I was Born Again in 1979 after a life full of disorientation, fear and disillusionment. I was a child of parents that divorced when I was about 7 years old. My brothers and I struggled with that getting into trouble or living in confusion for many years. I was always wondering: "What's the point of living?" I didn't get it, if this is all there is, distrust, hate, worry, pain, no one is going to remember any of it in 50-100 years anyway, so why do we live.

I lived by the worldly expression, "eat, drink and be merry", but soon the drinking, drugs, and wild lifestyle lead me into depression and sickness. I was once a world class athlete, playing NCAA Division I Basketball, with the hope of making it into the professional ranks.

All that ended when I got deathly sick in 1973. My mom thought I had a hypoglycemic body, and she knew something was wrong. Come to find out, I had a hyperactive thyroid and I became sicker and sicker once it started messing up. I was in Mexico playing pro basketball, and unlike me, I became very angry, breaking down doors and generally becoming belligerent.

When I returned home the flare up seemed to ease, I met my wife and within a year we married, and soon after I got very sick. I began to get very hot, and very anxious; physically unable to eat, sleep or work. I decided to try what I thought was a Christian faith healer. I found later he was nothing more than a spiritualist, and although I went through the routine after waiting for everyone, including a dog to go before me, God did not heal me, just yet.

On the way home, which was a drive of about 4 hours (my wife was driving because I couldn't see the signs and my hands were shaking so badly--I was 154 lbs and I am 6'3", and my heart rate was well into the 100 beats per minute range), the power of God flowed through me from the top of my head all the way down through my feet.

I turned to my wife and said, "God just healed me", knowing that God's presence went through my whole body. Suddenly, I was entirely regulated by this smooth flow that just passed through me. She was naturally skeptical but when I insisted and started to read the traffic signs in the middle of the night, she took notice.

I was totally healed and I drove over 3 hours all the way home that night, to prove it!!

You would think I would have come to the Lord, right then, but I didn't. I spent the next 6 years doing my own thing. I started playing Basketball trying out for the Los Angeles Lakers, and finally playing in Mexico, Puerto Rico and wherever I could.

Unwilling to travel and be an absentee parent I decided that I wanted to try to be a real dad to my kids, so I gave up on the prospects of playing in Europe and the US and I started working in San Diego finishing my degree for my teaching credential. While in San Diego several Christians tried to witness to me. I felt that God had sent them to me, because of what God had done for me, and that He was trying to make a complete healing: not just my physical body but to heal me spiritually. Being a Jew, did not make this easy. For one thing, I had read about God in the Old Testament, I did have class instruction as a young man and as an adult, so, I knew enough to reject anyone if need be. However, when Christians found out I was Jewish (because they would try to talk to me about Jesus and I would tell them I was Jewish) they seem to know more about the reality of the calling of my people, in a prophetic and spiritual sense, than I did. Culturally, I knew about my people, and I loved the fact that we were special. And although I thought about God, they had an intimate relationship that transcended mere knowledge or culture. I felt that they could sense that God had touched me (healed me physically), and that He wanted more out of me. I felt like God was using them to tell me there was more: it was time to dedicate my life.

I took a teaching and coaching job in Taft, California and it seemed like the Lord was chasing me wherever I went. Soon, Christians were witnessing to me, as if I had a sign on my back saying, "This man needs Jesus."

Unfortunately, I resisted and returned to drinking. I would go out to my garage because I was so ashamed. I didn't want the kids to know what a poor example I was.

I started rebuilding a home and I didn't know anything about construction. I was in over my head because the home was a disaster. I called my last friend in the world to come help me, and he came over, bringing a tape player with the Bible tapes for James, Peter and Jude. At this point, the house was uninhabitable.

I told him I wasn't interested in that stuff because I had a lot of work and that I just needed his help. He wasn't much of a help, bending nails over with every hit, and when I told him that I didn't want to listen to the Word of God, he quickly took off and drove down the street, before I could say anything.

As I looked at him leave, I realized that this was the last friend I had in the world. I could sense that he was frustrated with me and even was tired of me. I was very bitter. I looked at the tape machine on the floor and said, "Isn't that just like him, a Christian and he took the tape machine from the school, and then he leaves it here." I was so closed minded and mean spirited that I thought he was a hypocrite. But the more I thought about it, I considered that he only borrowed the tape deck from the school where he taught so that I could hear the Word of God.

Then, I reconsidered. I thought to myself what harm could it do: I am all alone, unhappy and I don’t understand the anything. Nothing made sense. I said to myself, "You know, the least I could have done was listen to it." So, I put the tape in and started to listen, and when I heard James, a Hebrew Believer, and leader of the early church in Israel, talk to the men and say what they were to do to please God, I was amazed. It was very Jewish, very knowledgeable but most of all it was powerfully TRUE! I began to get convicted. Then, when Peter came on, the strength and power of his words (filled with the Power of the Holy Spirit), stopped me and hit hard upon my heart.

These Jews spoke of God like nothing I had heard before from anyone. It was as if they were Rabbis of the highest learning but they spoke with the simplicity of common men. No more was religion or man’s organization the issue. The truth was the issue. God’s plan was the issue. I was the issue, and my heart heard it all when Peter hit me with a line that would always stick with me. "As a dog returns to his vomit, so does a man return to his sin."

Even though God had totally and supernaturally healed me 6 years earlier, and had been faithful to me by giving me two sons, and a wonderful wife who was pregnant, I returned to my sin like a dog. When I heard Peter say that with such conviction, the Power of God convicted me, and I got down on my knees before Him and said, "If there is anything to this Jesus thing, let me have it."

At that moment, God's presence came over me again much like when I was healed six years earlier. It was as if God was in the broken down room of this house I was pathetically joined to. However, this time my whole mind was being renewed, as I realized that God loves everyone but that many don’t look to His plan or His system by His Holy Spirit. It is foreign to too many people because they were busy "living their own lives, doing their own things"; but at this moment, I was able to see all of its hope, faith and love….it was very positive. The mystery of Jesus’ death on the cross was not a mystery at all. It was a purposeful plan that God took very personally. In Isaiah, the Jewish Bible says:

Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. Isaiah 53:10

Also, the mystery of God doing something unique, such as a virgin birth or as an offering of Himself was not far fetched at all---everything was possible because of this great hope and great love that I now felt as real. Now, I could see God and His limitlessness and how it personally was effective to touch a man who was interested in knowing Him. The concepts that bothered me as a Jew, I saw as very positive once I opened up to the possibility of there being something to this Jesus thing.

Scriptures from the Jewish Bible that didn’t make sense, before, made a lot of sense, now, in this new context of His almighty hope, faith and love. Scriptures such as:

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Isaiah 7:14

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6

At one point a thought I knew all about God. I felt I was His because I was a Jew and the history, ethnicity and the traditions were planted around that theme proving my identity. But I didn’t really know God because I didn’t have a relationship with Him on His terms. Jesus said it this way to a Rabbi named Nicodemas who came to ask Jesus about the wonders he saw Jesus do:

After dark one evening, a Jewish religious leader named Nicodemus, a Pharisee, came to speak with Jesus. "Rabbi," he said, "we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miraculous signs are proof enough that God is with you."

Jesus replied, "I assure you, unless you are born again, you can never see the Kingdom of God."

"What do you mean?" exclaimed Nicodemus. "How can an old man go back into his mother's womb and be born again?"

Jesus replied, "The truth is, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives new life from heaven. So don't be surprised at my statement that you must be born again. Just as you can hear the wind but can't tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can't explain how people are born of the Spirit."

"What do you mean?" Nicodemus asked.

Jesus replied, "You are a respected Jewish teacher, and yet you don't understand these things? I assure you, I am telling you what we know and have seen, and yet you won't believe us. But if you don't even believe me when I tell you about things that happen here on earth, how can you possibly believe if I tell you what is going on in heaven? For only I, the Son of Man, have come to earth and will return to heaven again. And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so I, the Son of Man, must be lifted up on a pole, so that everyone who believes in me will have eternal life.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
John 3.1-16

God healed, saved and delivered me that day. Soon after that, my wife was saved and we began the journey, and God has been faithful to complete the work in me each step of the way.

Psalm 1 says that a man who listens to God is like a tree planted by a river of water. He will bring forth his fruit in due season. God has done that for me.

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