Stories: The Hand of God in My Life

By Elder Richard C. Anderson

I call this book for want of a better phrase, a memoir. I say this because it is not just the story of my life but it consist of events that I call stories. Each story is true and reflects the good hand of God leading and protecting me in my life.

I use a motif quote from The Present Crisis by James Russell Lowell at the end of some stories that God was standing in the shadows, keeping watch above his own.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543445176

Elder Richard C. Anderson

Elder Richard C. Anderson is an ordained minister in the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World. He is a member of the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago, (ACOG). Elder Anderson served in the United States Army in the Republic of Vietnam in 1968. After the Army he received an Associate in Arts degree from Kennedy-King Jr. College, a Bachelor of Arts Degree from the College of the University of Chicago and a Juris Doctor degree from Northwestern University School of Law. He practiced law for twenty years when the Lord called him into the Ministry. He attended Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and was ordained in July 2001. Elder Anderson was the co-teacher of the Basic Ministry class and the Ethics class for ministers at the ACOG. He was active in the Visitation Ministry to those in hospitals and otherwise shut in. He is the Pastoral Care Volunteer at the LaRabida Children’s Hospital. He taught a weekly bible study class in the Englewood neighborhood and facilitates a weekly prayer meeting at the Hope Bible Church in Chicago. Elder Anderson’s preaching and teaching ministry extends from Chicago to Birmingham England and Cork City Ireland where he preaches annually at the Greater Light International Ministry Church.

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Copyright © 2017 by Elder Richard C. Anderson.

Library of Congress Control Number:             2017912974

ISBN:                   Hardcover                           978-1-5434-4515-2

                            Softcover                             978-1-5434-4516-9

                            eBook                                 978-1-5434-4517-6

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Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. Website

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. [Biblica]

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

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Rev. date: 08/31/2017

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CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

My Testimony

MTS—Get Me Out of Here

Zorro and the Boy Scouts 1958

Safe Passage

Terry Gowder—I Ran all the Way Home

The Girl in the Park

Los Altos Hills—Sliding Off the Hill 1964

Anger Management

Vietnam—Pan Am and the Bloody Swim 1967

Vietnam—The Visitation 1968

Vietnam—First Sgt. Robert Kennedy

Fort Hood, Texas, 1969

Dresher Manufacturing Co. 1969

Music

We Push And Pull

111Th Street—The Good Wife

Back To School—KKC TO UC 1971

Northwestern Law School—Berry and Jeff

Joyce A. Hughes and Len S. Rubinowitz

Springfield—Bob Jones and the VW Bus

The Bar Exam—The New Age—Christ 1977–1978

Around the World in Thirty Days

The Apology

Steve Riesman—Come on Back

A Conversation with Walter

If Rich Goes, I Go!

CHA—Richard Surkamer

The Holleb & Coff Report

Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

Ireland

We Don’t Like What You Believe

The Accident

Afterword

This book is

dedicated to Dr. Tom Roby, teacher, mentor, and friend; Yoa Sachs; Carolyn Smith; and Kennedy-King College.

PREFACE

I N 1958 WHEN I was twelve years old, the basement of our home flooded. As I was helping my father clean up, I discovered a book. The name of the book was Black Boy by Richard Wright. My father said his mother had given him that book. My father also told me that I was named after Richard Wright.

I immediately started reading the book, and I was profoundly moved by Wright’s early life story. Even though my life was nothing like Wright’s, I completely empathized with him. He was an outsider. He had a rich inner life. I understood his emotions. And as I grew up as a loner without many friends, I had Black Boy to keep me company. I have read the book five times, and I will continue to reread it in the coming years.

It occurred to me when I was almost finished writing this book that it owes a debt to Black Boy. I have read all of Wright’s books, and I continue to admire him even though he made great mistakes in his life. I have not imitated his style, although that would not be a bad thing to do, but this is my black-boy and black-man story as I walk with God.

My first book is not the book people have encouraged me to write. That book, After the Call, was concerned with the issues that confront a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ after the call to ministry. Over the years, several people have encouraged me to write a book. This is that book. This book is about the invisible and visible hand of God manifested in my life. It is not just a memoir but a recounting of how God has been in the shadows, keeping watch above His own.

INTRODUCTIOn

Hard Work—Good

Decisions—Help

I MADE A list of all the people I can remember who have helped me in large and small ways in my life. The list includes people who have just given me an encouraging word to people who have had major impacts on my life. There were 134 people on that list. Yes, 134! This book is more of a book of stories about some of these people more than about myself. I have never met anybody who has had as many mentors and encouragers as I have. At every important point in my life, God had someone there to help me. At every crossroad, there was a mentor, friend, stranger, adviser, and/o r friend to point the way. God has not been subtle about this. He has openly shown his grace, mercy, and love toward me.

It would be immodest to brag about my part in the good outcomes of many challenging situations. But there is one trait or aspect of my personality I value— I listen when people give me advice. Countless people—friends, enemies, teachers, coworkers, and countless other relationships—have given me advice, admonitions, and suggestions; and I can immodestly say I have listened and acted on almost all of them. God has graciously sent wise counselors and powerful mentors into my life, and I have had the wisdom to listen, obey, act on, and receive their advice and help. All successful people owe their accomplishments in part to someone who helped at just that critical turning point. Thank you, Lord, for the messengers you have sent into my life.

I call this book Stories because as I have recounted these amazing encounters with God to people, one story usually leads to another. And I am always saying, That’s another story, I’ll tell you later.

The stories in this book are true. Where I am not sure about a fact, date, or name, I will say so. I haven’t made any of this up or embellished any situation for dramatic effect. I don’t have to. I think what is most amazing is that most of these adventures occurred before I received Jesus as my Lord and Savior. Yet God had His hand on me and manifested His love, mercy, and grace at a time when I was an unrepentant sinner.

Some of these stories are imprecatory in nature. The Bible says of Israel, "For he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye (Zechariah 2:8). There is another verse that says, Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to those who trouble you (2 Thessalonians 1:6). Some of these events in my life have to do with God recompensing tribulation on those who troubled me. I claim no credit for this. I don’t recount these events to gloat. The Bible says, Don’t rejoice when your enemies fall; don’t be happy when they stumble. For the LORD will be displeased with you and will turn his anger away from them" (Proverbs 24:17–18 NLT).

There is another thing I would like for the reader to look for in this book—the critical point where I made a decision that changed everything. I don’t know how to talk about this without sounding like I am self-satisfied. Just let me say that making the right decisions is critical to a fulfilled life. Furthermore, it often takes courage to make that decision. It took courage for me to decide I was not getting on that helicopter in Vietnam (in the chapter Vietnam—the Visitation 1968). Quitting a full-time job to go back to school was not an easy decision (in the chapter Back to School—KKC to UC 1971).

My point is that God placed options before me. God brought opportunities into my life. But I believe he allowed me the freedom to choose to step out in faith or to keep on the path that was well-trodden. I admit I do not know how to balance the sovereignty of God versus the free will of man in everyday life. I do know how this works in salvation—man has no free will when it comes to salvation. Salvation is a work entirely of God’s grace. All I can say is that when God has a plan for your life, He will bring it to pass. "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end (Jeremiah 29:11). And as if that were not enough, the Bible says, And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28).

There is a passage in the Bible that I think expresses what I am trying to say.

4) Whoever watches the wind will not plant;

whoever looks at the clouds will not reap.

5) As you do not know the path of the wind,

or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb,

so you cannot understand the work of God,

the Maker of all things.

6) Sow your seed in the morning,

and at evening let not your hands be idle,

for you do not know which will succeed,

whether this or that,

or whether both will do equally well. (Ecclesiastes 11:4–6 NIV)

In other words, we don’t know what God may do in our lives. I do know that nothing beats a failure but a try. This is a theme often repeated in this book. I have seen God do wonderful things in my life when I had the nerve or the courage to step out on faith and try to do the impossible.

My e-mail address is [e-mail]. Let me know what you think. I love all who honor me by taking the time to read this book. Thank you for your attention.

So now, once upon a time …

Yours in Him,

Elder Richard C. Anderson

MY TESTIMONY

I GREW UP attending the Church of Christ. There was no choice in the matter. In our home, we went to church with my father. The church we attended was the Church of Christ. I was baptized in the Church of Christ in Robbins, Illinois. There were several distinctive things about the Church of Christ. Among them, the Church of Christ claimed to be the only true church, not just that Jesus was the only way to God. They did teach that, and I agree with that. But they went further and taught that if you were not a member of the Church of Christ, you were not saved and you were going to hell. They said that the Church of Christ was the only church of Christ.

This presented a problem at home because my mother was a devout Christian, but she was a member of the Church of God in Christ. My father was a minister in the Church of Christ, but he knew, as well as the rest of the family, that Mom was saved. I never heard my father say in a sermon or at home that only Church of Christ members were going to heaven. He knew better. My father is no longer in the Church of Christ. His studies of the Bible led him to realize the error of several of their teachings, particularly baptismal regeneration and the Arminian doctrine that states the believer can lose his or her salvation and ultimately go to hell.

The Church of Christ also believed that you were not saved until you were baptized in water. They also did not allow any instrumental music in the church. All the music was a cappella singing of hymns. The most troubling doctrine taught in the Church of Christ was that once saved, you could lose your salvation. And when you sinned, you were required to stand up in the church on Sunday morning and confess your sins to the whole congregation and ask for forgiveness.

You were never told how many sins could cause you to lose your salvation or whether it was the severity of the transgression that would send you to hell. The God I came to know in that church was always angry with me and would surely send me to hell. I was an unregenerate sinner, and even though I had accepted Christ and was baptized, I would probably go to hell anyway. I do not ever remember hearing the word grace mentioned in a Church of Christ sermon or worship service. God’s love was not discussed, only His wrath.

I hated going to church. When I got out on my own, I would not even go to church on Easter. I associated church with fear, guilt, and psychological damage. However, I did believe in the gospel, but I had never heard it presented as anything positive. Sure, Jesus died for my sins, but I was going to hell anyway, so what difference did His crucifixion make? So I decided that since I was destined for hell anyway, I might as well enjoy sin. And I did. I am not a Christian like those you hear on the Unshackled! radio program who have great regrets. No, I enjoyed being a sinner.

From time to time during my adult life as a sinner, I would remember that there was something in the Bible about believing in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall