Worms Fly!

This publication is dedicated to Jean Glaab.  She opened her heart, her home, and her fridge to “all those kids” who were eager to learn about Jesus.  Thanks, Mom.

(The Warren Gaebel Story – Part One)

I am a thief – I take what I want without regard for my victim’s feelings.  I am a drug addict – I destroy my body and my mind with chemicals not intended to be used in that manner.  I am the laziest person I know – I do only what is ab­so­lute­ly necessary to get by.  I am a traitor – I use my friends to achieve my own self­ish goals, even if I know it will hurt them.

I am the ultimate in selfishness!

This story tells you what happens to selfish people.  Not that all people like me end up the same way.  Some die in their sin and face judgment.  But I don’t want to tell that story – it’s not pretty.  I prefer to focus on what happened to me.

Raise Up Your Children In The Way They Should Go

I enjoyed Sunday School when I was a child.  We sang songs.  We played games.  We listened to stories.  Best of all, people seemed to like me.

Some of my earliest memories are of St. John’s United Church in Stratford, Ontario.  In the nursery, I knew my parents’ voices were part of the joyful sing­ing that emanated from the sanctuary above as we played with our toys.  In grade one or two, I learned the German version of Silent Night.  Years later, I was in the Children’s Choir under the tutelage of Mr. Gordon Scott.  Later still, as an excessively rambunctious pre-teen boy, I remember sitting in church with John and Evelyn Quirt.  (At the time, I did not realize how much patience they must have had.)  I remember Wolf Cubs, Boy Scouts, and Venturers.  I seem to have as many memories of this place as I do of my own home.

The best thing of all, though, was the spirit of love.  God’s love was so attractive that I continued going to Sunday School and church even after the rest of my family stopped.  This was not typical behaviour for a young child, but I didn’t know that then.  All I knew was that there was something special about that place.

God blessed me in my childhood.  He made Himself real to me and taught me that He loved me.  Because of this, I have never had any serious doubts about His existence or His love for me.  “Jesus loves me.  This I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

And Then The Tempest

When I hit my teens, it was time to discover my own answers for the big ques­tions of life.  Why should I do the right thing when the wrong thing gives me so much pleasure?  Why should I put other people’s feelings ahead of my own?  Why should I follow the rules?  Why should I obey my parents?  Why should I obey the law?  Why?  Why?  Why?

At age 15, I rejected my parents’ and my church’s teachings.  I decided I could do what I wanted.  I always used the disclaimer, “as long as it doesn’t hurt other people,” but in actual practice I didn’t care about the impact my life had on others.  I was primarily concerned with living a life that was pleasing to me.  I was ready to have some fun!

Some people understand that selfishness leads to misery.  I didn’t.  At least, not then.

I start­ed smoking pot one week before my 16^th birthday.  Whitey, a friend who worked at the record store near my school, was into drugs and I thought he was cool.  When he offered to let my best friend and me smoke a joint with him, I quick­ly agreed.

I thoroughly enjoyed my first joint.  Music came alive as it took on whole new shades of meaning.  We spent much of the next hour laughing, sometimes at things that didn’t even exist.  Little did I realize that I had opened my heart to the spiri­tu­al world in a way I could not yet understand.

With­in a week I started smoking cigarettes.  Everyone else seemed to be doing it and I was anxious to shed my “goody two-shoes” image.  I didn’t notice the phy­sical addiction until years later.

I start­ed drink­ing beer when I couldn’t find any pot.  I thought it would be a good substitute and I was right.  I was happy with the high I got from both, so I used them interchangeably.  And often.

Be­ing high allowed me to escape from all those questions that seemed to have no an­swer.  I could giggle, eat, and play mind games with my friends.  I didn’t have to worry about right and wrong.  If it felt good, I considered it acceptable.  No one else had the authority to tell me what to do.  It was my life and I was going to live it my way.

My self-seeking, self-justifying attitude made it easy for me to start taking acid.  One dose and I was hooked.  Not that it’s truly physically addictive, but its high was the next step down into my newly found world of pleasure.  The hal­lu­ci­na­tions were much more intense – they almost seemed real.  The door to my heart was now wide open.  Any spiritual being was welcome as long as it would bring me more pleasure.

I remember one of my early experiences with acid.  As I walked down Welling­ton Street to meet my girlfriend, I was awed by writing in the air.  The words didn’t make sense, but it was fun to see letters of the alphabet floating in the sky.  My detachment from reality took an embarrassing turn later, though.  As we sat through the rape scene in the Billy Jack movie, I leaned over to my girlfriend and asked, “So what’s happening?  I don’t understand.”

One day I went to school high.  It was a big joke: “That’s why they call it HIGH school.”  I remember thinking that I could pretend to be straight and no one would know.  Well, that didn’t last long.  From first-hand experience, one of my class­mates knew how to interpret the saucers in my eyes, the slurred speech, and the unsteady gait.  He went from person to person in my first class telling each one, “Gaebel’s in gear!”  Strange vernacular, but I caught on to the meaning quick­ly enough.

At the beginning, I didn’t realize where drugs and alcohol would take me.  I didn’t know I would walk out on my family less than 3 months later.  I didn’t know I would end up in a group home where drugs were more easily obtained than on the street.  I didn’t know I would graduate to stronger, more dangerous drugs so quickly.  That’s how Satan works when he tempts us – he hides the slippery slope until it’s too late.

My self-seeking philosophy taught me that girls existed to help me achieve my goals – party, party, party, fun, fun, fun.  Girls brought me pleasure; that’s all that really mattered.  This was a big change from my pre-drug days.  I cared deep­ly about my girlfriend back then, but the new me-centered lifestyle quickly took its toll.  She was one of my greatest losses.

A New Low

Over the next few years, I tried every street drug except heroin.  Acid and speed quick­ly became my favourites.  My sole purpose in life was to get high.  I worked occasionally to buy more drugs, but I couldn’t focus long enough to be a re­li­able, long-term employee.  I drifted from job to job and from flop house to flop house.

I would tell you about 1974 and all the wild partying that followed my discovery of speed, but I really don’t remember much.  I remember some faces, a couple of names, and two of my favourite hangouts.  I have a tiny snippet of a memory of me working at Crane Canada, but if it weren’t for the T4 slip still sitting in my filing cabinet, I wouldn’t be sure whether the memory were true or part of a dream.  I probably had fun, but I will never know for sure.

I do remember one day, though.  That’s the day I figured it would be okay to pull out a knife and rob a restaurant.  I woke up early in the morning because I figured the cops wouldn’t expect it at that time.  After scouting around for a vic­tim, I found a tiny restaurant with just one person in it.  In my drug-fogged state, I didn’t realize I was only one block from the police station in the middle of a shift change.  You can guess the rest.  The judge sentenced me to 7 months in jail followed by 18 months of probation.

And so the party ended!

At the Glendale Adult Training Centre in Simcoe, I met a chaplain who gently chal­lenged me to think about God and my relationship with Him.  I understood that getting right with God was important, but I decided to postpone the matter un­til much later in life.  After all, I didn’t want to miss out on the good stuff.

I re­member thinking I could join a church any time I wanted.  I just didn’t get it!  You see, it’s not about church attendance; it’s about a changed heart and a per­son­al relationship with the living God.

I am now certain God gave my judge wisdom.  I served 4½ months, not so little that I would have considered it a joke and not so much that I would have become har­dened.  I had plenty of time to think about my future.  After all, there wasn’t much else to do.

I knew I was headed the wrong way.  I knew it would lead me to places I didn’t want to go.  I knew I was walking the road to destruction.  For purely selfish rea­sons, I decided to turn my life around.  I would get a job and go straight when I got out of jail.

A New High

I was released from jail in January 1975 armed with the decision to change my life.  Unfortunately, my resolve didn’t last longer than a week.  That’s how long it took to get back into partying and drugs.  I told myself I could turn my life a­round later, but deep down I knew I was completely powerless.

Some­thing was different, though.  A few of my old friends were walking around with silly smiles plastered on their faces all the time.  They carried Bibles every­where and were quick to open them up every time I asked what was going on.  Every second sentence was “Praise the Lord!”  I could have dismissed it if it were only one or two people, but it seemed to be affecting everyone, especially peo­ple like me.  Something big was happening!

I thought it was interesting that these lives had changed so dramatically, so I start­ed asking questions.  I figured it wouldn’t take much to trap them into ad­mit­ting they were wrong.  A few well-chosen arguments should be enough, I thought.  However, I ran into one big problem – they seemed to have an answer for every question I threw at them.  Many of my deepest, longest-standing ques­tions were being answered clearly and sensibly.

My friends told me that God loves me, but that He couldn’t have a personal re­la­tion­ship with me because my sin was pulling me away.  My selfish attitude and my rebellion were stopping me from knowing God.  They also said that God loves me so much that He would forgive my sins and make it just as if I had ne­ver sinned.  They explained that He came to earth as a man named Jesus and died on the cross to take the punishment for my sins.  They told me that all I had to do was accept God’s sacrifice and invite Him to come into my heart.

Well, I struggled and I struggled!  I was certain logic would prevail.  But the more I thought about it and the more I asked questions, the more I real­ized that the whole thing made perfect sense.  Jesus (God) really was the answer to all of life’s questions.

On February 25^th, 1975, as Mark Glaab, Della Walkom, and I sat in Della’s apart­ment arguing about the things of God, I realized that every single one of my ob­jec­tions had been dealt with.  I realized that the exis­tence of God and the plan of salvation made perfect sense.

Now I was faced with a new problem.  If all this were true, I needed to do some­thing about it.  If I didn’t, I knew I would live my life in misery and suffer an ex­treme­ly unpleasant outcome at its end.

Led by Mark and Della, I closed my eyes and prayed a prayer something like this:  “Dear God, I have sinned in many ways and I know these sins are keeping you and me apart.  I understand that you took the punishment for my sins by dy­ing on the cross, so I’m asking you to forgive me for everything I’ve done.  Please come into my heart to live there and take charge of every part of my life from now on.”

As soon as I finished that prayer, I sensed an enormous, heavy weight being lift­ed off me.  Then I felt something enter me.  What entered me can only be described as over­whelming peace, joy, and love.  I was certain my sins had been removed from me and been replaced by God Himself.

Some­thing very significant happened inside me, and the effect on my emotions was overwhelming.  I’m not sure how long it went on, but all I could do was laugh and cry, sometimes both at the same time.  It was like a high from drugs, but it was pure and holy rather than dirty and deceitful.  I was a completely dif­ferent person.  This went beyond mere belief – this was reality!  This went be­yond mere religion – this was relationship with God Himself!

Miracles of Deliverance

At first I thought this would all wear off rather quickly.  After all, once the emo­tions settled down, I would still have to face the same old life with the same old ad­dic­tions.  Little did I realize how much difference God’s presence would make.  Over the next few days, I noticed major changes.

I didn’t go through withdrawal.  My desire for drugs and alcohol miracu­lously and immediately disappeared.  I didn’t quit them – they quit me.  My love of be­ing high was gone!  The same thing happened to my cigarette addiction a few weeks later, after I made a conscious decision to quit.  No withdrawal, no temp­ta­tion, no struggle.  They were just gone.  God had graciously and miraculously de­li­vered me from my enemies.

Al­though my anti-social behaviours did not all change immediately, my heart did.  Instead of seeking my own pleasure at the expense of others, I want­ed to put other people first.  My heart of selfishness had been miraculously re­placed by a heart of love.

Since words and actions are rooted in the heart, I knew my behaviour would change, too.  How could it not?  And that process of change is still happening to­day, more than a quarter of a century later.  Seeking my own pleasure is no long­er my heart’s desire.  If God loves me enough to die for me, it just seems na­tural that I should love others, too.

After God touched me, I started to enjoy prayer, worship, and Bible reading more than partying.  I still wanted to go to parties, but not for the “fun.”  I want­ed to go there to tell everyone about the amazing things God did in my life.  I want­ed everyone to know the good news, that God loves them and made it pos­si­ble for them to know Him personally.

In the Bible, God speaks to us about being born a second time.  He tells us that we become a new creation.  He says the old things pass away and all things be­come new.  I can tell you without a doubt that this is true because it happened to me on February 25^th, 1975.

The Great Sorrow

Soon after I accepted Jesus into my heart as Lord and Saviour, I started to won­der what had become of my dad.  He died when I was 16, so I had one serious, over­shadowing question for my Heavenly Father:  “How could you let my dad go to hell?”

God is so loving and gentle!  He taught me to trust Him in all things, even for my father who had died three years earlier.  This was not easy, but He somehow gave me the strength to do it.  Eventually, I grew into the belief that God had some­how reached out to my dad.  I still didn’t know whether my dad went to heaven or hell, but I became comfortable with the belief that he would not have died until God had given him every opportunity to repent and believe.  And so, by faith, the matter was settled.

As the next few decades unfolded, I had many opportunities to speak to my fami­ly, both near and far.  When they told me about my dad’s life before I was born, it was a real eye-opener.

In his teens or early twenties, my dad attended the Pentecostal church in Bancroft.  He played guitar and sang as part of the worship team.  He met and married a Christian woman who was the daughter of missionaries sent to Canada.  They had three children and attended church as a family.

Then came World War II.  The catchphrase, “Praise the Lord and pass the am­mu­ni­tion,” succinctly describes the crisis of faith faced by many Christian sol­diers at that time.  Upon my dad’s return from the war, he left his family and his church to take up residence with an English woman who followed him back to Cana­da.  That English woman, years later, became my mother.

Know­ing that God had touched my father many years earlier was a comfort to me.  My dad had known the gospel and had responded to it!  Some Christians be­lieve a “once saved, always saved” teaching, which tells them that my dad’s place in heaven is guaranteed.  However, I was not fully convinced.  I was still con­cerned that my dad’s eternal welfare may have been at risk.

God reminded me that my dad was trying to learn a new song, Any Dream Will Do, in the last few weeks of his life.  Something in that song had caught his at­ten­tion.  As I reviewed the lyrics, I discovered metaphors that made sense.  To me, the song spoke of my dad’s war experiences, the backslidden state in which he lived for a quarter century, and his longing to return to the Kingdom of God.  My dad want­ed “to see for certain” what He once had known.

God granted me the faith to trust Him for my earthly father’s salvation.  At the time there was no evidence to justify that faith – the faith stood alone.  Even­tu­ally, though, God opened my eyes.  He showed me that my dad had not only walked with Him, but that his heart was yearning for a return to that walk.

Where is my dad now?  I don’t know.  But I do know that God gave him every pos­si­ble opportunity to return to his Heavenly Father.  God was, is, and always will be faithful!

Thank-you, Father, for my father.

Miracles

I’ve seen miracles during my time with the Lord.  I was present at George and Muriel Jeans’ house when a friend’s badly broken hand was restored.  I was part of a small group that prayed for a girl’s leg to grow to the same length as the other, and then watched in amazement as it did.  Another small group prayed for a tormented teen to be delivered of evil spirits, then heard from his Lutheran mi­nister a few weeks later that his behaviour had changed so dramatically that the church had trouble believing it was the same person.  I even once jokingly thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if God healed me in church Sunday morning?”  As I sat in church that very Sunday, the painful infections in my fingers dis­ap­peared.

As Kathryn Kuhlman and Benny Hinn have been so quick to point out, we are not healers.  Jesus is the healer; we are merely observers.  It has been an honour for me to observe God’s mighty hand at work.  Because of these and many other things, I know that Jesus is still alive today.

The Biggest Miracle of All

I remain convinced that God occasionally brings miracles into our lives.  I do not think this is too hard for Him, nor do I think He is unwilling to bless us.  How­ever, I remain grateful for the biggest miracle of all – the miracle of a new heart.

Hundreds of millions of people worldwide have discovered that their “hearts of stone” have been replaced by softer, more loving “hearts of flesh.”  Although I still some­times vacillate between selfishness and love, my new heart breaks every time selfish­ness wins a battle.  Back in the early 70’s, putting myself first wouldn’t have bothered me in the least.  When I act selfishly now, though, I am upset and ashamed.  This is truly the biggest miracle of all.

Life in Christ

I went through the same struggles that many other people go through.  I faced temp­ta­tions and sometimes even gave into them.  Others occasionally hurt me.  And sometimes I unintentionally hurt them, too.

However, something was clearly different.  When faced with disappointment, I recog­nized God’s hand at work in my life and I put my trust in Him.  Sometimes He took me out of situations and sometimes He helped me through them.  I start­ed to realize that God can use adversity to transform me.  I could coura­geous­ly walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death knowing that God was molding me into something that would bring Him (and me) great pleasure.

God did not start nor stop his work with me.  Over the course of a few years, He swept through the streets of Stratford, picking up the human trash that, like me, littered its streets.  He forgave their sins, transformed their lives, and walked with them on a dai­ly basis.  He was truly their God and they were truly His people.

It’s surprising how many of us walked through the doors of the Glaab home at 52 Mowat Street.  Mark’s mother opened her doors, her heart, and her fridge so com­pletely that her house became “Action Central” for God’s amazing work in Stratford.  Over 100 people sat in her kitchen (no, not all at once) to discuss the things of God, to pray, and to learn what the Bible said.

Many of us went to Jacob’s Well in downtown Kitchener on Friday evenings.  We learned about God and what He says to us in the Bible.  We developed re­la­tion­ships with other people our own age.  We learned to worship God with con­tem­po­rary music.

One day, as I walked down Erie Street, words began to fill my heart and my head. I grabbed a pen and paper, and started to write them down.  Within mi­nutes I had all the words for Have You Ever Loved As Christ Loved?  I took them to my friend, Jim Glaab (there’s that Glaab name again).  Upon reading the words, the music became immediately apparent to him.  We had a new song!  What a wonderful experience!  That song brought me great joy.

As time went by, the Holy Spirit taught me, comforted me, led me, and used me as a vessel to reach out to others.  Most importantly of all, though, He taught me to stay close to Him every moment of every day.  He accepted me and loved me.  He made me happy.  He gave me peace.

Selfishness and Love

As I look back on these events, I cannot help but notice the contrast between selfish­ness and love.  I could neither experience nor exhibit God’s love while my heart was preoccupied with selfishness.  And selfishness could not remain after I re­ceived Jesus into my heart.  The two are completely incompatible.

In John 15:13, Jesus said, “No man has greater love than that he would lay down his life for his friends,” which is the most non-selfish act I can imagine.  We usually think that hate is the opposite of love, but I think the true opposite is selfish­ness.  If Jesus had had even one speck of selfishness, I’m sure He would not have given up His life for us.  Instead, in true and absolute love, he paid the ul­ti­mate price for our sins so we would not have to.

The Worm Flies

Psalm 22:6 says “I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised by the people.”  That’s me!  I have proved time and time again that I have the na­ture of a worm.  However, Isaiah 40:31 says, “Those who wait on the Lord … shall mount up with wings like eagles.”  That’s what my life is like when I stay close to my Lord, my God, my Jesus.  The worm flies like an eagle!

God has made everything I’ve described here (and more) available to you, too.  Now it’s your turn!