Roads To Success 4.8

Power Struggle

With the encouragement of Captain Brad Fleetwood McDonald, Wayne Huizenga, Jr. began exploring what it meant to have a relationship with God.  He enjoyed what the pastor had to say and was often moved to tears by the sermon.  Gradually, Wayne, Jr. began doing his best to change his life.

“If I was in town, I was in church,” Wayne, Jr. said in his I Am Second interview.  “I put my money in the basket when it went by.  I went to a little bit of Bible study and I even learned some Bible verses.  When Captain Brad came into town I had my own Bible and I could find my way around it.  I could even quote some scripture to him.”

It was a strong and heartfelt start for Wayne, Jr. but it was not comprehensively effective.

“I’d listen to the message and I’d try to be different but at the end of the day I found myself out doing the worldly things that I had always done.  I didn’t understand how to change my life,” Wayne, Jr. remembered.  “I was still struggling.  I was trying to be different but I didn’t have any power to change.  I’d say, ‘I’m not going to swear as much today or I’m not going to drink as much this weekend.’  But my changes were short lived.  It was a very mixed up, difficult time.”

One day friends invited Wayne, Jr. to accompany them to a Wednesday evening service at their church in Fort Lauderdale.  His acceptance of their invitation would lead to a breakthrough in his life.

The fact that this particular church held services on Wednesday evenings was just one of the differences setting it apart from Wayne, Jr.’s more traditional church.  His friends’ church was a ‘mega-church’ meeting in a warehouse-type building with about 4,000 people in attendance.  Instead of hymnals the worship song lyrics were projected on large, strategically placed screens.  And the sermon was powerful, almost as powerful as the storm thundering outside, lasting almost a full hour.

Towards the end of the sermon the pastor posed a question that reached deep into Wayne, Jr.’s heart.  Wayne, Jr. presented the details in his I Am Second video.  “At the end of the service the pastor asked, ‘If you were driving home in the night, and something happened to you, and you died, do you know for certain you’d go to Heaven?’  It was very quiet in there.  And he said, ‘Well if you don’t, you can know for certain you’re going to go to Heaven.  You can come forward tonight.  You can ask Jesus to come into your heart, forgive you of your sins, and live in you.  And you’ll know with certainty that Heaven forbid, if anything should happen, that you’d go to Heaven.’”

As the choir began to sing, Wayne, Jr., his heart racing, watched people begin rising from their seats and making their way to the front of the auditorium.  “The pastor came back up to the pulpit again after a minute or two,” he continued.  “He said, ‘Do you think that there’s got to be more to being a Christian than just going to church on Sundays?  Do you think that there’s a reason that God allowed you to be born?  Do you think that He has a plan for your life?’”

What came next moved Wayne, Jr. profoundly.  “The pastor said, ‘God wants to have a personal relationship with you and He wants to do it through His Son, Jesus Christ.  God has a plan for your life.  Why do you think you’ve been given all the things you’ve been given?’”

The words took hold of Wayne, Jr. in a powerful way.  “I thought, ‘Man, I’ve got a lot.’  I realized I had been given these incredible gifts.  I had airplanes, boats, money and the ability to do almost anything I wanted in life.  And I realized I was using it all for me.  It was all being used selfishly and in no way did I use any of it to glorify God.”

Finally, the pastor said, “If you want to have a personal relationship with God, with Jesus Christ, you can come forward right now and join these people, and pray this simple prayer.”

Wayne, Jr. simply could not remain in his seat.  The truth of what he had heard pulled him forward.  “I made my way down to the row to the aisle, forward to the front of this church that I had never been to before, and I fell to my knees.  And I began to cry,” Wayne, Jr. described that memorable night.  “I listened to the pastor and he said, ‘Repeat these simple words and ask Jesus into your heart.’  And I did.  I told Jesus I was sorry, that I loved Him and that I wanted to know what His plan for my life was.  I wanted to be in this personal relationship with Him if He wanted to be in it with me.”

Wayne, Jr. got up, dried his tears, and then went home to tell his wife what had occurred.

© 2012 Philip Kassel