More Grandchildren In Heaven Than On Earth

More Grandchildren In Heaven Than On Earth

by Bill Godfrey

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

I want to call your attention because I know what I’m going to talk about this morning and you don’t, and Sean didn’t. And I want to call attention to the fact that his selection of songs fit perfectly. And to me that’s the real test of a song leader, is if he listens to the Holy Spirit and it just works beautifully. Marge Lawrence was the best that I ever knew at that. It was really something, really great. That’s her heart, your God.

I want to talk about a kind of wild thing. I’ll give you a little background on it first. About 14 or 15 years ago my wife got a book, that she had a book where she got it. And it was by a man named McAll. It was called Healing the Family Tree. And so we read the book. And then we called our daughter, Catherine.

She had a miscarriage when she was about 19. And her life was in shambles. I mean, everything she did turned up wrong. And she had a… made a bad marriage. And then after that she was dragged off the streets of Albuquerque, New Mexico, at the bus stop by two men. And nobody assisted her. And she was taken to the dump and brutally raped. I don’t hear what you look like.

She had a poor self-image and she quit college and went to work in a jewelry store. And the jewelry people that owned the thing were white witches and tried to introduce her to all this. Everywhere she turned, it was just terrible. And so anyway… I guess I’ll have to sit there. I’m gonna kind of go our way here. Yeah, here we go. And anyway, why… Over the phone, we told her about it. And so she said that she wanted to come home. And then we did the little thing that said in the book. And I’ll describe it to you. Now what happens is that… I want to give you a background on this too. Now it worked with her. Then I began to teach this in CFOs and it’s worked every time. Not most of the time, but every time this thing has been a tremendous turnaround for everybody. Now here’s the philosophy or the thought behind it. Now let’s say that a child is born and that child lives four or five months. And then sudden infant death syndrome, kabom, they die. What happens to this child? Okay? All right. This child goes to Jesus. Don’t you agree with me on that? Yes. Right. And He then takes this child and brings it to full maturity in this place where He can do that.

And so it’s His responsibility because He loves every human being. He caused that conception, that exact way that that child was made in the first place. So now let’s say that a child goes nine months and then is born and never takes a breath. What happens to that child? Same thing: goes to Jesus, doesn’t it? All right. Let’s say that at six months the child is either aborted or is spontaneous abortion, the miscarriage. What happens to that child? Okay. Let’s go on back to about a couple of weeks. About that. The same thing happens, doesn’t it? Okay. So after conception, this human being is a human being. And the mother, I believe that. I do it not just because my church does that. I believe it because I believe it in my heart. Jesus told me that. And so anyway, why this child goes to be with the Lord. Now, the problem is in these things, there isn’t any… you don’t name the child. You don’t usually even know what the sex of the child was. You don’t give this child personhood. Do you understand that? And there’s no dignity and there’s no personhood. Now, if this is true, what happens, I don’t know. Except that somehow this restless soul is not made right. Or, and or, Satan is given a foothold and a door cracked open to get in there and mess things up.

However it be, and I don’t really know, I don’t think anybody knows. But I do know this, that in many, many cases, there are all kinds of troubles and problems follow a family like this. My grandmother had three or four miscarriages. In addition to this, had a couple of children that didn’t live very long and, you know, this sort of thing. And one died at six. And she had five surviving children. Of those, their whole families were dysfunctional. Two of my uncles died of alcoholism, my four uncles, and on that side. And my dad’s side, I don’t know what happened in there, because he never told me much about his family. But it was a mess from beginning to end. And so there’s bound to be some of that in there. I took it upon myself when I got married to break my family tradition. I did it in prayer. I said, God, I’m going to break this. And I raised my children totally differently than the way I had been raised. At least I made mistakes. I wasn’t… I know there’s a better way than what I did it. But at least I broke it. And I got that done. And then when we solved the problem in our nuclear family, we solved Kathy’s problems.

So what we did is we recognized this child. And then we gave it a name. And then we had a burial service or a committal to the Lord, like that. And then a commitment on the part of the mother and father of this. And father, if it’s possible, if it’s an abortion and, you know, something like that, and you’re not sure that the father is going to do anything anyway, why they’re not married or anything like that. Then it’s just on a woman to pray to Jesus at least, I’d say, oh, once a week or so, the rest of your life for this child. And to ask Jesus to show you in your dreams or any other way the development of this child. And now, I don’t have any trouble in the Episcopal Church, in the Catholic Church. We pray for those who have gone on. And we feel they pray for us too. And so that doesn’t bother me. We go ahead and pray. I go ahead and pray for the child. And so we prayed for this. And I have a lot more grandchildren in heaven than I have on earth, like that, and the way that’s where I have more. And so anyway, this is what basically the teaching is. It’s very simple.

Now, if you all have… know of anybody that you want to do this by proxy or so, and that has had either an abortion or a miscarriage, then in the free time, I’m going to come down and be available. And so I want Ria to be with me too, because she’s ministering in this area also. And we’re going to minister to you. We’ve already done some of this. But there’s more that needs to be done probably. I don’t know. We’ll find out. And if not, God bless you. It’s wonderful. But you think about it. Get this book by McAll called Healing the Family Tree. Now, he goes into a lot greater depth than I do. And I’m just telling you what I experienced. That’s all I know. I read the book, and then I said, this is what I’m going to do. Now, what I did the first time after Kathy, I went to the Ohio camp when they had it at Heidelberg. I was a speaker. And it was an unusual camp. I’ve never forgotten it, because just as I got out of my airplane to pick my suitcase out, my back went out on me. I was early in my troubles with my back, and I absolutely fell to my knees and had to crawl into the airport.

And they had to come get me and went to the chiropractor, and I still was just in horrible shape. Had a big thing wrapped around my middle. And then when the other speaker was speaking, I lay down in front on my back with my knees up so I could listen to it. I couldn’t sit. I could stand or I could lie down, but I couldn’t sit. And I had to get pillows up under my feet and all this. You see, it was a horrible thing. This woman came to me, a young woman, and she… I had… and I told this story of Kathy and how it happened. She came to me after the talk. And her life… she told me her life history, and I thought, oh, it was a disaster. I never saw all these things happening. I mean, you can’t believe the things that happened. You know, a house burned down, just everything. Whatever you thought about it was happening to her. And anyway, why… she had had two abortions before she was 18. And so what I did, and I’m going to warn you in advance, if you’ve had an abortion, I’m going to ask you to confess to murder. And I did this with her, and then that we talked about that Jesus forgives us, even a murderer.

Forgave Paul. -huh. He forgave David. David is the worst kind of a murderer. And there’s murders all through the Bible that He’s forgiven. And He says, you know, a sin’s a sin. He’ll forgive you. And so then I pronounced absolution. I just, you know, I don’t hope my bishop doesn’t hear that, because I’m not supposed to do that.

It’s heresy. But I just took the authority from the Holy Spirit and the fire, and I said, I absolve you in the name of Jesus. And then we made sure that she had let go of this, that she didn’t feel any guilt. And then we named the children, and she knew, which is the sex of each one of them. They were aborted early, but she knew in her heart. And the mama does. And we gave them a name. And then she was an Episcopalian, and I had the Episcopal prayer book in 1928. So I led them, I led her in a funeral service for the two of them. And then, that was it. And I thought, I’ve done what I can do. And I left camp. That was in July. And then in Christmas time, just before Christmas, I got a letter from her. And her life had completely turned around from that moment. I mean, by the next day, it had turned around. Everything began to happen. She had met a nice young man, and they were going to get married. Then the next Christmas, I got another letter from her. This went on for 14 years. And, or whatever it is, 13, 14 years. And, anyway, now she has four beautiful children.

Her husband has full-time Christian service. They’re in a church. They’re doing, they’re fine. They’re not rich, but they’re doing fine economically. They have beautiful, four beautiful children. And their life is just a, one of joy to see them like that. That’s from total disaster to a total joy. It’s fantastic, and it works. And I saw her this time, three or four weeks ago. And I got to see her and her family first time since then. And made her husband and the whole thing. And watched her, as she’s on the council ring, and so is her husband. And just, oh, I’ll tell you, it was really something. And that’s results. Now I’m an engineer, and I’m a pragmatist. And, I don’t like to get into things that don’t work. I mean, there’s a lot of things that are, you know, and this is kooky. I guarantee it’s kind of kooky. And to me, the only thing is it works. And every single time that I, to my knowledge, that I have led people in this kind of a thing, their lives have turned around. Praise the Lord. So if you want, if you have a need in this area, or even if you know someone that does, that will come and would encounter, and you can go do that with them.

And so you can get, it’s cleansing the body of Christ and getting things straightened out in their family tree. We’re all a family. And so it helps all the way. So that’s what I have to say on that subject. There we go. Now, good. Let’s do that. Now I want to talk about, a real tough subject. It’s hard for all of us. My wife and I have been married, for, this is our 50th year, as I said. And, we’ve been, had 49 anniversaries, but this is the 50th year. And, she is totally unlike me. And I like her. At least we were in the beginning. We’re getting closer together now. She was an A person and I was a Z person. I mean, just, you know, completely. And, she, her background was different. Everything about her was different. And we had to learn to honor our commitment to be good forgivers. And that’s the prime requisite for a good marriage, is to learn to forgive. The magic words of maintaining relationship is, “I was wrong.” And, that’s the hardest three words to say in the English language. But I guarantee you that your life is greatly enriched if you learn to do that. So, if you remember the story, about the parable of the unforgiving servant.

You remember that? A king or a man had, this, his servant owed him, you know, millions of dollars. Big, huge debt. And so he forgave him. Cause he said, “Oh, forgive me. I’ll try to pay it back. I’ll do my best and everything else.” So he said, “Okay,” wrote the debt off. He goes to his fellow servant who just owed him a few bucks. And I said, “Pay me what you owe,” and throttled him, you know, and that sort of thing, had him thrown in prison. So the other servants found out about it and they went to the master and told him about it. And then he told him, said, “You wicked servant.” And the King James says “you worthless wretch.” I love it. And that’s what he was and everything else. “And should you not have pity on your fellow servant as I had pity on you?” Okay. And, so as God has forgiven me, can’t I forgive other people? That’s the thing. But listen, this is the tough one. And this is a lot of people do not hear this. This is really hard words of Jesus. They’re in there in red in my Bible. He said it. Then in anger, his master handed him over to the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt.

So will my heavenly Father do to you unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart. Those hard words. I mean, sweet, loving, sweet, meek, and mild Jesus. Now He’s telling us that the Father is going to hand us over to the torturers. What kind of tortures are going to be? You’re going to be afraid of all these circumstances that happen in your life. And all sorts of things. Your house burns down. And you name it. You get diseases. And just goes on and on and on. Unless you forgive from your heart.

And then I want to talk a little bit. I’m going to do a forgiveness exercise for you. I had developed this thing a long time ago. And we don’t know how to judge people. So who are we to judge anybody? And so I will read you another scripture on it before I get into this. This is in James.

And He’s saying like, submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. This is in the fourth chapter of James. You want to look it up. And humble yourselves before the Lord and He will exalt you. Do not speak evil of one another, brothers. Whoever speaks evil of a brother or judges his brother speaks evil of the law and judges the law. You’re judging God at this point. And that’s the reason. If you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is one lawgiver and judge who is able to save or destroy. Who then are you to judge your brother? Who are we to judge anybody? That’s the truth. If you don’t believe this, do you remember? What, 30 years ago? A young man who happened to be, by the way, a charismatic, tongue-speaking Christian. And went up into the Texas Tower. He killed his wife and daughter and his mother-in-law. And went up in the Texas Tower and killed about 26 people. Shoot him there. You remember that? What you didn’t hear is in the beginning psychology book of every university that I know of. And they had the answer. They did an autopsy on this man. And he had a cancer on his amygdala, which is up in here somewhere.

I believe that’s right here. The amygdala is right up here. This is the portion of the brain that deals with aggressiveness. And this cancerous place in his amygdala was causing him untold rages. This had been going on for a year. He went to his pastor. The pastor had a deliverance service. He went to his doctor. His doctor didn’t find anything wrong. I think there was an error there. And he went to a psychiatrist. And I just know that psychiatrists ought to have thought of that. It’s so common. It is not uncommon that he did this. And so then he just went berserk one day and out, totally out of control. And we judged him to be evil. But also he was completely out of control because of a biochemical thing in his brain. There’s another thing that I want you to think about. In 1984, I was having my allergies tested in Little Rock. And I forgot to bring a book. Now what they do is they put a little thing on your arm like that just under the skin. And then you wait five minutes. They have a little alarm clock. And when it rings off, you go up and they read it. And then they put another one on. This goes on all day long.

For me, two days. Because I’m a universal reactor and I got to check it all out. But from that, they make the serum that you inject yourself with for allergies. And that helps you. So… And I looked up in the bookshelf, the doctor’s bookshelf. And I found this book and it says, Brain Allergies, The Psychonutrient Connection. Okay. By two psychiatrists named Philpott and Kalita. And remember, Brain Allergies, The Psychonutrient Connection. And it’s written for doctors. And you will have difficulty, as I did, reading it. Because they have a jargon all of their own. And I had to just almost translate. But now this is what happened. These two doctors came to California. They’re from California. And they went into the California women’s mental institutions. They selected 250 women of all different ages that the requirements for being on this study program, that they had to have been at least five years in the back wards, able to be either tied up or with drugs. They were… In other words, they were the hopeless. The back things they didn’t… The people don’t want to look at. And that’s the one. They got 250 of them. And they put them on a… First, they were working… And what they were working for was food allergies. And see how it affected the brain.

And so they gave them a four-day fast. At the end of this four-day fast, 80% of these women were asymptomatic. That’s the doctors saying they had no symptoms. They didn’t know it needed drugs. They were drug-free. They were everything. Then they tested them selectively on various foods. Rice, wheat, beans, all these things. These were the things. Not all of them. But, you know, one did this and one did that, one thing, another. And they found the one or two things they were eating every day that was causing them to have this. They’ve done a similar study in prisons on aggressiveness and found that about four out of five, if they cut out certain foods, then they’re not aggressive anymore. My son-in-law has a nephew. And his name is Reinout. They’re Dutch. And anyway, his father’s name was Hilt. So I love these Dutch names. Well, he’s Reinout. And Reinout is now 15. And the year before last, Martin said, do not bring Reinout when they come to camp. The family comes for a thing because he was a mess. And he was stealing and he was getting into all kinds of trouble. And he was in… Their equivalent of the juvenile authorities was bothering him. And he’s really, you know, terrible. He’s from a broken marriage.

And all that’s fine and good. But anyway, he’s got an older sister who wasn’t affected this way. And they found out last year that he is allergic to milk products. They took milk products off. And you never have in your life seen a nicer young man than this Reinout. Total different change to his personality just from these food allergies. And I judged him as being a bad egg and hopeless and a hope he dies kind of thing. That’s the way I felt. Didn’t want him messing with my grandsons, you know, because he’s just a little older than they are. And by a year. And I didn’t want him during that month influencing them. You know, that sort of thing. And all the time, yes, he was just getting milk and she got his cheese and cheese. Dutch, he butches cheese and he’s allergic to it. He doesn’t eat that now. And he’s in the Boy Scouts. And he’s just about to find Jesus. And his sister has already found the Lord. And it’s just really… It’s a very interesting story. But… So we don’t know how to judge, do we? You don’t know where anybody is coming from. We judge… I wake up and I really don’t feel too good today. My head’s kind of thick.

I mean, you know, really good. And I meet somebody the first time. And I don’t think very much of what I clutch that guy is. Or, you know, just that’s… Because it’s me. It’s not him. It’s not a thing to do with him. And first impressions. Now, that’s a study that is interesting. You know about this gene. They take a picture and then give you a bio underneath the picture. And then they have another group that they have, but they have a different bio. And then what they do is about a week later, they swap these. And then a week later, they ask and they show them a picture without the bio and say, describe this person. Well, one of them is just totally negative. And the other was totally positive. Same picture. And a week later, why? And they show them this. And then they have… And the ones who saw the negative will read negative things into this guy’s face like that. And the ones that saw the positive will read positive things. First impressions. That’s what it is. The first impression we have. Think about our anchor persons on television. Any of them got a wart on their nose? I’ll tell you, some of those guys that do the real work back there and dig it up, they’ve got warts on their nose and they’re fat and big jowls, but it’s pretty bright.

Happy… Someone said, where do they get these people? I don’t see them anywhere on the streets, you know. It’s just really amazing. But you see, if the person is attractive and personable, people will listen. Isn’t that weird? We just… We don’t know anything about judging. And so, I want you now to remember that, first of all, in forgiveness, you’ve got to forgive everybody everything. Okay? You’ve got to be right there. Then you’ve got to forgive yourself. Ooh. And then, you’ve got to forgive God. I don’t care who you are, somewhere you’ve blamed God for something that happened to you. And it’s not His fault. And so, you have to forgive Him. And He loves us. Now, I want you to get a partner. Oh, I hate to do this to you, but you’re going to do it. Now, serious. Right now. You get just two people to get together. Everybody, hold hands. Hold your hands for your partner. I want everybody to have a partner.

Every single… Okay, everybody got a partner now. And we get this all shaken out now. If there’s anybody that does not have a partner, why then, come up to me and I’ll be your partner. Everybody got a partner?

Okay, have you got one over here? Here’s one. Here’s one. There you go. No, no. Right here. Yeah, there you go. Now, has anybody else not got a partner? You don’t have a partner. And nobody else that doesn’t have a partner out here. Joe! Oh, here we go. Come on. That makes it a little easier when I do this.

Now, you may not agree with what I’m going to ask you to do. I’m not asking you to agree. I’m asking you to do it. You know? And because I have been through this and thought it through very carefully, God guided me to make these particular words in this particular way. And that you may rise up in your own mind and say, this is… No. You know, at least, you know… But anyway, say it. Do it. Just trust me. You know you love me and know you love me, so trust me. Okay? Now, I want you to think, take a moment, and ask God to show you someone, not this person, necessarily. This is just an exercise between the two of you. Like that. You think of a person that has done you an injury or you have done them an injury. Okay? Either way. Think of someone that you need to forgive.

Think of someone that you need to forgive or to be forgiven. Number two. Okay. Now I want you to say after me as I read this, number one. I want you to say to number two. And you can look in their eyes or just look in their general direction at whatever you’re comfortable with. You don’t have to be in their beady eyes right up to you, but do this. Okay. Number one, say to number two, “Whatever there is between us, I take full responsibility.

It was all my fault. And I’m very sorry. And I ask your forgiveness. If you do not choose to forgive me, I am not responsible for that. But I do forgive myself. And because I have confessed this to you and to God, I am not guilty. I am not guilty. I am not guilty.” Now, number two, I want you to say to number one, “I forgive you in the same way that God forgave me. You are free. You don’t owe me anything. You are not guilty.” Okay. Now, number one, say to number two, “I accept your forgiveness. And I accept the forgiveness of God. I forgive myself. I am not guilty.” All right. Now, number two, reverse this. Go back. You say, number two says to number one, “Whatever there is between us, I take full responsibility. It is all my fault. It is all my fault. I am very sorry. And I ask your forgiveness. If you do not choose to forgive me, I am not responsible for that. But I do forgive myself.

And because I have confessed this to you and to God, I am not guilty. I am not guilty. I am not guilty.” Number one, you say to number two, isn’t that the way it is? Yeah. “I forgive you. I forgive you. In the same way that God forgave me. You are free. You don’t owe me anything. You are not guilty. You are not guilty. Guilty. And you are not guilty.” And now, number two, “I accept your forgiveness. And I accept the forgiveness of God. I forgive myself. I am not guilty. I am free.” And you are all not guilty. In the name of Jesus, I say that. Absolutely. Every one of you. And you are free. The truth will set you free. The truth will set you free. A lot of people will look at that and say, this person has done this injury to me. And I’ll give you an example of that. My father put me down as a little boy. And I had no defense. He put me down and put me down. And so that’s kind of a child abuse, isn’t it? Yes. And so I looked at it. That was about 99% his fault and 1% my fault. Until I grew up and he’s already dead. And I had written him a letter. And after he’s dead. And I began to tell him all these things. And I found, and I made a wondrous discovery.

My father put everybody down. He was unaffirmed. He had to do that. He couldn’t have stopped himself. Because his father and his father before him and his father before him had put him down. And that’s the way that you raise kids. Clobber-headed boys. You know, that sort of thing. Just, you know, that’s the old farm boy. Just kick them around. You know, make them work hard. Or they go to sleep at night because they’re exhausted and all. Just treat them like dirt. Or clobber-headed boys with them. They use the expression. Once, I was 52 and my brother was 48. And it’s Christmas time. I’ve got a bad back. And this sort of thing. And my dad had fireplaces. He said, “Really, go get some more wood for the fire.” We got five or six big strapping grandsons around there. You know, they can do this. And my mother was there. And I said, “No, Papa, my back hurts me.” And he said, “They cook. They cook. They ought to heck with that,” or something like that. “And get one of their grandsons.” And so my mother said… And he said, “Well, they’re just a couple of clobber-headed boys.” And she said, “They’re 50 years old. What are you talking about?” You know? But he was that way.

Now, what was my part in that? He sowed the seed. He sowed that seed to everybody. Broadcast it to the whole world. I picked it up. Mm-hmm. That was my responsibility. And that was my fault. That was all my fault. My brother didn’t pick it up. I don’t know why the difference in where personalities are somewhat similar. But I picked it up and he didn’t. And he wasn’t affected by it. A little, but not much. And so anyway, you’ll find that in any situation in which, oh, they’ve done me wrong. You know, like that. You did something to provoke that. I mean, that you’re not aware of. So, and if I take full responsibility for it like that, I can forgive that person. Do you see? I forgave my father because he didn’t know what he was doing. You know what Jesus said? Forgive them because they don’t know what they’re doing. And I was able then to act Christ-like or treat my father as I would Jesus. And I thought, my father didn’t know what he was doing wrong. And my mother, just before she died, she said to me, she said, “We made a mistake in raising you. And because we wanted to do it our way and we didn’t recognize your personality and your personhood.”

See, and they tried to mold me. They were taught by B.F. Skinner, who says, “A child is a tabula rasa. You know, you write anything on that slate you want.” So, he didn’t have children. I’ll tell you that for sure. Every one of them are different. Anyway, she said, “But, Bill, we did the best we knew how.” And I realized that. My mama loved me. And she did the best she knew how to raise me. And I was the bright one. And Kathy was the bright one that we had. And Kathy is just a super genius. She read 3,000 words a minute. 90% comprehension. It’s just unbelievable. You know, this mind was beyond anything. And I didn’t do too good with her because she ended up killing herself. So, I did the best I knew how, though. That’s it. And my mama did it. And I was able to forgive my mama. Although, really, not enough for my mother to forgive. Because I really knew at the time. Everything she did. When she spanked me, she loved me. You know, I was an arrogant little snot for a kid. I was terrible. I really was terrible. And I look at it. Now, I’ve never seen a child yet as bad as I was. I’m serious.

I see him around there. Really something. But what it amounts to is that we don’t know right or wrong about forgiveness, do we? We can’t judge anything, can we? Can we judge whether this relationship… It may look that way and maybe have 10 people agree with us like that. But we’ll be wrong. We can just be sincerely wrong as we can be. And so, the thing to get your life on a wonderful relationship with Jesus Christ is forgive. And so, Peter said, “How often shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Seven times?” That was the Jewish way. Seven times. And then you, after that, look out. You know, that sort of thing. He said, “No, 70 times.” Seven times. And that’s daily. Seven hundred and whatever it is. Or 490 times a day. And that’s a lot. And what He’s saying, infinitely… What? 63 million times. Oh, seven to the seventh power. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Well, that’s… In other words, always forgive. Yeah, right. It’d take a while. And then He goes on and talks about that. And then He tells this story, you know, that we must forgive from our heart.

Now, how’s that going to work? We have friends in AA. I mean, you know what? We do so many things in the body of Christ where we say the words one time. And we go through the actions that we’re supposed to do. And “I forgive. That settles it. Praise the Lord. I’m free.” But we’re not. Because it doesn’t work. That’s exactly what it is. Gene has already given you the clue to that: is repetition. You have to continue to do it. So I have a way to suggest that you do this. We tell all the people in AA because when they first come in, everybody has done them wrong. I mean, they’re just lily whites. They just… The world is against me. Everything is just, you know, it’s terrible. So the problem is out there. If they would just leave me alone and, you know… So we say, you’ve got to forgive these people. And then you’ve got a resentment against so-and-so because, you know, whatever. The banker, he bounced my checks. Because I didn’t have any money in the bank. Can you imagine that? You know, it’s terrible. So we ask him now, you start on your list of people that you’re angry at. And what we do is we have them pray for three weeks minimum.

And then keep on praying if it doesn’t work. It’ll work usually in three weeks. And ask God to give them every blessing that they would like to receive themselves. What I’d like to have is good health, lots of money, loving friends, forgiving people around me, and sweetness and light. And it never rains at noon. And all this sort of thing. You want that to happen to them. And they’ll say, “I don’t believe it. I don’t mean it.” You know, and I say, no, you don’t have to mean it. You have to say it. That’s what you have to do. You have to pray for them. And if you have to use a few expletives to describe them to the Lord, that’s all right, too. But you pray for them. And you keep doing it until, finally, it becomes real in your heart. And at that point, if you will look at their name or think about them, you’ll find that there’s nothing in there that rises up. You know, you have forgiven them from your heart. You see what I’m saying? We all need to forgive, all the time. And particularly, we need to forgive our spouses. That’s where it is. And I need to forgive my children. I need to forgive those close to me. I don’t have trouble at all forgiving, because you all, I’m going to get on the airplane tomorrow and fly back to Colorado. And I’ll remember you fondly. I love what happened last night. That’s the most highest experience I’ve had in CFO. It really is. I’ve never had a higher experience than that. It’s been fantastic.

And I didn’t know that I could be so blessed by trying to bless people. It just, it blew my mind. It really was. It’s fantastic. And I’ll remember that the rest of my life. If I live to be another hundred years, I’ll never forget it. But, and I can forgive you, because I won’t be next to you. That’s it. Well, I have a, we have a friend named Charlotte Henderson. She’s in our prayer group in Ardmore. She’s a great big, heavy set woman. And so I was able to help her through a spiritual crisis with her husband. And she survived all this and everything. She thinks I hung the moon. And so she tells Judy, she said, “I love Bill more than you do.” Like that says, especially since I don’t have to live with him.

And that is the truth. I have a couple other things that I want to talk about, but, well, I think I will do the amend step right now. This is part of this. So we’ll do it real quickly. When you make amends to someone that you have harmed, you do this in such a way that it will not hurt anybody else. Now, if it would hurt them, let’s say that we tell a guy in the AA, let’s say you slept with this guy’s wife. And now you go and say, “I slept with your wife, would you forgive me?” Boy, what a thing you have done. You’ve harmed the wife, the relationship. This you don’t do. I mean, you just simply can’t do things like that. There are some things that will really hurt people and break up for us, so you don’t do it. You make direct amends wherever possible, except when to do so would harm them or others. Okay, that’s the way you make the amends. And you put the first on this list and become willing to make amends. And you can do it by a letter, you can do it by a bunch of different things and ways, but the amends are extremely important that you make these amends, because what you are doing is sweeping off your side of the street.

Now that puts the ball in their court. You have forgiven them and you’ve asked them to forgive you. And if they don’t forgive you, that doesn’t change a thing because your side of the street is clean and they have to walk in the dirt. And that’s exactly what it is. If I have a resentment against somebody for a long-standing thing and I finally go to them and tell them, “You know, I resented you because blah,” and they don’t even remember it. And I’ve been living here with this thing gnawing on me all the time, and they’re blissfully unaware of the whole thing, you see. And that’s what you’ll find out goes on. But most times the people will help you and they will be absolutely flabbergasted that anyone would want to make amends on something. They say, “Well, that was nothing. You know, oh, that’s easy.” But sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes they’ll throw you out. You go in there and one amends, a guy came up to make amends to a friend of mine who was just a year in the program. And as he walked in the store, this guy had really harmed him and had tried to kill him and other things. And so when he got there, he whipped the gun out and he put it back in his face and he said, “You get out of here, right?”

And so, you know, kind of make amends to a guy like that, you know. But later on, they had to have reconciliation. One amends that’s kind of cute that I’ll give you and then I’ll quit. When I left the state of Kansas in 1958, I left Kansas to go to Roswell, New Mexico. My daughter had nearly died there of asthmatic bronchitis. The wind blew all the time. It was cold. The people were, you know, they were a mess. Now, I was drinking, remember, this time. And so I had ugly people living all around me and all this sort of thing. And just the whole… I didn’t like the state. The wind blew too much. Too hot in the summertime. Daughter nearly died. I stopped at Liberal, Kansas, and shook my fist at Kansas. I said, “I’ll never come back to this blankety-blank state again. That’s it. That’s it. I quit. To heck with you.” Now, I left on the 10th of April. On the 1st of April in the state of Kansas, they assess your, you know, all your personal property taxes. And I owed them like, let’s say $120, I think is what it was. Well, 10 days, that’s unjust. So I didn’t pay it. So there it was. I was leaving the state anyway.

And so, anyway, why? I got a letter from them, oh, about six months later, a year later. And you owe $120 plus penalty plus interest, all this sort of thing. By now, about a couple hundred dollars. And I… I’m living in New Mexico. You can’t get me down here. And then, finally, I got a letter that said, if you don’t reply in five days, a bench warrant will be issued for your arrest. You know, and, oh, boy, I feel good. Well, I looked at the date, and it was about 15 days ago. It had gone to various places and finally got there without a well or something. And then I opened it up. So I forgot about that. And then I got sober in 1967. And then along about 1974, this is many, many years later, I mean, like 12, 15 years later, I was thinking to myself, I’ve made my amends. I’ve done all these things. I’ve cleaned up my side of the street. And the dime dropped. You owe the state of Kansas an infinite amount of money. Because, you know, it’s the penalties and interest and everything else. You know, it’s the national debt. I mean, it’s what it is at this point. And that many years later, I thought, oh. And I didn’t have the money.

I mean, I couldn’t have paid him the original 120. You know, and it was really, oh, it was awful. I was just getting my head above the water financially. And this very nearly got me drunk. Because I resisted it for about a week. And finally, I surrendered during the night. And I said, Lord, I’m good. I mean, I just have to write him a letter. And so I wrote a letter to the city of Wichita, the county of Sedgwick, and the state of Kansas. And the letter is all the same. And I addressed it to the various people. And I made the change there. And I said, I lived at 710 Apache, Wichita, from such and such a day to so and so a day. And gave him the whole thing. So I get all the information. I left doing approximately $120, whatever it was. And I know that this is greater now because of prison penalties. I have no idea how much. But somehow, I’m going to have to make up this. And I must pay something to the state. And so could you please look into this and see if we can get together and see some way we can work this out? In other words, can I work out some of the deals?

Pay you $25 a week or something, you know. And six weeks went by and I got a letter from the lieutenant governor of Kansas about that. I explained that I was an alcoholic recovering in AA and I needed to do this to make my amends. And he got back and he said, “Thank you for your refreshing letter. I’m happy to inform you that you do not owe the state of Kansas or the city of Wichita a dime. Because the statute of limitations, it run out five years.” I didn’t even know about that. But God put me through that thing. I could just see it, you know, $50,000. I could just see it. Oh, Lord. And anyway, and he said, “I have sent your letter with a copy of my letter to all the department heads in our government. And for your example, I thank you very much, Mr. Godfrey.” And, of course, I gave a testimony to the Lord in that letter that I was doing this to please the Lord. God has such a sense of humor. Wow. That was the best amends I ever made. Okay. Okay. It’s time to get on with the rest of the program. I thank You, Lord. I praise You for this day. And I hope that what I said this morning will touch whatever hearts it needs to be touched.

And if it’s not touching anybody, the other hearts, why? That’s all right, too. I thank You, Lord, that You can sort this all out. And I can’t. We just praise You. And I thank You, Lord, for Your goodness, Your loving kindness, and Your long-suffering mercy to Your humble servant. Bless us all as what we do today is in Your name. Amen.