God, one that has had as many valleys as mountain tops to be sure. I remember my first act as a Christian was to evangelize my younger brother Dan, telling him: “Well, you don’t want to go to hell do you??” Seems comical and predictable today, but that act would become an act I would repeat many times in my life, hopefully one that I will continue to repeat until the day I leave this world, and stand face to face with him in whom I do most certainly believe.

As I passed through my teen years, I endured the standard time of “doing things MY way”, and lived a pretty typical 1970s teenage life. I drank beer, I smoked cigarettes and pot, and I tried some of the cliché drugs of my time. I spent from ages 12 through 18 pretty much ignoring my faith. I still was forced to Church each and every Sunday as I had been all my life, but Church for me at that time was a “necessary evil” in that “if you don’t go to Church, you don’t go out” was a pretty standard rule in my house. As much as I would have denied it at the time, the teachings of the Church still effected me very deeply, and in spite of acting as though I hated being there, (in true teen form), I paid careful, but hidden attention to everything I was taught.

FACE TO FACE (Part 1)

The first time God spoke to me was in the summer of 1978. I had just purchased a 1972 Chevelle, with BIG fat tires, and a real cool look. I paid $1200.00 for it, which I thought was a surprisingly great deal, since it was a pretty nice car.

At this point in my life I was still living my life as I pleased, and God was about to start working on that.

One night I was driving home it was late, after midnight , and when I approached the turn to head home, I decided to take another lap around town. The second I drove by the end of the street, I heard a voice inside my head, loud, clear, and booming, say to me: “The circumstances which are about to occur, are for your own good, and you will be recompensed for them shortly.” Now I must say, I was 17 at this point, and frankly, I didn’t talk like that. I was just driving along, and all of a sudden, as soon as I decided to take another whip around town, these exact words were said to me.

It wasn’t like thinking, or rehearsing a speech in your head, or anything I had ever experienced before, it was just spooky, and weird. (My thinking at the time). Well, I was wide awake at the time, and I proudly cruised my car down the main boulevard in my town like a real champ. When I came to a light in town, I began to get incredibly tired and drowsy, my eyes began to float, and I think I dozed for a second. I even remember looking up and seeing green light.

Unfortunately, the green light was for a right turn, and I was in a lane for straight moving traffic. I passed through the light at about 30 MPH, and hit head on with a small foreign car that was turning left, spinning it in the opposite direction, causing a pretty damaging wreck to both cars.

I went through the whole process of handling the situation without even thinking of what had been said to me just 5 minutes earlier. Even though I was wide awake, and then became uncontrollably drowsy, and even though my car was even more totaled than this little mini foreign job. I do not know what God had going in the life of the other driver, but I know this accident had his hand in it, so I know that he was surely working in that person’s life as well.

A couple of days later, at the junk yard, my insurance agent looked at my car and was startled by the damage. He looked under the car, and noticed that the frame of my car was rusted so bad, that the frame in one spot under the driver side door was just about gone. He said to me “Well Mr. Reilly, you are actually lucky this happened this way. If you had hit a tree going about 50, or if you had broadsided a pole on this side of the car, or even if this guy had hit you on the door, you would probably not be standing here right now, because this car would have folded up like an accordion.” After he said this he ruled my car a total wreck, and said I would receive my money from the insurance company within a couple of days, and walked away.

It didn’t take long for me to remember the “words” that were said to me that night in the car. What I was realizing was that the reason that what happened was “for my own good” was obviously, that I had bought a car with a very dangerous flaw, and that because I was driving it like a maniac, (which I definitely was), although not at the time of the accident, (what a coincidence!), it would have been only a matter of time before my life ended in that car, and what was clearly meant by “and you will be recompensed for it shortly”, was that I would collect, and get another car pretty quickly.

Now, at 17 years old, I was faced with the realization that the Lord had spoken to me directly, and that was both exciting, and kind of scary to me, although most of what it made me think was awe and wonder. But in true wayward human form, I took the experience as just another in a long series of events that I would always remember, and keep. I made no plans to change my life, or to do anything about this situation, and unfortunately didn’t understand that this wasn’t going to be the response the Lord was looking for, and as the true, loving father he is, he was not going to back down...

A QUICK PAUSE>>>

I would like to pause at this point to make a comment that I hope will teach Christians, and seekers of the Lord, a valuable lesson. As you will see here, and throughout this writing, I do not believe that God speaks to us in a super profound way on a regular basis. I believe that if he did, we would probably become so accustomed to that “frequency”, (meaning like a radio frequency) of thought, that we may become dull to the miraculous nature of what it is to be spoken to by God. I believe this to be by design, and I would encourage those who feel they haven’t been addressed by Him yet in their life not to worry, it is not a showing of some ill feeling of God toward you, it is only his wisdom, preserving the value of his ability to get your attention when he chooses to.

We all know a person who doesn’t always say much, but when they do say something, it is usually heard because they don’t speak much, so when they do, it’s unusual, and so they usually get our attention. Jesus said: “Seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you...” I would say that even if you seek in excess of a decade, do not doubt, he will most assuredly speak to you when he needs to, and when he does, it will be a moment you will never forget!

I admit this is MY experience speaking, and I will discuss the other ways to hear from God later in this writing, because there are many ways to hear from God. But I would like to point out, that at the time of this event I was 17 years old, and had a relationship with God for 10 years at that point. Of course that relationship was hindered by years of teenage rebellion, and foolishness, but it was still 10 years from the day of my salvation, that God spoke to me directly for the first time.

As a preview, I will tell you that God has only spoken to me powerfully and directly 3 or 4 times, in 30 some odd years of having known him, or more importantly of having been known BY him. I am not talking about the ways that we can hear from him every day, and there are a few, I am talking about when he powerfully, miraculously, undeniably addresses you, to the point that you are shaken to the core. So if you are one of those who has been a Christian for a number of years, and it hasn’t happened for you yet, trust me Brother or Sister, if your heart is sincere before him in your life, IT WILL!

END OF PAUSE>>>

THE VOICE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT!

In the summer of 1980, God made another move in my life, and this time, my rebellion and misbehavior would come to a screeching halt. My family had moved to a different town for my last two years of High School, and my brother and I learned to become very close friends. Come to think of it, if it had not been for that move, (one that I HATED at the time), I don’t think my brother and I would have the friendship that we have always had, and for that I am thankful.

My Father, Brother, and I, were laying a stone patio around the swimming pool, and I began to feel very weak. I had been living a lifestyle that was destined for trouble, in that I wasn’t eating right, I was partying all the time, and on top of that I was taking Martial Arts classes, and was banging out literally hundreds of sit ups a day.

The pressure on my stomach between the eating habits, the martial arts, and the rigors of my job, were about to take their toll. During a break we were taking from laying the patio stones, I told my folks I was going to lay down, because I didn’t feel right, to which my Mother said, “You don’t look very good, I think we should take you to the hospital, and have you looked at.” Which was a miracle in and of itself, because my Mother didn’t run us to the hospital every time we didn’t feel good like some do, she usually just let us sleep it off, and kept an eye on us. If she had chosen to do that on this day, I would have surely died.

Over the course of about a month I had, without knowing it, lost a tremendous amount of my blood through internal bleeding. I didn’t understand at 19, that black stools meant you were bleeding internally, and so I just kept it to myself. A couple of days prior to this I had vomited, and it too was black. I figured it was all the Pepsi I had been drinking, and again passed it off.

Mom took me to the Hospital, and when they took my blood pressure all hell broke loose, or should I say all Heaven? They rushed me into intensive care, and during what I can only remember to be a blur of activity, I was told I had lost most of my blood, had almost no blood pressure, and that I was fighting for my life.

The day was filled with doctors, questions, and fear for my family. I can not remember most of it, just the highlights, like the blood bags, the tubes going down my throat through my nostrils, the hustle and bustle of the intensive care unit, and most of all, amazingly, the pure peace and calm I felt through the whole thing.

After the smoke cleared, and the doctors told my folks that I would recover, everyone went home, and I got some much needed sleep. After all, an adult teenager, (is that an Oxy-moron?), in the 70s didn’t sleep anywhere near anything that could be considered normal, in that I would be up for 48 hours, and asleep for 24, and all manner of stupidity such as this. I don’t think God was near as upset with my spiritual waywardness as he was with my treatment of his only true temple, the human body. The waywardness was only temporary.

I was awakened late that night by an emergency patient that was brought in. He was drunk, and as a result, could not yet be given the needed pain medication for his injury, a broken neck. Apparently he had fallen off of his porch in a drunken stupor, and had broken a bone in his neck.

This man was in some horrific pain, and nothing could be done about it. He moaned an eerie and spine tingling moan for hours, and it really bothered me. I had no strength at this point mind you, and so all I could do was observe the events of the night.

Let me give you a visual picture of what I saw. The intensive care unit of this hospital was built in a circular design, and there were partitions with large glass windows in between each and every intensive care unit room. I could see from where I was, the next 4 rooms, and the people in them. The lights were very dim, which seemed strange to me considering this was a trauma unit, but nurses and doctors moved around throughout the night as normal. I suppose the lighting was as it was, so that folks in this area could get some sleep.

In the room right next to me was a very old woman, whose head was tilted back, and her toothless mouth was wide open. There were many wires all over her body, and she looked very ill. It was a disturbing site for me, as I remember it. After that was the man I described earlier with the neck injury. He continued to moan for what seemed like hours. In the room after him, a patient died that evening, because I remember seeing the medical people working around them and I remember hearing the nurse’s talk about it the next day.

After all the commotion died down, and after the moaning man fell asleep, I had a moment that will remain with me for the rest of my life. I was looking in the rooms next to me, and I was thinking about all the pain and death I was witnessing. And just as sure as you are reading this document right now, I heard a voice so clear and so resounding, and so penetrating, that I can not honestly tell you today whether I heard a voice speaking out loud, or just in my heart.

You know how when you are thinking and you can both feel and hear the words in your head as you think them, but you know that you are the source of those words? Well this was so vastly different than that, in that the words were coming from another, in that I was not thinking them AT ALL. It was being said into my head, rather than being said from my head, and believe me there is a MAJOR difference, yet it didn’t feel quite the same as that word that night in the car when I was 17.

Like the first time that he spoke to me, he only said one thing to me. He didn’t stay there and have a chat with me, he didn’t reveal any special truths to me, he didn’t give me any secret formulas for successful living, he simply asked me one, clear and forever life changing question: “Frank, look at all of these dying people”… there was a pause as I looked at the people in the next rooms, and then: “do you belong here?” these were his exact words, and yes I said HIS. The voice was definitely masculine, and it was very gentle. Well, let me tell you friends, I knew the answer to that question, and I remember saying it out loud. “No, I don’t belong here, I belong with the living!”

After I heard that voice, the very next morning, I woke up very ready to leave that Hospital, and I think it was only the second day I was there! My Doctor decided I needed to stay in the hospital until he could verify that I was no longer bleeding, (which took a whole week!), and so I was forced to stay in the hospital for the rest of that week, but I tell you, I was ready to leave that morning! But in hindsight, even the Doctor’s decision to keep me there for what ended up being the better part of a week was, I believe, God’s design.

A week of sleep and time alone with him was what I needed. It was an amazing new day in my life, and I was ready to go head first into it! I remember somewhere near 50 friends from around town came to visit me in that hospital when they heard I was sick, and that moved me deeply.

I did not intend this writing to be my detailed full testimony, or my life story, so to make a long story short, the result of what I believe was a direct and powerful communication with the Lord, was that my life was changed so drastically, that the coming years after leaving the hospital, were filled with a street ministry that lasted for over two years, where I could write a whole book just based on the experiences I gained in the streets of southern NH, sharing my faith, and seeing many people profoundly effected by my witness.

Every single person who came to visit me in that Hospital has heard this story and some of them began their walk with the Lord at that time. But this wasn’t the last time God would prove to me his existence, and believe it or not this wasn’t the most literal way I believe he has!

FACE TO FACE (Part 2)

After a couple of years of sharing my faith in the streets and at a time when folks were just no longer listening, I was realizing that it was possible that my time in the streets was over, and that was very discouraging for me since I couldn’t understand why.

The Lord eventually ended up leading me to a home in my town, where a fellowship of people started up, and that was a great time of his working, but I was at a place of discouragement in that I thought maybe I was doing something wrong, and God was ending my ministry. I now know that God doesn’t end your service to him, he grows it. Whatever is going on in the life of a believer, they can be calm and safe in the knowledge that he is either using you, or he is shaping you for the next time that he does.

Well, my discouragement was pretty consuming, and I was very consistently asking the Lord what was up, and in my heart, I know I was looking for assurance that he still loved me. One night in the summer, in 1982 God answered my need to know he was there in a very profound way!

I was coming in late one night from a prayer meeting, and no one was up in the house. I went into the den, and sat down and prayed for a while. Of course I was asking God to reveal himself to me, which I remember doing quite often back then, always asking him for a “sign” so to speak. (Just a plain old lack of faith).

Eventually I began to doze, and it was time to hit the sack, so I got up, took my Bible, and walked out of the room and went to the bottom of the stairs to go up. I looked back down the hall, and noticed that I had left the light in the den on. (We had the kind of lights that If you touch them, they got brighter or turned on and off and so fourth).

There were four stages of brightness and then the light shut off, and you had to start over again. It was on its lowest setting since I was praying, so I was leaning on the railing, and looking down the hall preparing to go back in and shut the light off...

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What happened here, I don’t expect many folks in the world will believe, but as I said earlier, I felt it was time to put this info down, and I trust God to do with it as he wills.

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The bible teaches us not to swear ourselves by an oath or by anything in heaven or earth, so I can’t say “I swear to God this happened” as most folks would, but I CAN say Yay, it did in fact happen!

As I looked at the den from down the hall, the light turned itself up one brightness level, to which I raised my eyebrows. Due to the nature of my prayer in the den a few minutes earlier, I got a little excited, and knowing it was on the second level of brightness, I said to myself, “wouldn’t that be cool if the light went up one more brightness?” And again, just as sure as you are reading this document... it did!

I was blown away. This was amazing to me, and I began to fumble for an explanation. I went back down the hall, and looked in the den... no one was there. Now my blood was pumping like crazy, and I looked at the light. With all the hope I could muster, I said, “Lord if that was you, could you do that again?”

You can imagine what I was thinking at this moment, my heart was racing my head was pounding, and I expected to have a while to wait until, if it actually was going to happen it would, but no, just as soon as the words were out of my mouth, the light brightened up again!

Well, I will tell you I hit the floor on my knees, and praised the God of heaven, because even if there is some scientific explanation about why this light was doing this, there is NO WAY it could do it twice in a row, exactly as I finished my sentences as it did! I spent a good amount of time praising God at this point, and eventually, I got up to go upstairs to bed.

As you could expect, if you believe in God you also believe in the devil, and he sure was trying to rob me of this thing. All kinds of doubts and explanations were flashing through my head, none of which I wanted to believe. As I got to the bottom of the stairs, reveling in the glory of what had just happened, I realized that I forgot to shut the light off... I was cautious about what I wanted to do, because I didn’t want to offend God, by being a “doubting Thomas” so I paused for a couple of minutes.

I knew the light was now on its brightest setting, and that the next step was off, so believe it or not I "mustered the gumption", and I said in my heart, not even out loud, “Lord, could you shut that light off for me?”

Yes Brother, Sister, the light went off just as soon as I finished the phrase. I was flabergastered man! I was standing there in the dark, but I was in the brightest light I had ever stood in, and it was as real as anything I have ever experienced in my life!

I told the story for years, but unfortunately, I took the opinion that the situation must have been just for me, because every time I told it, people looked at each other, and I could tell they didn’t believe me, but I didn’t care! It happened! And it happened to me!

Needless to say, there is no doubt in my mind that there is in fact a God; no amount of scientific discovery happening in the world is ever going to change that. But you would think that I would have become some kind of a Monk, or a Prophet or something after a real live miracle like this!

To this day, I don’t honestly know what the Lord intended to teach me in this thing. It may have been nothing more than to answer the concerns in my heart about if he and I were ok. It may have been to boost my faith into the realm of believing in miracles, (which he was entirely successful at doing), it may have been for a yet future reason I do not understand, but I can sure say I am thankful that it happened, because it took me from a “believing in God” to a KNOWING there is a God person, and I will cherish the moment to my grave!

I believe that in my lifetime, my eyes have seen the glory of the Lord! There have been many, many times when in very subtle, and sometimes in extremely overt ways, The Lord has revealed himself to me. I believe this is an experience that he has intended for all of his children by various ways and means. I realize now, that it was only in the times that he wanted to, or in times when I was not "asking for proof" that these manifestations have occurred. I believe this is according to his own will and purpose. A challenge God will not often accept, but to encourage and strengthen his children in REAL time of distress and need he does not fail those who love him!

I’m not sure our Lord is going to commit these types of events when a man is challenging him to do so. As in the cases above, I was simply praising him when the touch sensitive light incident occurred. I was in the midst of a very definite move the lord was making in my life to save me when the incident in the hospital occurred.

So I think what a servant of God needs to do is simply follow the leading of the Lord, and when and where he decides to intervene and make manifest his presence I am fairly certain that he won’t miss it!

I offer these few experiences, which I know are only mine, believable or not, to the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. I also make the statement that although there are other faiths in the world today, none of the “masters” of those faiths make any of the claims or statements My Lord does because they can not!

I have seen the witness to the fact that they are true. Some may follow Mohamed; some my follow Buddha, but that is all one can do is follow them. Even they themselves said that they "lead the way”.

The difference is that my Lord is alive! He IS the way! He is with me today, and I have a real relationship with him. He makes his presence known to me, and that is the reality of Jesus Christ. The others are dead... period.

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!

Stay tuned for part 2, "Hearing From God!"

In Christ, F. E. Reilly