Nearly the Most Normal Child He Ever Saw

Nearly the Most Normal Child He Ever Saw

by Ruth Carter Stapleton

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

Father, on this opening night of this meeting, we lift our hearts to You in praise and in thanksgiving that it was Your perfect will that we come and that we be here tonight and that we be here for this week. And Father, we thank You even before You begin to bless us for every gift that You’re going to give us this week.

And Father, tonight we ask that the power of Your Spirit move into this room around each one of us and within each one of us. And that through the power of Your Spirit, that every barrier within every one of us can be broken right now tonight, this first night, so that we can begin to receive the abundance that You have for us this week.

Father, we know Your time is growing near. And so, Father, give us a willing and an anxious heart to receive all that You have as quickly as You want to give it to us. We thank You for this, Father. And now bless this night for Your glory. And bless each one of us for Your glory. Amen.

I guess I can’t begin to get into my message until I tell you something that Gene reminded me of. He was talking on the way from the airport about this cemetery. Where is the cemetery? Is it back here? Are there? And then he was telling about the teenagers being over there last summer. Well, just last night at the supper table, my husband was telling me this story about the graveyard. I don’t know if you all have heard it or not. But over in the cemetery, the grave diggers had dug this long, deep grave, about six feet deep.

And that night, they didn’t get to have the funeral. And that night, this man was taking the shortcut through the cemetery and he fell into the grave. Well, he jumped and he jumped and he climbed and he crawled. And every time he’d slide back down, there was just no way to get out. It was just impossible. So he finally just gave up and he sat down in the corner to settle down for the night, to wait till morning when he could get some help. And way in the middle of the night, he heard these steps coming across. All of a sudden, wham! This drunk was going through the cemetery and he fell in the grave. And he started climbing and he started clawing. And just as he was about to give up, the fellow sitting over in the corner reached over and he tapped him on the shoulder and he says, “Buddy, you can’t get out.” But he did.

Tonight, I want to read from John, the 15th chapter of John. And Jesus says, I am the real vine. Before I read this, I’ve got to… I’m not going to make a mistake that I made last summer. I’m going to stand up here and the very first thing I’m going to confess to you. I’m sick. I need prayer. So I want you to pray for me, for my throat and chest. On the 4th of July, I was at a retreat. And I was doing a meeting. And they had no meeting scheduled on the day of the 4th. And so I went to this park for a picnic. And the bugs and mosquitoes were bad. So they came by with a spray truck. And they sprayed the picnic ground. And I sat right in the middle and just breathed right on through. And within about 30 minutes, my chest had… My throat had closed up. And I was in bed for the rest of the week. And I’ve been in bed until yesterday.

And so it’s just… I don’t know. It was just a reaction to the DDT or whatever they used to spray with. So I’m very hoarse. Now, the reason I say I’m not going to wait and just plair through, I want you to pray for me. That God heals me immediately. Last summer, I went to the Oklahoma camp. And I got there sick. I have… My family, they all ride motorcycles. I used to. And I had a motorcycle wreck right before the camp. And I had been in bed for three days before I got to that camp. Well, I didn’t want… It was a healing camp. And I didn’t want anybody to know I was sick. And I had had prayer, but I hadn’t accepted the healing. Well, it got worse and worse. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday… Well, by Wednesday at that camp, I couldn’t get my arm up. And I couldn’t bend my knee. And I was having to bring in this young teenager. I asked her if she’d come help me dress every day. So finally the third day, she said, “Ruth, don’t you think it’s time you swallow your pride and ask this camp to pray for you?” And my knee had then just settled with a stiff joint. And so I walked into the council ring that morning.

And, you know, I don’t think I might have told them that I was sick. I think I was afraid I was going to have to tell them I’d been riding a motorcycle. But anyway, I asked the council ring if they would lay hands on me and pray for me.

And it was instant. I mean, just instant. And so I’m just going to claim that as I speak that He’s going to heal my throat. Okay. And I praise You, Lord, for it already. I am the real vine. My Father is the vine dresser. He removes any of my branches which are not bearing fruit. And He prunes every branch that does bear fruit to increase the yield. Now, if some of you have been being pruned, praise the Lord for it. How many of you had a pity party over it when He started pruning you? Yeah. Well, praise the Lord because it’s great. When you’re not bearing fruit, you don’t have to worry about it. He’s got to prune it so that you will yield more fruit to His glory. That’s the same thing as thanking God for the trials, you know. Now you have already been pruned by my words. And you must go on growing in me. And I will grow in you. Now when you grow, growing is a process. And one of the biggest faults that we Christians have is wanting to have arrived yesterday in our Christian life. How could I be this way? How could I have done that? I have said one million times I won’t get angry again and look at me.

And it says, As I abide in you, as I grow in you and you grow in me, a day by day by day by day process. For just as the branch cannot bear any fruit unless it shares the life of the vine, so you can produce nothing unless you go on growing in me. I am the vine itself, and you are the branches. And it is the man who shares my life and whose life I share who proves to be fruitful. For the plain fact is that apart from me, you can do nothing. We think we can sometimes. But He says, apart from me, you can do nothing. The man who does not share my life is like a branch that’s already broken off, and it withers away. And he becomes just like dry sticks that men pick up and use for firewood.

Maybe you’ve come to this camp feeling like dried firewood. Okay, if you have, praise the Lord. He’s brought you to the right place. You can… But if you live your life in me, and my words live in your hearts, you can ask for whatever you like, and it will come true for you. Now, this is how my Father will be glorified, in your becoming fruitful and being my disciples.

All right, so there’s one beginning, and only one beginning. We have got to make that contact and link into Jesus Christ. Now, we can look in a million other places. You can look for popularity, and you can become the most popular person in your school. You can try social climbing, and you can be invited to every party in the whole community. You can try by making money, and you can make a thousand, ten thousand, a million, ten million, and it won’t be the answer.

You can see success in every area of your life, and you’ll still feel and be just like a dead branch. To have life, you’ve got to be plugged in to the right source. Now, we talk about Jesus dying for us.

And that’s right. He died for us. But Jesus came to give us life while we’re living right here on earth. We are to have joy overflowing. We are to be spontaneous and want to get up every morning. We are to be eager and creative.

We are to really look forward to the next experience. Now, this is life. This is vitality. This is having creative energy flowing in and through you. And there is only one source, and that’s Jesus Christ. Now, there comes that question for maybe some of you. How many are here for your first camp? Hmm, that’s great. All right, there comes that question. All right, I’d like to have life. I don’t want to be a dead branch. I want to be united and one with Jesus. But how? I mean, after all, I’ve been going to church for 20 years. I’ve been going to church since I joined when I was 10 years old.

God honors that. And you will have eternal life if you have committed by faith your life to Jesus. But unless you are totally united with Him, you might not be receiving the blessings of it and the joy of it. And you know, it’s foolish for us to settle for anything short than the whole fullness of Jesus Christ.

We want eternal life. That’s the beginning. In Him, we receive salvation. But then He says, And now that you have come to me, let’s get together and let’s work at the full salvation. Let’s grow and let’s come alive and let’s begin to live and let’s begin to let that joy flow. And let’s begin to live above the circumstances. Let’s begin to live on top of the problems.

All right, so now that first step is to know that Jesus lives today. I had been a church member for 29 years. Well, no, not 29 years. I was 29 years old, but I’d been a church member ever since they had that class in my church when all of us joined together.

And I went to a CFO. And, you know, I looked around and I saw that the people were different. And the only thing that I knew was there was something being manifested in their life that I didn’t have and hadn’t seen in many people. In fact, I hadn’t seen in many of my own church member fellow Christians. And during that week, bit by bit, I began to know. Now, they say that Jesus Christ lives. Well, I’ve never seen Him. He’s never appeared to me in an image. I’ve never seen any form. I’ve never had any real mystical revelation. But that first week at that CFO, I began to think, what that person expresses to me, it’s different than anything I’ve ever known. They love me. They have a real concern for me. Well, you know, I didn’t know it, but I was so filled with needs. And I know when I got to that camp, it was a small camp, but I must have stuck out like a sore thumb. And I just can imagine, now that I know what these beautiful Christians are like, they must have looked at me and every one of them, you know, you know how the body of Christ, how your own body, when you have a hurt place, every part of your body just goes to that hurt place, you know, and you rub it with your hand, you know, sometimes you kiss it, and you do all these things to it.

Well, that’s what that body did to me. When I got there, they all came, and they poured love, and they took me into the prayer room, and they said, “Let’s pray.” They didn’t say, “Ruth, if you’ve got a problem, now get on your knees, and we’re going to pray for your problem.” No, they said, “Ruth, let’s go pray together.” Well, I went with them because I was lonely, and I would get on my knees, and I would pray, and we would pray to Jesus, and we would thank God for this, and we would thank God for that. Well, listen, I just am willing to say, I guess the only reason I speak in public is because I’m very honest, because what Jesus has done for me, He can do for anybody. And I know that He’s the answer and the source. And at that time, my life was so messed up. I mean, I do counseling all the time, and I very seldom ever hear of a problem that I didn’t have or haven’t had. I couldn’t get along with my children. They were driving me crazy, and I was wanting to take a slow boat to China. And I felt guilty because a mother was supposed to love and want to stay at home and want to change diapers, and I was miserable.

I couldn’t get along with my husband. He was one type, and I was another, and we couldn’t seem to get together and communicate on any level. I couldn’t get along with my neighbors. I couldn’t get along at church. There was not one thing in my life that was going right. And not only just little conflicts, but I had big problems. I mean, you know, these real deep problems that just kill you, you know, that just eat at night. You know, like, you’re a failure as a mother.

You’re a failure. You’re a failure. And I was so afraid somebody was going to find out. And I had this child at the time. She was about ten years old, I guess. And I had taken her to our doctor because she had pain all the time. And the doctor had said to me, “Mrs. Stapleton, this child has such deep psychological problems that she’s going to have to have intensive treatment and analysis.” And he said, “I would recommend that you put her on the list at the mental health clinic and you’ll have to wait your turn because they’re filled up right now. But you better get to this right away.” I had a daughter that couldn’t go to school without taking medicine for nerves. She couldn’t go to a birthday party unless I went with her. I was so insecure with my children that everything that they did, I had to do it with them. I was so afraid if I let go or let them out of my sight, something would happen. And I couldn’t stand the fear that something would happen to them. All out of insecurity. Have you ever seen parents, you know, that just smother, smother? Well, I didn’t know what I was doing but I damaged, damaged, damaged these children.

It wasn’t love. I thought it was love. But you see, they were meeting that need. They were feeding me because I was so insecure. At that camp, at that meeting, you know, Gene asked you just a while ago, why did you come? Do you know why you came? I didn’t. And it doesn’t matter whether you do or not, really, because God knows. Because you see, He knew for me. And I remember when they took me into that prayer room, I wouldn’t tell that lady that I had a child that was a psychological wreck.

I wasn’t about to admit to her that I was a failure. But I remember when we got down on our knees, I let Him know secretly and quietly that I had a problem. And not only with that child, but the other problems I had with the other children and the problems I had with myself. You know, it’s always… That’s what the problem always is, isn’t it? Oh, it’s the hardest thing to admit, though. But anyway, I got home and I began to see changes. You know, so many people search. I did. I searched in books. I went back to college. I took every course in theology that I could get my hands on. I read all of the modern theologians’ works. I searched and searched. And I found out, and I know you know this too, it’s not answers.

We’re searching for answers, but that’s not it. What we’ve got to do is reach in and have these attitudes changed. The whole business of coming in oneness with Christ is allowing Him to change these attitudes. Now, that was the big difference that I saw. I hadn’t actually said to Jesus Christ, “I know that You’re alive, that You’re real. I know that You are in these people. I know that You will answer.” No, I didn’t know that much. I cried out. And when I got home, my attitude was different.

Well, you know, we talk about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And we’ll be talking about the baptism this week. And in a way, that’s what I’m talking about. When I say, when we come to that place of uniting with Jesus, that means to allow His Spirit to pour through every part of your being, that means to say, “Lord, I commit my life to You.”

Well, now, at this point that I’m talking about at that camp, that first camp, I didn’t know about the baptism. I didn’t know enough to commit my life. I didn’t know how great my need was. But you know, the Spirit began to move in me. The Spirit began to work in me. And the Spirit began to teach me. Now, a year later, I went to the altar, and I asked Jesus Christ to come to me as my baptizer in the fullness of the Spirit. But that was a year later. But in His love and by His grace, He was pouring His Spirit into me. And He began to teach me before I ever knew who He was. And I got home from that camp, and I would have this feeling, go in there and lay your hands on those children and pray for them. And I would make sure my husband could see me. My husband wasn’t a Christian at the time. And I’d wait till those children were asleep, and I would go in there and I would put my hand on the oldest daughter, and I would say, “Lord Jesus, I know what a mess of a mother I’ve been. I know that child needed love, and it wasn’t pure love I gave her.

“So bridge that gap between the love that she needed to be fulfilled and the love that I gave her.” You see, He offers Himself in every and any way. You know, Mahatma Gandhi once said, “God would never appear to a hungry man in any way except as a piece of bread.”

Well, Jesus Christ appeared to me as healing for my daughter. He appeared to me as a bridge. Have you ever heard Jesus called a bridge before? He appeared as a bridge because when her name came up on the list and I took her to the doctor and he examined her, he said, “Miss Stapleton, a psychiatrist would not ever call a person normal because we don’t know what a normal person is. But this child is as near a normal child as any that I have ever seen. And she doesn’t need any psychiatric care.”

Jesus healed her. He began to move in my life. I began to get along with my neighbors. Things began to happen and my husband and I began to communicate. My family in Georgia, my mother, she wanted to know what was happening in Ruth’s life. I won’t say what Ruth was before all of this, but my mother saw a change and she began to seek and she found my sister, my sister-in-law, my oldest brother. I began to see Jesus reach out and touch every part of my life.

And I still didn’t call it Jesus. You know, for the longest time, I thought it was CFO. Every time I saw a person in need, I wanted to take them to CFO because they had something there. And then it began to dawn on me. This power, this creative energy that flows through when you lay your hands on that child and pray, this is Jesus.

This quickening within your spirit that says, reach out or do this or go there, this is Jesus. And I began to go to the scriptures. I’m a Baptist, and Baptists know more scripture by heart, I’m sure, than any other denomination. And this is one Baptist that knew a lot by heart and none by understanding. I began to quote some of those scriptures that I learned when I was 10, 11, and 12. I couldn’t believe that’s what I had been saying all my life. I began to read and I saw Jesus said, “I will be the comforter.

“I will teach you and lead you into all truth. The same Spirit that was in me will be in you. I will never leave you alone.” All those years that I said, I am so alone, nobody understands me. And then I found out I don’t have to ever be alone again.

And then I began to say, all right, Jesus, if You’ve done all this for me, I really, truly want to give myself to You. You know, I already had, but I just didn’t know I had. Just like my husband, just four years ago, he had this tremendous experience when finally he fought, oh, he fought, he fought the Lord more than Paul, as much as Paul. And then that day, finally, my husband got on his knees and he said, “Lord, I have come to the end of myself. And I give up this, I give up Ruth, I give up the children, I give up my house, I give up my business, I’ll move out of the state, I’ll move out of the country.” I mean, he didn’t leave anything out. “I’ll give it all up, but I’ve got to have You.” And Jesus came into his life in such a fullness of the Spirit that he was unconscious for a solid hour.

When he opened his eyes, he was flat on the floor. He couldn’t take it. He had resisted so long and he just couldn’t take it. Well, it wasn’t really like that with me, because, you know, I just kept yielding a little bit, and a little bit, and a little bit, and a little bit more. So there was never any real traumatic time, wham, you know, flat on the floor.

It would be wonderful if it could be that way for everybody. Paul is lucky. My husband, Bobby, is very lucky. But for me, and probably for many of you, it’s been a gradual giving and a yielding and a dying a little bit more as Jesus gave Himself. You’d give yourself a little bit more. But then came that time when I finally said, I want to give all of me to You. And at that point, I accepted by faith the word of God that says, if you ask your Father, He will give you the Holy Spirit. We know Jesus as Savior. We hear about that in the churches.

But a lot of times we don’t hear about Jesus as the baptizer. John says, “I baptize with water, but there is one greater than I who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” Now, most of us have been baptized with water, but have you been baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire?

Well, I don’t know when I actually, as I say, completely yielded, but at that point when I committed with my conscious mind, I accepted that it might have happened yesterday, it might have happened a month ago, it might have happened a year ago, but by George, I knew at that moment, Jesus was my baptizer.

And I was at another CFO. And do you know, because the scripture said it, I believed it, that when the Holy Spirit, Jesus Himself said it, when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, ye shall receive power. And I left that meeting because I had accepted Jesus as my baptizer. I believed that everything He said in the scripture was true.

Paul talks about it. Paul talks to the church. And he says, there will be power in your life. The Holy Spirit will manifest Himself as healing power through you. The Holy Spirit will discern and you will know the needs of your fellow Christians.

The Holy Spirit will work through you and cast out demons. The Holy Spirit will manifest Himself sometimes by prophesying. And that means proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. And we need that. We don’t hear prophecy. Not very much unless we get in a little tiny group. We don’t hear it in our churches like we should. This whole book of Corinthians was written to the church.

But I believed that these things would be manifested in my life, because I had yielded my life to Jesus. I had accepted Him as baptizer. I had received the power. I didn’t feel it. I didn’t feel electricity. I’ve always been disappointed because I hear people say when they lay their hands on someone to pray, you know, it trembles. Or they feel chills go up and down. And that’s wonderful. And it’s true for some. For me, I have never had feeling. It’s always had to be blind faith. But I went home. And I said, “Lord, I will heal the sick.” You know, I used to even imagine that I was standing downtown in front of a mission that I created. And people would file by. You know, I had only seen Oral Roberts heal on TV. And I thought that was the way healing, you know, came about.

And so I said, “I will, Lord. I will, Lord. I will. I’ll do anything You say.” But you know, God didn’t carry me home and put me in a healing line. He didn’t take me home and put me in a pulpit.

He didn’t even let me have a Sunday school class to teach. I had to learn so much about the kingdom of God. I had to learn humility. I had to learn to love to do the ugly, dirty jobs. I always had been first, on top, with the most in my worldly life. So He had to put me on bottom, last, and least.

I used to think, well, if I had known how God worked, I never would have joined up with Him. Because it was hard. People who say that Christianity is an escape, they are not involved with Jesus Christ. And I can see some of you know what I mean.

Every single thing, it seemed to me, that I had ever tried deliberately to avoid in life, it came face to face with me within those next few months. And you know, one example that stands out so clear in my mind, I went back to college. That was one thing I always wanted to do. So I went back to college, and I thought, I knew the Lord wanted me to be a school teacher. And so, when I signed up, the first, when I was in high school and had just started to go off to college, I went through all of the catalogs trying to find a college where I didn’t have to have any algebra or any foreign language. And I had to go through many catalogs in Georgia to find the Georgia State College for Women, but they didn’t require either one for graduation.

Well, I didn’t actually graduate. I quit my junior year and got married. So now that I had Christ and I had the strength and the determination to go back, I was going to get my degree. And I went back and they filled out my schedule in the registrar’s office and I looked at it and I said, “But I can’t take that.” And he says, “There is no way you can graduate unless you take college algebra one and two and two years of French.” And I said, “Yes, Lord, there it is again.” You know, the one Christian job that I had worked in all my life was the nursery. And the only job they asked me to do in my church was to work in the nursery. That was after I was filled with power.

I felt like it was such a waste. And yet then I saw God was going to keep me right there. I didn’t learn it the first year. I had to work in the nursery two years before I could stick those bottles in those babies’ mouths and love it for the glory of God. And change those diapers and love it for the sake of Jesus Christ. And so it began to be a learning experience and a learning experience and a learning experience. And finally, the last thing I wanted to do, the last thing I wanted to do was to speak in public because that was my greatest fear. You know, when I was going back to college, I almost didn’t get my degree because I had one course which was a seminar and there were eight people in it. And in order to get out of that course, you had to stand up and give an oral report. And I couldn’t do it.

And finally, the teacher says, “Well, Ruth, I’m sorry, but if I had known that you had so much fear about standing up in public, I never would have put this in as part of the curriculum.” But he said, “I’ve done it and everybody’s given their reports. You’ve got to.” I said, “I can’t.” He scheduled it for one day and I couldn’t the next day. And finally, he says, “Ruth, we’ll turn our backs to the wall. We’ll close our eyes. We’ll do anything, but you’ve got to give that report.” Well, I stood up and I got halfway through and I just broke in panic and ran out of the room. And I thought, at least he’ll give me credit halfway. I came back. He says, “Tomorrow you try again.” I finally that second day got all the way through, but that was the fear. So when I was at another camp and a leader came up and said to me, “Ruth, I have a word for you from the Lord.” Now, this is another gift of the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes the Spirit will speak through us and give us words of encouragement or a prophecy for another person. This man, his name was Norman Renshaw from England. He was at Eastern Carolina camp.

And he came up and he says, “Ruth, the Lord is saying to me that He’s going to call you to use your voice for Him. And so when He does, be willing to say yes.” And I looked right at Norman Renshaw and I said, “I will never say yes to that.” And I’ll tell you, it was a long battle. I went to many people for prayer before that fear was transformed to faith. You know, all these negative things that we have, I know a lot of times you say, Lord, get rid of this fear. Get rid of this. You know, God never really just takes anything out. He transforms it. And if you begin, we’ll talk about this week, but some of your weakest areas and some of the areas that you think really are the areas within you that need to be hidden and suppressed and pushed down, these are the areas that you need to give to God and let Him take these areas and He’ll just flip them over to the other side. Faith is the opposite of fear. It’s the other side. So as much fear as I had, when the Holy Spirit got into it, He gave me that much faith.

So I have a lot of faith. And I think it’s because I had so much fear and I allowed Him to redeem it and transform it. For every good thing, there is the bad thing. For every bad thing, remember that there is the good thing. Now the Holy Spirit, when He comes into our life, like I said when He came into mine, He began to work in all of these areas. Picking, touching, tapping, breaking loose, all of these weak areas. You know, so oftentimes, I know many of you are like I was. I can never come to Jesus and present myself to Him completely until I get through with this, get rid of that, get rid of this habit, break this barrier, do all these things. I want to be clean and pure before I present myself to Him. But you see, now is the time, right now. Right now while you are in a big mess. Right now while you are bogged down in the depths of sin. Right now while you’ve got hangups so big you can’t cope with them. Right now is the time. You can’t do anything about them yourself anyway. You will never be able to change anything about yourself anyway. But you just got to know that He wants you just like you are.

And that’s His part and His plan. Just to go down and remold and remold and clean and purify and forgive. He forgives us wham all at one time. But it takes us a long time to accept it. We accept it bit by bit. And the more we accept what He does for us, the cleaner we begin to feel and become.

All right, so what I’m saying is sometimes He’ll take your weak areas. And that’s the area that He’s going to work in. I still panic every time I’ve got to get up here. When we were singing just a while ago and he said, “And Ruth will come up here in a minute.” You know, I still think, oh God, I can’t. I mean, as many times as I’ve been in the pulpit, I still think I can’t do it. Well, I can’t. I mean, if I didn’t just get so out of myself and just say, “All right, be my strength. In my weakness, be my strength.”

Now you see, as we begin to learn this, you’ll see that there is nothing in life that you need to fear. If you can’t get along with your husband, praise the Lord. That’s just a good job for Jesus. If you can’t handle your children, praise the Lord. If you can’t stand your parents, praise the Lord.

It doesn’t matter what it is. This is an opportunity for you to get to know Jesus better. It’s an opportunity to allow Him to become close to you for the first time. You know, when I saw my son, my oldest son, get into one of the worst messes that I have ever known any teenager to be in, I looked at him and he poured it out to me and I said, “Honey, I really thank God for it.” He said, “Mother, how can you say that? This is crucial. This is the worst thing that’s ever happened in my life.” I said, “Honey, it’s about the worst thing that’s ever happened in my life just to know about it. But, Honey, this is the first time you’ve had a need that was too big for you. This is the first time you’ve had a situation that you can’t handle yourself.” And he had to turn to Jesus.

So, you know, it doesn’t really matter what the problem is. It’s not too big. Like the scripture, it says, Oh, where is it? But if you live your life in me and if my words live in your heart, and this is it, you can ask for whatever you like and it will come true for you.

So you begin to make your request known. If you don’t even know what you want, you know, I have been there. I have been at the place that I was so messed up that I didn’t know what the matter was, what the trouble was, what the problem was.

And do you know, when we get a little problem and we look at the problem, we become the problem so that there is no way we can get clear guidance as to what to do. And that’s when you just say, “All right, just take it.” At that point of letting go, the clearer insight begins to come.

Now, I said just a while ago, from this scripture, life is a process. It’s a process with me. In those first moments of knowing Jesus and His love, and as I told you earlier, I don’t know of anybody in this world that Jesus has done more for than me. And I don’t know of anybody that has ever loved Him more than I have loved Him. And even after knowing all of that love and experiencing all of that oneness with Him, even after that, after knowing Him as my baptizer, I have felt that I didn’t even know Him at all. I have come to places where I felt no love. I have come to places where I felt He had turned His back on me.

I have stood up in the pulpit when I would say, Jesus is the answer to meet every need. And in my own life, I was so bogged down with needs. And I have come to the place when I would realize that and I would say, “I can’t get in the pulpit again because I’m such a hypocrite.” And then it comes back to me, “Ruth, you don’t stand in the pulpit and proclaim how much faith you’ve got or how much you love Jesus or how much… but you proclaim what Jesus can do. Now, Ruth, if you’re not allowing Him to do it for you, that’s your problem. It’s not His fault.” And so no matter how I feel, I don’t let that keep me out of the pulpit. No matter how I feel, I don’t let that keep me from going out and praying for somebody else. A lot of times, I have more problems than they’ve got. But I know what He can do. And I know He can do it for me if I can ever open myself to receive what He wants to do.

Oftentimes, I have to go to fellow Christians because I bogged down so. And I have to go to fellow Christians and say, “Pray me out of this web so that I can get my eyes back on Jesus.” Jesus Christ has never turned His back on me.

I have turned my back on Him many times. All that I know that He can do. And yet, do you know, sometimes I’ll have a question and I’ll call a spiritual friend. Sometimes I’ll have a question and I’ll write Tommy Tyson.

I’ll have a need and I’ll look somewhere else to get that need met. And then I always fail until I get back to my center and I know to ask the Spirit within me the question. I know the source of my healing is Jesus. And that’s what these good friends do, is they point me back to the source.

Now, I can’t give you Jesus. No one can. It’s an inside job of your own will. You have to come to that place in your mind that you say, by faith, I’m going to accept. I’m going to accept Him as my Savior if that’s where you begin, if you haven’t done that.

You don’t have to feel like you want to. You do it by faith. There is nowhere in the Scripture that says that anything in the Christian life is by feeling. And yet, 90% of us try to go by feeling. All right, maybe you know Him as your Savior. And you don’t know Him as your baptizer. And maybe you’ve heard a lot of way out, wild things about what people do when they receive the baptism.

Well, don’t listen to people. Read the Word of God. Read what Jesus says. He told the disciples to go back and tarry and wait. He had something for them. And they waited. And on the day of Pentecost, He gave His Spirit.

And nobody can do this for you. Nobody can baptize you except Jesus. And it has to be within that will of yours. Maybe it’s healing that you need. And you’ve got to come to that place that you’re willing to accept. Be as a little child and accept what He has for you. You don’t have to understand it. You know, that blocks us from so much. Trying to understand it. Trying to make it logical. Jesus Christ and the way of God is the most illogical thing that you’ll ever know or ever experience. You try to read the Bible and make logic out of some of the things that it talks about that Jesus did. There is no way to.

It says that it… what does it say? It confuses profound… It confuses the wise and yet it’s simple for a little child. That’s because you have to be as a little child and just on blind faith just accept.

So my prayer for myself and for every one of us at this camp this week is going to be that we can become as little children and let go of whatever it is that’s been blocking you from really receiving the abundance of what Jesus Christ has for you this week.

Now as I said it’s a process and we can have so much growth in these six days if we’ll just open up to Him. It is His will. We don’t have to say, “Lord, if it be Your will.” We know it’s His will.

Paul got so exasperated with them. He says, “Oh, I’m just so tired of y’all not growing. I’m so tired of having to feed you milk all the time. Get with it.” And the way we get with it is saying, “All right, Lord. By George, I’m just going to open up myself completely. I’m going to everything. I’m going to rhythms. I’m going to listen to every talk. I’m going to every prayer group. I’m going to step out and I’m going to pray for the wildest things. I’m going to expect a miracle.”

Now, if we really expect a miracle, God’s perfect will can be done this week and we will be surprised and amazed. He wants a lot more for us than we can ever imagine. And so let’s bow our heads now and just pray that we can become simple and childlike and move into a total dependency on Him. And so, Father, this has got to be a work by the Spirit. So let the Holy Divine Spirit move within each one of us. Break down those barriers of pride. God, break down those barriers of education that might be blocking us. Break down those barriers of what we heard our neighbors say that we didn’t like, what we heard our ministers say that we didn’t like.

Whatever it is, Lord, let us turn to You as the divine source and receive whatever You have. Lord, we want to really link in with You. We know You’re the vine and we want to be the branches.

And so unite us with You in the fullness of Jesus Christ. Amen.