Remember when you were in school, how there was always that one kid who knew everything? The one who was always reading, always had the answers, aced all the tests and completely blew the Bell curve for everybody else? That was me. I was the smart kid; a lifelong science geek. As far back as I can remember, curiosity has been one of my major drivers. It gave me a determination to follow the evidence, no matter what direction it goes, and it’s the reason I eventually became an archaeologist. At the same time, my identity and my sense of worth growing up always came from how much I knew, or how much I could figure out.
Like many kids in my generation I was taken to Sunday School by my parents. But as I grew up I increasingly lost interest. Nothing I was hearing there seemed relevant to the real world. And by the time I was a teenager, some of the things I had heard Christian leaders teach were so absurd that I decided there was nothing there worth paying attention to.
I enlisted in the U.S. Air Force shortly before my 18th birthday. After basic training I was trained to be a telecommunications systems controller, and then I was assigned to the 2168th (later 2130th) Communication Squadron, based in England, at a base called RAF Croughton.
Looking back now, I can’t say what it was that got a science geek like me interested in reading about magic and occultism while I was in England. Perhaps it was just curiousity. Whatever the reason, I found, to my surprise, that buried amidst a veritable sea of kooks, there was a core of phenomena that I could not explain. And then I found myself experiencing some of that core firsthand.
It started as an eerie feeling, like I was being watched. As the weeks grew into months, the feeling grew stronger. Around every corner something waited. In every bush something hid, watching, waiting to strike. In the daytime I would laugh and tell myself it was all my imagination. I was letting the things I was reading get to me. But every night it was back. I would lay awake at night staring into the shadows of my room, knowing that something I could not see was staring back. This was not a vague sense of foreboding, but a specific presence. I could point to where it was, even if I couldn’t see it. Several times I woke up in the middle of the night paralyzed. Other times I was able to move but didn’t dare to, even to turn on the light, because I was terrified of what I might see. Just about all my free time was now spent studying the occult, and in particular demonology, as I desperately searched for some way to protect myself from what was happening. This went on for about a full year.
Now, it just so happens, that one can’t undertake a serious study of demonology without encountering the name of Jesus. In the literature of the occult, and I don’t mean the chain bookstore stuff, but the serious material that takes a bit of effort to find, that name shows up all over the place as a charm against evil. To me, it sounded silly. I knew who Jesus was supposed to be, and I knew what he was supposed to have done, and I could even say I halfway believed it. But only halfway. In the daytime the idea of using the name of Jesus as some sort of magic spell was ridiculous. After dark I wasn’t so sure.
My crew was working the midnight shift when things finally came to a head. It was about a half mile walk from the barracks to my duty station, and the path I had to take went along the street for a short distance, then cut through a field behind some buildings. On this particular night, just as I reached the place where it started to cross the field, I stopped. Beside the last building was a wooden loading platform. Something – some presence – was under that platform
I looked around. There was nobody else in sight, and I was on duty in just a few minutes. I could not go back, and there wasn’t time to go around. I forced myself to go forward, concentrating on taking one step, then a second, then a third, Walking past the platform took every bit of self-control I had. Then I was past and into the field, trying not to run. At the other end of the field I still had to pass the bank. Just around that corner I would be in almost total darkness for a few feet. But having gotten past the loading platform I figured the corner would be easy. I was wrong.
As I crossed the field I expected the fear and sense of presence to decrease. Instead they increased. I stopped where I was, unable to move any closer to either the platform I’d passed or the corner ahead that blocked my only path to the lighted communications building. And after a moment, even standing still was no longer a refuge. The presence that had watched me for all those months was through watching. I could feel with absolute clarity that something was coming toward me from the dark corner. Something else was coming from under the platform. Everything I had ever read about the occult was worthless to me in that moment. Had I known an actual magic spell I could not have employed it. Even speaking the name of Jesus was beyond me; my mouth refused to open. I was certain I was about to die. In terror, I clutched at the only straw I could think of. Without uttering a word audibly I prayed. In utter desperation I silently begged God, in Jesus’ name, to help me.
Like a bubble poping, instantly the malevolence that had shadowed me for the past year was gone. And the fear I had known increased a thousand fold, changing its very nature in the process. No longer a dark stalking presence, in an instant it was as though I were in the presence of a power totally beyond my comprehension. With that same mixture of fear and awe that men feel at the sight of a volcanic eruption, or perhaps an earthquake, I felt that the sky was about to open and the world about to end. But it was more than just power. Just as I had felt the presence of something evil pursuing me, so now I could feel the presence of something, or rather of someone, very different.
The only word that I have for it is holy. But what I felt in that moment went so far beyond what had I thought of as holy, so far beyond what any of us think of as holy, that the word simply fails. All words fail. I stood in the presence of asolute Holiness, and knew that I had never once been worthy of him. If he had chosen to kill me at that moment every fiber of my being would have affirmed the rightness of it. I didn’t know what he wanted from me, but whatever it was I knew without question that I did not have it. My mind formed just one thought; I don’t think I was even capable of anything else. “Whatever you want to do is right,” was my only thought. “Do it.”
Nothing changed for the space of five, perhaps ten heartbeats. Then, just as suddenly as it had come, the fear that had held me was gone. The feeling of power was still there, but muted. Diminished enough for me to continue on to the communications building and my duty station.
A short time later I was invited to a Bible study (which I doubt very much was just a coincidence). That’s how I came to understand the significance of what had happened to me, and in particular of my response that night. I had told God to do whatever he wanted to do with me. What he’d wanted was to forgive me for every wrong, every act of disobedience or rebellion, every way that I had been unworthy of him. And along with forgiving me, he’d wanted to adopt me as his son. And I came to understand as well how, through the death and resurrection of Jesus, it was all possible.
For several years afterward I didn’t tell anyone what I experienced that night. I was afraid of what people would think. When anyone asked how I came to Christ, I simply told them about the Bible study. Even after I started telling a few people what I’d gone through, I kept it to just a few. But I think it’s now time for me to be open about what happened. It’s not about what you, or anyone, thinks of me. If you want to call me crazy, or say that I hallucinated the whole thing, fine. It’s a free country; say whatever you want. What I know is that, when I had no right to pray, when I had never once obeyed or trusted in God, he answered me anyway. He rescued me from what, I still am convinced, was certain death. And I am not ashamed to say so.