Spiritual visions

by Bill Tait

Although my parents never went to church, when I was four or five, my mother taught me a prayer: "Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. Bless Mommy and Daddy and all my relations and friends and in Christ's sake come in." I didn't know what that last part meant (it was supposed to be "Amen"), but I would see a picture in my mind of a man in a white robe knocking on the back door of our house.

Now, the front door of our house was used for special guests or people we didn't know, but the back door was reserved for friends. They would knock, come on in and spend time with us in the areas of the house we would live in, like the kitchen. I guess that was the first vision that God gave me, and it was of Jesus Christ as our close friend.

When I was 14 and living in Surrey, B.C., one night I had another vision or dream. I was in the basement, and it was dark. I turned out the lights and started walking up the stairs. At the top of the stairs, I saw something about six feet in height and two or three feet in width, almost like a darkness, and so powerful it was pulsing. As I tried to walk past it, it lunged at me with ferocious speed and enveloped me. I felt absolute terror. I was screaming, but couldn't get a sound to come out of my mouth. I had absolutely no power against this entity, which was the most evil thing you could imagine. As I felt my sanity slipping away, all of a sudden I felt another entity beginning to come into me, and I realized that I was no longer in terror. The best way I can describe this new entity is that it was an overpowering love.

Later on, I read the Bible and realized that the evil entity was Satan and the good entity was God.

The black entity, that had been so powerful that it had almost been making all kinds of excuses. I used to make deals with God. He would always fulfill His part of the deal, but then I wouldn't do my part. I wouldn't go to church. I wouldn't become a Christian. I didn't even know what becoming a Christian was. I thought I would have to buy a three-piece suit because I thought that was what all Christians wore to church. I would tell God that before I could go into a church, I would have to quit using foul language, quit drinking, quit doing drugs. Bit by bit, God showed me that I couldn't change a single thing in my life. Even though I continued to try to change myself, I continued being the same wretched, rotten person. It was as if God was telling me, "If you go ahead and put all this whitewash on you and clean yourself up, what glory am I going to have? Let Me do the job."

All these things were going through my mind as I stopped the car and gave the ultimate challenge to Jesus. God loves challenges, and He took me up on it. As I sat there, I felt the warm love of God come upon me. Mostly, it was a sense of peace. I was no longer full of rage and hatred about what had happened. God gave me peace to do things right. I drove home, unloaded the gun and put it away. Then I phoned the police and they laid charges.

I remember marvelling at the peace God had given me. I could see things clearly now. I even had compassion and love for the person who had hurt our family so badly. I had finally given my life to Jesus Christ.

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