Moments of Grace

 Moments of Grace


Today on Moments of Grace our guest is Dr. Donald Hartley. Dr. Hartley is a Professor at Southeastern Bible College. He is also a Bible Scholar, Apologist and Author.

Moments of Grace

I remember my high school senior year (1981–82) late one night, alone, lying on my bed, and praying from memory the Lord’s Prayer. I tried to understand the words of that prayer I had been taught as a child. I’d said it a thousand times before that night. But that night was different. I was desperate to hear from God. I felt so alone, could not find the answers, and sensed an inability to even seek them. “Our Father who art in heaven….” Father? Of course you are in heaven. “Hollowed be thy name.” What does “hollowed” mean? “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” On I went through prayer phrase-by-phrase and word-by-word until the “for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.” What did it mean altogether and what did it mean in particular to me? I was literally on my back speaking out loud to the God transcending the ceiling above my bed. “I know you’re out there. Why do you not hear me? Why cannot I hear from you?” Silence. What good is a God whom I cannot hear and who cannot hear me? If the answers were outside of me, how do I get to them? I was taxed and spent with nothing to tax and spend. I could not figure out either the meaning of the Lord’s Prayer or the world into which I felt I was thrown. Why was I here? How can I get through this life alone? Why was I so miserable? Is there life after High School? Was I to spend my life alone?

I don’t remember the details of the night that brought on the angst but I do remember giving God an ultimatum. The soliloquy began with angst, progressed to anger, degenerated into blasphemy of God, turned into asking for his forgiveness, then petitioning the impossible from him. It culminated with something like this: “OK God. I want a wife! I don’t think you can do this because I want nothing but the best. I do not want a woman just to have a woman. I don’t want any woman. I need a particular one. I’d rather be single all my life than to be with someone I did not desire or worse, repulsed me as ugly. Here is what I want. I want a short, cute, blond who is built really well—you know what I mean—and who thinks the world of me. Hey God, did you hear that? That is what I want. But I know it is impossible…even for you. What would a girl like that want with a guy like me? There, I’ve said it. Good night and good luck.” I fell back upon the pillow out of a living nightmare and into a depressing sleep haunted by an impossible dream. But at least I’d laid it out to God. It wasn’t the Lord’s Prayer, but it was mine.

I grew up in a Roman Catholic family, one of eight kids. I was the fifth born followed immediately by my twin brother, Doug. It may be difficult for someone to appreciate the possibility of loneliness in a family where one is never really alone. But I was like Adam in the garden. “It is not good for man to be alone,” God said. Adam was not alone! He had God walking with him in the cool of the day. He had animals of all sorts to keep him company. He had a job to do in the garden. He was busy, busy, and busy still. But God said Adam was alone, and it was not good. If Adam even in a pre-fall state, with God walking alongside him, commissioned to tend a garden, and surrounded by animals all around him could be alone and in a state of “not good,” then surely anyone descended from Adam can be alone in the midst of others as well. I had parents, two sisters, and five brothers. I was not alone. But I was missing something. I was missing someone as well as Someone. I felt alone on many levels. But I felt abandoned by God. That night, my solution was a “Hail Mary pass” to God for him to find and bring the right woman, the ideal woman, for me and to me. I did not ask for salvation or a wise heart or a heart for God like David. My visceral concern was to be with a helper a companion that I could find fellowship. And in doing this I felt that it would demonstrate whether God had indeed forsaken or cared in the least for me. I remember that night and this prayer clearly because I have rehearsed its contents repeatedly over the last thirty years to my wife, Melissa. You see, God answered that prayer two weeks before my senior year ended!

I met my wife over 31 years ago in high school, two weeks before the last day of class for seniors. I was a senior and she was a junior. She fit the physical features and far surpassed them with her bubbly personality, eager anticipation of the next moments of life, uninhibited optimism, cheerful disposition, and endless entertaining chatter. And, she was a PK (“preacher’s kid”). At the time, I was still a Roman Catholic, but God had my attention. Over the next couple of years I did become a genuine believer. Whenever I doubted God’s love for me I simply reminded myself of what I had asked from him at a dark hour and then the undeniable answer down to its specific details in Melissa. He must love me because he gave me her. That was a tangible proof in the here-and-now that I could not deny. Of course I know that God loved me before time and in time demonstrated by the death of his Son in my place. But I did not know that in the sense I do today. God condescended to me and gave me someone so that I could better see the Someone I needed even more. A moment of grace prepared me for many more and greater degrees of grace from God.
Donald E. Hartley, Ph.D.