The Deferment of Hope: A Story of Exile, Faith, and Redemption

By Marc D. Simon

I approached The Deferment of Hope with high expectations and did not come away disappointed. Minister Marc Simon writes from a deep and compassionate space within himself. His intimate journals strategically placed throughout the book tell the story of a life lived on the run, and in confinement, both in and out of the penitentiary. Once you begin reading you will immediately recognize that Marc was not serving time, but time was serving Marc.

Bishop Kalem Kengga

Zoe Ministries of the Antelope Valley

There is nothing in our own time which the enemy fears more than a thinking church. For a fired up and emotionalized church, which nonetheless refuses to think, is no real threat to the stronghold of ignorance which persists in our communities, despite much fervency in our worship.

Marc D. Simon

The Deferment of Hope

Join the author in a penetrating look into the mind and thoughts of a prisoner in exile. Experience the deferment of hope, and the lessons learned along the way. Simon, through his provocative narrative and teaching, challenges us to rethink our ideas about hope, all the while weaving the reader through the inspiring story of his own 12 year incarceration in prison, loss, and his journey of faith and redemption. The Deferment of Hope resists traditional religious boxes and modes of speech, and ushers the reader into the authors own interior world of experience.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Mar 19, 2015
• ISBN: 9781490870274

Marc D. Simon

MARC D. SIMON is an ordained minister with the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel and serves as the senior teaching pastor of Church For The Nations, in Oxnard, CA. Marc holds graduate degrees in Psychology, Organizational Leadership, and Theology, and also serves as a chaplain with the Ventura County Rescue Mission.

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Copyright © 2015 Marc D. Simon.

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Credit to Joseph Fields Jr for author photo.

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-7028-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-7029-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-7027-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015904338

WestBow Press rev. date: 3/16/2015

Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Preface Lessons and Reminders

Chapter One Runner

Chapter Two Known of God

Chapter Three Theological Disconnect

Chapter Four The Age of Repentance

Chapter Five Mind and Spirit

Chapter Six Logos

Chapter Seven The Hem of His Garment

Chapter Eight The Reclamation of Hope

Epilogue A Longing Fulfilled

Select Bibliography

About the Author

Dedication

To My Angie, by whose presence this life has been made infinitely more beautiful. I call you LOVE! Thank you so much for believing in me, and with me. This is our season!!!

And To My Emily, after all of these years you are still my happy thought. And though the time away nearly broke me, I now know that we did it together. I love you, Emily!!!

Acknowledgements

To my parents: Dad, you were the first real king I ever knew, my first hero, and the first example in my life of what it meant for a man to pursue his dreams. Surely, I AM MY FATHER’S SON! And Mom, you were my first teacher – the one through whom I learned the greatest lesson of them all, God’s love. You have given to me, through your love and your spirit, a treasure which I carry with me still. Had it not been for you…

To three kings: Jimmy, Kelly, and Sean. You have each – in quite different ways – revealed to me the heart of God. I love you for that, and will honor each of you men for as long as I draw breath! Simon Four!!!

To Joseph, God has already granted you success on every front, it is your birthright! All that remains is the confidence and faith needed to press in and take hold of it. His Spirit lives in you!!!

To my beloved Bishop and my dear Pastor, the two of you have not only been teachers and guides, but real friends when I needed them most. Your guidance and counsel have been life changing! Thank you for nurturing so many of us in the gospel. God smiles through you both!

And to all those who walked with me along the way of my journey, those who blessed me as mentors, friends, teachers, and companions. Men like John Robinson, Jim Young, Roman X, Ray Haney, Hasan Muhammad, Derick Lewis, Hateem Shareef, Roland Geiger, Montrell Dorsey, Malachi, Asa, and so many others… Thank you!

Foreword

I approached The Deferment of Hope with high expectations and did not come away disappointed. Minister Marc Simon writes from a deep and compassionate space within himself. Marc has intimate journals throughout his writing from his twelve years of incarceration strategically placed within the book which tell the story of a life lived on the run, and in confinement, both in and out of the penitentiary.

When you begin reading this book you will immediately recognize that Marc was not serving time, but time was serving Marc, and he was in control of how he used it for his benefit. The book you now hold is a result of how he allowed time to serve him.

Throughout his journey there was a search for the truth, and many books were read, along with religious studies and practices. Marc now has a perspective of truth from different genres of religion that brought him back to the truth of Jesus the Christ. Marc writes, There is nothing in our own time which the enemy fears more than a thinking church. For a fired up and emotionalized church, which nonetheless refuses to think, is no real threat to the stronghold of ignorance which persists in our communities, despite much fervency in our worship.

This quote reminds me of the Apostle Paul’s statement to the Greeks at Athens, You worship ignorantly. (Acts 17:23) Jesus also commented to the woman at the well, You Samaritans worship what you do not know. (John 4:22) Truth cannot be known, except by its fruitage! John the Baptizer said to bring fruit of repentance. In other words, something should be seen if you have it.

Truth is God, and God is not to be known, but to be experienced and demonstrated. Only when God is experienced are there signs following, or is there fruitage!

Marc, throughout his journey has experienced, and demonstrates through his writing, that being ignorant was never an option for him after he had to confront himself in a deferment of hope while incarcerated. This book is educational, as well as providing the reader with very personal encounters with the person Marc became enlightened with during his incarceration, namely himself! While reading "The Deferment of Hope" examine yourself, and ask yourself the question about your own hope in relation to who you really are!

Remember, you meet no one but yourself!

Bishop Kalem Kengga

Zoe Ministries of the Antelope Valley

Lancaster, California

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.

Proverbs 13:12

Preface

Lessons and Reminders

Then came one and told them, saying, Behold, the men whom ye put in prison are standing in the temple, and teaching the people. (Acts 5:25, KJV)

During the years of my incarceration in prison I would often come across this verse from the book of Acts, and imagine that it was somehow indicative of my own coming redemption beyond the walls of the penitentiary. That is, I imagined – in much the same way that a child imagines that he will one day grow up and be great – that others would one day say of me, That man who was shut up in the prison is now free, and he’s standing in the temple, and teaching the people!

In fact, in my own reading of scripture I often sought to find myself within its pages. For I was desperate back then to connect my own life to the narratives I found therein; to find myself, as it were, hidden amongst the 2000 year old stories. So naturally, I searched its pages for narratives woven around men like myself, i.e. men who had been put into prison, or exile. The righteousness or guilt of the men didn’t matter to me, only the experience of exile itself. For I was anxious to see what men of faith did when they were exiled, or set in prison. Did they pray? Did they fast? Did they plot revenge, or prepare for war against their captors? I looked to the scriptures because I was convinced, even then, that my own life was an extension of the lives I had read about in its’ books, and no less the Word of God – being written through my own experiences – than were the pages of the large Bible which sat atop the desk in my cell. This page, however, was one that held me as its principle character. For a life does not have to be canonized, or celebrated, to be expressive of God’s truth, i.e. His Word. A truth which is expressed in every life lived, and nowhere absent. From the lives of the saints and patriarchs of scripture, to the life of the man sitting in front of the local Walmart in tattered clothing, asking you if you have any spare change. His truth is ever present, calling out to us, even from the life of the man in prison.

It was an older brother named John who first awakened me to this idea. Joseph spent time in prison also, he once told me, catching me quite off guard with his words. For I had read the story of Joseph and his brothers in the book of Genesis more than once, but in doing so I had never considered Joseph and I to have occupied similar places in our lives. After all, Joseph was upright, and had only found himself in prison because of his unwillingness to sin. I, on the other hand, had no such unwillingness to speak of. I mused, even while John spoke that morning, that had I been Joseph the book of Genesis would have been quite a different book. For I was neither upright, nor chosen, at least as I then understood those terms, and wholly cognizant that my sentence in prison had been warranted by my own actions. I had no such righteousness to plead on my behalf, and in my case there had been no wrongful accusations, or charges made. Only a string of robberies, of which I was guilty. John seemed not to consider any of that when he spoke though. For him, each one of us in prison had the potential to be a Joseph, i.e., to exercise some rare gift during the period of our incarceration, and to be elevated thereby, both inwardly and in the world about us. Not only because of God’s gifting in our lives, but also because of our faithfulness to His call.

It was while he was in prison that Joseph began to exercise his gifts, John told me, gifts that brought him before the throne of pharaoh, and set him in a place of honor. You see, it is a man’s gift that makes room for him! I would look on with rapt attention when John spoke to me of such things. Exercise your gift, he would tell me, "even in here! Jeremiah prophesied while he was still in prison! Samson grew his shorn locks back while he was in prison! And the apostles preached while they were in prison! In prison!"

John had that rare ability of making the narratives in scripture somehow more relevant, even for someone like me, who was serving over a decade in prison. He gave them a sense of meaning, and lifted them from the dusty pages of antiquity, in a way that made them almost new, and even more real.

"Do you remember what Paul and Silas did when they were in prison, he asked me one day. They prayed, young brother. And not just for themselves, because come midnight their prayers broke the chains off of every last man in that prison. I smiled as he spoke, listening intently. Pray, he said, now looking me squarely in the eyes. And not just for yourself, but for all of us! For you never know if God has given you the spirit of a Paul, or a Silas."

Conversations like these were not isolated incidents for me during the years of my incarceration. But rather, they were like lessons in an ongoing course of study, and at times, reminders along the way. Lessons and reminders, in the form of an ongoing dialogue which I was blessed to share with men, such as John, who were at times set in my life as guides, and instructors, on the path of redemption. Men whose friendship and counsel were invaluable in helping to shape the very stuff of faith, imagination, and hope within me.

In the pages that follow, I have attempted to set forth in writing some measure of the thoughts and experiences which I’ve known as my own. I’ve included amidst my writing excerpts taken from the pages of the journals which I kept, and regularly wrote in, during the 12 years I spent in prison. They have neither been altered, nor edited. It is my hope that by sharing them with the reader that they might serve as a truer witness to the thoughts and spiritual dynamics which characterized my years of imprisonment.

Now Dear Lord, I pray that this