My Rock In a Paper Sack

My Rock In a Paper Sack

by Ruth Carter Stapleton

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

I want to read tonight from Ephesians, the second chapter. Paul says, “To you who were spiritually dead all the time that you drifted along on the stream of this world’s ideas of living and obeyed its unseen ruler, to you Christ has given life.

“We all lived like that in the past, and we followed the impulses of the imaginations of our evil nature, being in fact under the wrath of God by nature like everyone else. But even though we were dead in our sins, God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love, because of His great love that He has for us, gave us life together in Christ.”

Now, those who are spiritually dead, who drifted in the stream of the world’s ideas of living and obeyed its rulers, we have to realize that we can come into this new Christ, new life with Christ. You know, we follow one ruler or the other. We all have a god. Sometimes our gods change. We have to stop sometimes and think, “Now, what do I give my mind to? What do I think about all day?

“What are my activities? What are my activities?” We call ourselves Christians sometimes and then we wonder why there is no victory in our life. We wonder why there is no power in our life. And so, as we kind of hit on last night, sometimes it’s just an intellectual assuming. I remember being up in the mountains, in one of the mountain camps in North Carolina, and this Mr. Potts told about being a young minister. And he said that he used to go around from store to store down in the business section, witnessing for Christ. And he said one night he walked into a store and he was talking to the owner. And he was just telling about Jesus and the man said, “Gee, that really sounds wonderful. Put my name on your list and send me a bill.”

And you know, this is what sometimes it really gets to be: putting your name on a list and paying your bill every month. And so sometimes we lose the idea completely of what the Christian life is like. Now we have to stop and we have to get still and sometimes take our spiritual temperature. Just where am I?

Am I on a whirlwind spinning? Involved in problems? Depression? Searching and searching and never finding? Or do I know who I am? A child of God? Do I know where I stand? Is there a firm rock under my feet?

Now if you are like me, since I came into the Christian life, I find that sometimes I feel that I have slipped off that rock completely. Now this is not necessarily true. But we move into many different phases. And there is the growth process. And that is kind of what I want to talk about tonight, this growth process.

In the beginning, we began with a belief. You know, Paul says, let’s don’t just remain babies, having to be fed milk all the time. But let’s move on into deeper spiritual growth. Let’s move on into maturity. So that is the purpose for taking our spiritual temperature. We began sometimes with a belief. A belief in something. A belief in somebody. A belief in God. A belief in Jesus Christ.

I was with a friend the day before yesterday. And we were in a park. And it was a park where a lot of the hippies come. And we went down there just to walk around and maybe, you know, meet somebody interesting and just talk a little bit. And this Negro man came up and he said, “Would y’all like to talk?” And we said, “Yes, that’s what we’re here for.” And he says, “Well, I come down to the park.” And he said, “I just kind of like to rap with the people down here.” He said, “I’m a philosopher.” And he said, “I like to talk philosophically.”

Well, that wasn’t what we were going to talk about. But anyway, we began on this philosophical topic. And we talked for a while. And then it began to get down into the nitty gritty. Whereby there was that open communication of life. And all of a sudden he said, “Would you mind if I take a little drink?” He said, “I’m an alcoholic.” And he said, “Look around the park and do you see a policeman?” And I looked around and I said, “No, I don’t see one.” And so he, in the paper sack he had his bottle, and he took the top off and he took a swig. And he said, “Okay, maybe I can get into this conversation now.”

He said, “Now you two are idealist. And I used to be an idealist till 1962.” And I said, “Yes, and what happened in 1962? You were hurt, weren’t you?” He said, “Yes, I was hurt.” And he said, “I no longer am an idealist. I no longer have any belief.” He said, “I carry my rock around here in this sack right here.” He said, “When I began to get shaken, and I don’t know which ends up,” he said, “I just unscrew the top on that bottle.”

So we began to talk about what he did believe in. There was a faith there. That foundation was still there. And as we talked, and as we talked, he said, “You know, I realize that God is love. And in order to express God, you must love. And I never want to love again.” Well, you see, a lot of us are right there in our spiritual growth. We are not seeing victory in our life, because we have cut ourselves off from the source of life.

Once you’ve been hurt, it’s awfully hard to be vulnerable, to put yourself out on that limb. It’s awfully hard to love again. And you know, most of us have been hurt. Some to greater, some lesser degrees. And if it’s been to a greater degree, it’s so much easier to withdraw into that shell.

But you see, that’s when that death really comes. Because when that life is not flowing, and it takes a great big step of faith to step out and say, “I’m gonna love.” It says, “I’ve got to trust somebody.” And as this man, this Negro man we were talking to, said, he said, “There is nobody in this world I can trust. People are not trustworthy.” Well, you know, I think we can pretty well say that. Because if you know, you know you’re not trustworthy. How long has it been since you really let somebody down? You see, we’re gonna fall constantly, because we’re human beings. And yet, every single one of us, we constantly try to find somebody to put our trust in. Isn’t there one human being in this whole world that I can really trust?

Well, you see, when we come into this relationship, whereby we know the only firm rock is Jesus Christ, and we put our trust in Him, then, by trusting Christ, we can trust everybody. Because we’ve got somebody to pick up the pieces. I’ve been hurt. I’ve been hurt to the place that I thought I’d never mend. I was talking to a young girl the other day, and she had such a hurt, her life had been broken half in two. And so, in prayer, we prayed. And Jesus Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, healed that whole hurt. She saw the hurt as a broken vase that had been glued back together. And she said, “I see that crack in that vase.” And I said, “Well, let’s just pray and pray until the power of the Spirit just flows over that vase, which is your life. And all of the crack disappears. And there is no, I didn’t say scar, but that’s what it was.” It was healing the scar. Now, Jesus can do this. And this is the greatest act of grace. When we offer that hurt deep down within us up to Him and say, “Jesus, I want to love You, but I’m afraid. Because I’ve loved mankind and I’ve fallen. Or they’ve fallen.”

Now, another reason sometimes that we have a… We are reticent to believe or to have faith in Christ. You know, it’s a strange thing, but we think of… We connect God, the Heavenly Father, with God, the earthly father. And I’ve known many people who had such a terrible relationship with their earthly father that they couldn’t trust God.

Just the word God or the word Father immediately, they thought of their earthly father. And maybe he drank or maybe he beat them. Or maybe he didn’t provide. And so what kind of a God can I trust? A Father who would be like that. And so we have to have this relationship healed sometimes. Well, we began with believing in somebody. And so we have to say, “Well, Lord, I just step out on faith. And I believe by faith.”

And then there comes another step beyond the believing. And this is a big step. It’s one thing to believe in Christ because He says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whosoever would believe in Him should have everlasting life.” And so when we take that step of belief, He gives Himself to us. That’s when our prayers began to be answered. It’s kind of crude to say this, but He says, “I’m available to be used. If you want me to walk with you, I’ll walk with you. If you want me to answer your prayers, if you ask in my name, I’ll answer your prayers.” And so we use Him. But He gives us that privilege. But that second step goes beyond believing. And it’s belonging. And this is a tremendous difference in believing in and belonging to. Because we get to that place that we realize He’s for real. You know, that’s what the whole world is looking for, is something that’s really for real. But when we realize He’s for real, then we can say, “All right now, I want to give myself to You.”

This is almost an act of accepting yourself. Because when you give yourself, you’re saying, “I’ve got problems that I can’t solve.” Now this is a hard thing to do. To admit that we have a need. To admit that we’ve got to be dependent on something or somebody outside of ourselves. You know, the book of James, the first chapter of James, tells us that that is the very reason that we have so many trials and tribulations to come into our life. It’s in order to make us have the right sort of dependence.

You see, we don’t need to depend on anything outside of ourselves as long as things are going pretty good. But it’s when that world begins to shake. And it’s when the walls of our building begin to tumble down. And that’s when so many of us really come face to face with Him. So in giving ourselves to Him, it’s a yielding. It’s a yielding of all that we are. And you see, when we hit rock bottom, we don’t have much left to give, and so it’s not as hard as when we are so self-sufficient. But we give our weaknesses to Him. We give our strengths to Him. We give the talents to Him. All of the inflictions that we have, we give these to Him.

Mothers, we give our children to Him. Husbands, we give our wives. Wives, we give our husbands. You know, that’s why the Bible says, be anxious over nothing. But in all things, give praise and thanksgiving. Now, if we own nothing, we don’t have to be anxious. But you see, we continually think, “I own myself. This is my problem. This is my decision.

“Whether I make a good talk or not, this is on my shoulders.” You see, this is not reality. He says, “Your burden should be light. I’ll take your burden upon my shoulders. I’ll take your burden upon my shoulders.” And yet, we are terrified to come to that place that we really yield completely. Every part of our being. Mind, body, and spirit. And you know, the reason we are so afraid, somehow, we have this mindset that if I give myself completely, the first thing He’s going to do is to send me to Africa to be a missionary, or to China. And all we have to do is to look in the scriptures, and almost every time, Jesus, when He made a person whole, He said, “Go back home.”

So oftentimes, I have women say to me, “But if I give my life completely, if I commit myself all the way, what if I have to leave my family and be a CFO speaker?” I’ve often told them, I don’t think they have to worry about that, because my mission in life is to leave home in order to go out and tell other women to stay home.

You know, this yielding that I’m talking about, this committing our life, they’re all different phrases for it. One phrase is to move into the consciousness or the mind of Christ. Some people use the phrase, being immersed in holy love. And in the scriptures, in Acts, Peter and John the Baptist use the terms, being baptized with the Holy Spirit. But no matter how we say it, what it means is to yield all that I am to Him, to be formed in my mind.

To say, “Lord, I don’t want to hold on to a single thing. Everything I am and everything I ever will be, I want it to be in Your charge.” Now, when we reach this place, so many people think, “Well, this is the end result. I have arrived now when I come to this place.” But you see, this is the beginning walk with Christ. Because really, you couldn’t walk with Him before then. He could lead you, He could pull you along. But you, now, are willing to walk with Him. And so, now, you have allowed Him to come into the fullness of His presence and His being into your life. You have allowed or willed for Him to change your mind, the way you think, your thoughts, your theology.

You have allowed Him to bring about experiences in your life that are going to change the circumstances. And so, this is the real beginning walk. Now, when we come to this place, in our experience with Christ, by which we are willing to yield all that we are to Him, tremendous things happen.

There is a power, an unseen power that comes into our life. It’s the power of the Holy Spirit. This power works within and without. This power works within, going down deep into all the parts of your being, beginning to perfect you. And you are now a new creature in Christ, and you are going to be perfected. And you are going to begin to manifest Him.

Because you are going to be walking with Him constantly, every minute. Now, oftentimes, we know Jesus Christ as the spiritual being. We have the Christ consciousness. But we have to know Christ, the Jesus of humanity and the Christ of spirit, in order to bring heaven down to earth. You see, we can’t just have the Christ consciousness and be spiritual, operating in a realm up here. They say, the people who are so spiritual, they are no earthly good.

I used to be that way. And no wonder I didn’t draw very many people into the kingdom. I floated all the time. I didn’t have either one of my feet on the ground. But by allowing the Christ consciousness to work within my mind, the Holy Spirit introduced me to Jesus, the man. And when I began to see Jesus as a man, I began to become, or start beginning to become, a whole person. Because Jesus the man, as the Spirit reveals Jesus to you, you began to see that everything in the realm of the Spirit has got to be manifested in the earthly things. And everything begins to become beautiful. I mean, there really is no evil because you are looking through different eyes. And just the eyes you look through begin to purify everything.

You find that you talk different, you think differently. My little Michael, I shouldn’t tell this at a CFO, but I am. But my Michael is 12 years old. And this is where I learned many of my spiritual truths. But he came in, this has just been about three weeks ago. And I’m a night person. So I go to bed with my husband, and after he and all the family asleep, I usually get up and I read for a couple of hours. And so this one night, Michael was out down the street playing, and we had gone to bed early, and I had gotten back up and was in the library reading. And Michael came in about 11 or 11:15. And he said, “Oh, Mother, I am so glad that you’re still up. Oh, I just would have died if you hadn’t been up.” And I said, “Well, what’s the matter?” He said, “Oh, this is the most exciting night. Let me tell you what happened.” Well, anyway, he’s just finished the fifth grade. He said, “Well, I was down at Mark’s house.” And he said, “We went down in the basement and, Mother, we sneaked some of Mrs. Braswell’s medical books down there.” And he says, “Mother, I know all about life.” He said, “You know,” he said, “You always said that I came from a seed.”

He said, “I know where the seed came from now.” And he began to just reveal to me, and from 7 to 11, he and Mark had been down there reading all of these medical books. And he says, “Mother, I know new words.” And he began to tell me all of these new words and describe everything in detail. And he had questions, and he’d ask questions, you know. I was kind of trembling inside, but I was answering. And then when he got to the end of all of this, he said, “You know, Mother,” he said, “I’ve got to go back again. I’ve got to read all of this again.” But he said, “When we started up, Mark wanted to quit reading. And he said to me, ‘Michael, after all that reading, I feel so grossed out.’”

And Michael said, “You know what I said to him? Mother, I just looked at Mark, and I said, ‘I don’t, Mark. This has been the most religious night of my life.’” But, you know, I really praise the Lord for that. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all of us could really see sex like that? The most beautiful, the most religious thing that we know.

Well, you know, when we began to really relate with Jesus, the man, this is what He does. Everything. He makes everything beautiful. He’s just doing a tremendous work within my subconscious, making all of those old, broken relationships right. He can do this through the healing of the memories.

We become more natural as we move into this life of power of the Holy Spirit. This immersion in Christ. You know, if we look at the life of Jesus, there was nothing really exotic about Him. He was a natural person, natural acting. He moved about every day, He got up, and He just moved in obedience to the Spirit, doing the natural thing. And as we move in the natural, behind us, we begin to see signs and wonders of the supernatural.

It’s when we look for tangents and look for exotic things that we begin to lose our identity. So Jesus reveals our true identity to us. Well, as we walk with Him in the Spirit, we move from phase to phase to phase. And so what I share with you tonight, you can’t be right where I am. Maybe you’ve already passed this place, or maybe you haven’t gotten to it. But you see, maybe one person grows in one area over here, and they’re stymied in this area, and then on another year, they grow in this area. You see, it’s always changing. And that’s why that Spirit has got to dwell within and lead and guide and direct. So as we walk this life in the Spirit, we begin to close our eyes to everything outside of ourselves, and we begin to look within. You see, that’s where that still, small voice is. That’s what Jesus was talking about. Go into that inner closet. That’s where we’re going to really find truth. And that’s when we can really begin to find out who we are. And be natural. And not try to be like somebody else. And not try to be spiritual or religious. But just to be ourselves. This is getting back to that center of who we are.

This is the phase that I’ve been in this past year. I went up to see this Episcopal minister who… We’ve been going to his church for quite some time now. And when I first started going to his church, I went up to visit with him. And he said, “Well, Ruth, I want you to tell me all about yourself.”

And so I just began to tell all about my four children. And the activities that we were in. And then I told about my husband and so forth. And I told about CFO and the Bible classes. And after about an hour of telling all about myself, he looked at me and he said, “Ruth… Oh… You haven’t told me about you.” He said, “You’ve told me about the roles that you play in life.

“The role that you play as a wife. And the role that you play as a mother. And the role that you play as a spiritual leader. Tell me about you.” And, you know, I panicked. I didn’t have anything else to say. I didn’t know me. Now what I realized that day, I went home frustrated. And I began to realize that somewhere in my walk in the Spirit, that I had a mental image of what a Christian should be. I had a mental image of what a CFO speaker should be. I had a mental image of what a mother should be and a wife. And because I love the Lord, I wanted to do the right thing. And do you know that we can get so bogged down and so frustrated in trying to do the will of God, that doing the will of God can become God?

You see what I mean? Our center must be in Jesus Christ. Not in reading the Bible. Not in CFO. Not in obedience. Not even in loving. But our center should be in Jesus Christ. And I had lost my center in trying to be what I thought He wanted me to be. And I had so lost myself that I didn’t know how I was ever going to find myself again.

Now, one of the hardest places… Well, there were two hard places. Because I left home an awful lot, I was fighting guilt feelings of being away from my children. So I began to overcompensate. And I began to spoil the children. And do things that were unnecessary. And indulge them. Some psychologists said one time that the trouble with the children in America is that they’re not underprivileged.

And they don’t know balance. And this is exactly what I had done. Not out of love. Not out of obedience to the leading of the Spirit. But in order… To fight the guilt within me. Of what I thought a mother should be.

And I had spent two years… Because I came upon that scripture in Peter where it says, “Wives, adapt yourselves to your husbands, so that even if they do not know the Word of God, they may be won by your gentle behavior.”

And you know, my husband had… Well, it was about three years ago when he came into this life of the Spirit. And my husband… You know, we think that if a husband and wife both come into this walk together, that the minute it happens, it’s just a bed of roses. But you see, not only was his life turned upside down, but my life was because I had been the spiritual center of the family. And then all of a sudden, he was the spiritual center. And I had to learn submission in that particular role. And so, in trying to submit to him, I lost my identity completely. “Honey, you want to go fishing?” “Yes.” “You want to stay home tonight and do nothing?” “Yes.” Whatever he said, you know, I had to submit to him. Because that scripture said, “Women, adapt yourselves to your husbands.”

But that was a lesson I had to learn at that time. And so, wives, if you haven’t come to this place, maybe that’s the lesson you need to be learning. You see, that’s why we can’t say, “This is the way for anybody. This is the path you must take.” That’s why it’s got to be that inner obedience to the leading of the Spirit in your own individual life.

Well, anyway, here I was, bogged down with the role of a wife. And so, I had this experience that I’m going to tell you about. It happened to me about, I guess it was about April. CFO camps were fixing to begin. I knew I was going to be away a lot during the summer.

I began to see problems with my children. I began to feel the pressure of leaving my husband. And I had just heard, I talked about it a little bit last night, that speaker who said, “Be honest and be sincere with God. If you can ever get to that place that you can really, truly tell God your heart’s sincere desire, that’s when He can really work.” And you know, I began to say, “Now, Ruth, what is this sincere desire of your heart?” And you know, I was so shocked to find out what it was. That here, I’ve been walking with the Lord all these years, you know, and I’m so spiritual, you know, and so forth. And my heart’s desire, I wanted to say, “Oh God, stop this world and let me get off.

“I cannot stand the pressure any longer.” You see, this is what happens when we lose the center. This is what happens when we get our eyes on an image that we want to become. And so, it was a Sunday afternoon, and I asked my husband to go out in the country, to this lake, and we went out, and I left him, and I went to walk in the woods. And while I was walking in the woods, I stopped, and I prayed. And I said, “Lord, I can’t be a good wife any longer.”

And that still, small voice within just said, “Ruth, you don’t have to be a good wife any longer.” I realized I didn’t. I didn’t. I could stop trying. I didn’t have to go fishing every time he said frog.

I didn’t have to go to the golf course every Saturday afternoon, and every Wednesday afternoon with him, because that’s what he wanted. I could read books at night if I wanted to. And so, because the Lord was giving me permission, I didn’t have to be a good wife. I didn’t realize at the time what was going on. But you see, God’s idea of a good wife, and Ruth’s idea of a good wife, were two completely different things.

And then I said, “Lord, I can’t stand being a good mother any longer.” I have a neighbor down the street, and she’s always been a thorn in my flesh. And probably some of you have been the same type person, and it’s wonderful. If the PTA needs cookies, you know, she was always so delighted to bake them. And if they needed flowers arranged, you know, she was right there to do it. And when it rained, she was always parked in front of that schoolhouse to pick up the children. And everything that our mother is supposed to do, she did it. I lived two doors down from her, and everything she did, I did the opposite.

And I constantly beat myself to death because I couldn’t be like Ruth Braswell. And I tried to. And I was frustrated. And that’s why I said, “Lord, I can’t stand trying to be a good mother any longer.” And He let me off the hook, and He said I didn’t have to. And so then I said, “Lord, I can’t stand leading, teaching these Bible classes I’ve got.” Because on Sunday night, you know, they expected me to be so spiritual on Monday morning in that class, and they were all ears waiting for something bright and new that the Lord had just given me. And I surely couldn’t let them down. But you see who I couldn’t let down? My image of what I should be to that Bible class. You see, we can play God without even knowing it.

And so anyway, when I said that, I couldn’t stand being a good Bible teacher, trying to be… He said, “You don’t have to.” Well, I walked back to the cabin where my husband was, and I was about 10 feet tall. And I said, “Honey, I have got something to tell you.”

I said, “All of your two years or three years of fun, it’s over. I am not going to be a good wife another minute. And when you get ready to go fishing, what I like to do is put a pillow in the boat and put a blanket there and get a book and read while you fish. And if you want me that way, okay. But I can’t stand a fish.”

And then I began to let off a little more of the things that I hadn’t been doing. And you know what he said to me? “Ruth, this is the happiest day of my life.” He said, “You know, I haven’t really enjoyed doing anything with you lately because I always wondered, now, is she doing this to please me or does she really want to? And,” he said, “I never know because you put on such a good act. So from now on,” he said, “if you don’t want to, say no. And if you want to, say yes. And,” he said, “sometimes, if I want you to go fishing with me bad enough to make you be submissive, I’ll just say, ‘Well, I want you to go anyway,’ but at least I’ll know where I stand.”

Listen, if you think this hadn’t changed my marriage, I mean, it has just released both of us, the tension, the pressure. We’ve moved on a plateau of honesty with each other. This is freeing. This is what the Bible means. You’re set free in Jesus. Now, it was Jesus in the long run because, you see, this was getting my eyes back on Him. Well, I called all four children together and I announced to them, “I am no longer going to be a good mother.” And I said, “If you have an appointment and you come running in here at one minute till one and say you’ve got to be there at one, I’ve always dropped everything I was doing. I am not going to.” I said, “You’ve got to start doing some planning and arranging.” You see, this is the kind of thing that I had weakened them in. They didn’t have to be responsible because they knew Mama was going to do it all out of her guilt. Well, that wasn’t quite as satisfactory with them as it was with my husband.

And my 16-year-old told me several weeks later, “Mother, I don’t know if you realize it or not, but you have become the most selfish person I have ever seen in my life.” And I’ll admit, it wasn’t a bed of roses at first.

It’s hard to be selfish, you know, when you’ve been so spiritual. And besides, God had to teach me what was happening. I didn’t know. I went to my Bible class on Monday morning the next day and I said to them, “Well, I am not going to be a Bible teacher any longer.” And they all panicked, you know, “Well, who’s going to teach us?” I said, “Either go out and get somebody that will be in the role of a teacher or I’ll come as Ruth.” I said, “If I ever have anything to share, I’ll share it. If I don’t, I just don’t.”

And you know, that day was the greatest day because I didn’t have anything to share that day once I made my announcement. And everybody sat around like just a dumb knot on a log for about five minutes. And so then we said, “Well, let’s just pray.” And I think that’s the first time in that Monday morning Bible class that I ever let the Spirit take over completely. And people began to minister in that group one to the other. They were just like children. Why should they do anything as long as Ruth was doing it all, you know? I’ll bet you some of you teach Bible classes and you’re just like me.

Well, God began to teach me what was taking place. It wasn’t that I was just to become a selfish, self-centered person having pleasure in life. But I no longer had to do anything for the wrong motive. And the wrong motives are duty, guilt, outside pressures, letting the world push you into its mold.

This is where we operate. But God showed me that I had to operate out of one motive and that was love. And that if I kept my eyes centered on Jesus, He would give me the desire to do the things that He wanted me to do. And I’m still learning this. And it’s really, really one of the most glorious experiences. It was several weeks or a month or so later, I don’t know, well, it was in July, I believe. And we decided to go to the beach. The whole family was in between two camps. Well, two of the children were gone, but we had two children and we were going to the beach for the weekend. So I called down to Myrtle Beach to make a reservation and it was the same weekend that all of the college kids had, it was the week, well, they had, you know, like, when is it Easter? Everybody goes to Daytona Beach in our section. I don’t know what they do up here. But anyway, this was the week everybody was going to Myrtle Beach. And the lady at the motel said, “Well, I’m just as sorry as I can be, but,” she said, “there is not even an available place for a sleeping bag on this beach.”

And so anyway, I started to hang up and she said, “Did you say you’re Ruth Stapleton?” And I said, “Yes.” She said, “Well, I’m a CFO—” And she said, “I was just thumbing through the CFO book when the telephone rang.” And she said, “I had just, I was looking to see who was leading the camps and I had just read the name Ruth Stapleton.” And she said, “You’re not that Ruth Stapleton, are you?”

And I said, “Yes, I am.” And she said, “Well, we really need you down here this weekend with all those teenagers coming. And so you just come on and bring your family and I don’t know where we’ll put you, but we’ll find a place for you.” Well, anyway, we got down there. We were going to be there Friday and Saturday night. So when we got there and checked in, she said, “Oh, I’m so glad that you could come.” She said, “I have called everybody on the beach that I know that’s a Christian. And they’re all coming to my house Saturday night, tomorrow night, to meet you and for you to speak to them.”

Well, you know, several people that I had told about this new freedom I had come into said, “Well, we’ll just see, you know. I want to find out in a couple of months.” Well, boy, this was one big test because I thought, now here I am under bondage of obligation, you know, because there wasn’t a room in the inn, but she made room. And then here are all these people that are already invited. They’re going to be there at 8 o’clock and they’re expecting me. And then I thought, my duty to the Lord, you know.

And I just took a deep breath and I said, “All right, Lord, You said I didn’t have to do anything.” So I said to the woman, I said, “If I don’t come, that means you’ve got to call everybody back.” And she said, “Yes.” And I said, “Well, I don’t think I can come.” I said, “I came for just this weekend just to rest and to be with the family. And so, but don’t call them back for an hour. Give me just one hour to really pray about it. And, but I said, I don’t think I can come.” Well, she couldn’t believe it. But anyway, I left and I went in to the motel room and I told my husband, I said, “I want to be alone for an hour. And I’m going and pray. And if God changes my attitude and I can go tomorrow night in love, then okay, I’ll go. But I’m not going because I should. Even if it ruins my whole reputation, I’m not going because I’m obligated.” So I laid down there on the beach and I didn’t really pray. I just laid in the sun.

And I began to think about Myrtle Beach and I didn’t know any Christians at Myrtle Beach. I’d been there a lot of times and I began to wonder who they were and what they were thinking and where they were in their spiritual growth. And you know, my mind just began to wander and at the end of that hour I was so excited I couldn’t wait until the next night. I wanted to go there more than I wanted to go to see airport and that’s what I wanted to do first. So I went up to the room and my husband had said, “Well, Ruth, whatever you decide suits me and I’ll let you make the decision.” So I went up to the room and I said, “Well, honey, I’m going back until we’ll go and that’s okay.” He said, “Yeah, that’s fine with me.” He said, “But now don’t disturb me for an hour. I’m going on the beach.”

But we went the next night and that was not formal. It was informal but most of it was just prayer. And do you know there was such a tremendous moving of the power of the Holy Spirit? And you know, it was because that Spirit was a Spirit of love. And I really saw that night. Now I’ve been in a lot of groups and I’ve been in a lot of prayer groups and I’ve done a lot of praying. And sometimes you really see results and sometimes you don’t. Sometimes there was a response and sometimes there’s not. A lot. But I’m convinced that anything that we do, if we do it in love, there are going to be signs and wonders following. You see, it takes all of the human element out. It takes all the fleshy part out. And pure Spirit can flow through.

My little boy came in the other day and I’ve had some tremendous things to happen to me concerning this. You see, it’s a frightening thing to do. I mean, it’s really a frightening thing to really dare to be yourself. And my little boy came in, Michael, the same one. This was just a week ago and he walked in the house and the same woman I was telling you about, he said, “Mother, I am so glad that you are my mother instead of Ruth Braswell.” And I said, “Why, honey? You know? Tell me all that.” Well, he said, “Well,” he said, “I can play basketball and I’m well coordinated and I think that comes from the car of blood.” You know, that kind of deflated my ego because that had nothing to do with me. And I said, “Well, is there any other reason that you’re glad?” And he said, “Well, Mother, I love the way that you travel all the time.”

And I said, “Honey, can you think of any other reason?” He said, “Well, Mother, I really like the way that you pray a lot.” And I said, “But, Michael,” I said, “I know Ruth Braswell’s probably a lot better mother.” He said, “Oh, Mother, sure, she’s a better mother than you, but who wants a good mother? I’d rather have you.”

So, you see, I know it was a frightening thing this summer, the first time I spoke in a pantsuit. But I realized that I had clothes in my closet that I wore in Fayetteville, and I had a closet out in the hall that I put my CFO clothes in. Now, this is how ridiculous we get.

And then the Spirit began to speak to me, and I thought, “Now, if I’m going to come into this whole person, I’ve got to put both closets of clothes together. Now, which one is more like me?” Well, the things I wear at home. So, the things that I used to take to CFO, I’ve left them at home now, and I take the things I wear at home because that’s me.

And you see, with all of this, everything that you do, out of your heart, out of freedom, you begin to see a little bit more the nature of yourself. God doesn’t want any of us to change because we come into this power of the Spirit.

In coming into it, He reveals to us who we are. And it’s just been since all of this, and this was just a couple of weeks ago. And I was sitting out in my library. And I’ve always asked the question, “Who am I? Who am I?” Have you ever wondered who you really are?

And I was reading a book. It was a book named Turning On. And it was describing an LSD trip. And it’s a great book, if any of you, it’s not a religious book, but it’s a great book for just insights. And I was in the section on the LSD trip, and it’s described in detail, and if you read it real slow, you know, it’s just like you’re taking the trip yourself, and you can picture all of the things. And all of a sudden, it must have been 30 minutes later that I had quit reading, and I hadn’t realized it. But I was just quiet, and I had just gone into a natural meditation. And it was as though I was going down deep into a cylinder. And somebody was saying, “Who are you, Ruth? Who are you? Who are you?” And I could just hear this. You see, this is where I am. This is what’s been going on with me this summer. And I kept trying to answer, and I couldn’t speak. And I knew I had to go deeper and deeper and deeper to find that. And so finally, I got to the very bottom of that cylinder. And I said, “I am love.” And you know, all of a sudden, everything just broke open within me, and I opened my eyes, and I realized for the first time, I am love.

You are love. That’s who you are. And when you are honest and true to yourself, there is going to be this perfect love expressed in you. Now, I can’t stand to be a hypocrite. And I can’t stand to pretend. And I can’t stand sham. And yet, I catch myself in this all the time. And so, I realized that afternoon, I ran to my bedroom and I got on my knees and I locked the door and I said, “Oh God, I’m love. That spark of God that’s in me, that’s who I really am.” Sham. And then, when I saw that everybody was, I realized that any time that we act in any way less than perfect love toward ourselves and less than perfect love toward our fellow man, our brother, we’re being a hypocrite. It’s a sham. And so, in order to walk in perfect freedom, we’ve got to walk in perfect love. And I think this is what the spiritual growth is. So, this third step, you see, the first is a belief in. That’s where you’ve got to start. You’ve got to believe. And then, the second step is coming to that place that you’re willing to literally belong to Him. And then, that third step, it’s becoming like Him. But I don’t even like that word, becoming like Him, because we’re not like anybody.

It’s being. It’s being Him. If He lives in me, body, mind, and spirit, both as Christ, the consciousness, and Jesus, the man, if He lives in me, then I become. And I become perfect love. And this takes a lifetime, or more lifetimes than one, I don’t know. But that’s walking in the Spirit, and that’s growth. Let’s pray.

Father, we know that, that this whole business of the Spirit is an individual thing. So, Father, I ask that You speak to each one of us individually tonight. Let us know You. Let us know ourselves. Let us see where we are. Give us a vision, a goal. Father, let each one of us know that we’re born for a purpose.

And, oh, Father, begin to reveal that purpose to each one of us in the way that we can understand. Amen.