“My mouth shall tell of Your righteousness And Your salvation all day, For I do not know their limits. I will go in the strength of the Lord GOD; I will make mention of Your righteousness, of Yours only…Now also when I am old and grey-headed, O God, do not forsake me, UNTIL I DECLARE YOUR STRENGTH TO THIS GENERATION, YOUR POWER TO EVERYONE WHO IS TO COME.” (Psalms 71:15-18)
I did not have the good fortune of knowing the Lord until I was 29 years old. My interests were very self-centered, my main interest was ME! What made me feel good like getting drunk and becoming dependent upon alcohol to the point that it began to affect my work. I was a design engineer in the Aerospace Industry. I designed a product called a “Thrust Co-efficient Computer” for the “short takeoff and landing” aircraft. While working on this I discovered alcohol was hindering my work, so I switched to “speed, hash, and Acapulco Gold.” My erroneous thinking was that would be better for my creative ability. I then went to work in the Graphic Arts Industry, I was hired because I was familiar with Digital Design. Great precision was required in that field and “Analog Circuits” couldn’t do it.
I designed and patented a “Word Processing System” I would travel to the Printing Industry Shows which were surprisingly huge and because of this system, our sales team treated me like royalty because we were the only ones who had something like this. So, more parties and drunkenness. By this time, I had a front office with my own restroom and on May 17th, 1972, I walked into my restroom, closed the door and someone put their arms around me and said, “BILL, I LOVE YOU.” I fell to my knees, right next to the toilet, my heart was filled with sorrow for the way I was living, because as I discovered later conviction gripped my very being and I began to do something I never did, CRYING I said, “I’m so sorry!” At that moment a huge weight was lifted off of me and I just began to thank the Lord for loving me and changing me.
The reason this happened is my technician, a man named Tim, was very smart and very blunt. I would work hard designing a phase of the System and he would build it and test it. Then he would leave me a note explaining why something I did, didn’t work, and how he fixed it. His fixes were always right! So, after several months of this we were working through the weekends getting ready for a show and I walked to work smoking the equivalent of two joints in my fancy pipe, met Tim and he began to tell me of a good friend who had just been delivered from demon possession. Knowing how Tim was always right on in his work for me, I believed him.
I got saved on a Wednesday and on Friday I went to a revival at the Seattle church with Tim, when the altar call was given I felt compelled to go receive something more I needed. As I began to pray the Lord told me to “get rid of all my drugs and alcohol”. I had just purchased 10 bags of “Acapulco Gold” and because of my drinking days, plenty of alcohol. So, on the way home I told them what I had to do. I put all my marijuana in those large baby food jars I began to open them and dump them down the toilet as I came to the last jar, I could not get the lid off and another voice said, “put this away in case you need it” I didn’t recognize that voice, so I said, “Lord help me.” And the lid came off and as I dumped it in the toilet I was lifted up and the Lord said, “I will lift you up from now on.”
Long years ago when out in sin,
I had no hope no peace within;
Down on my knees in agony,
I prayed to Jesus and He gladly set me free.
I never shall forget the day…
Your Personal Pastor -Bill Stockham