Michael Stein

THREE SECRETS

I was 22 years old in 1971 when these miracles happened, and to this day the memory of them is both vivid and wondrous.

I was a sailor in the U.S. Navy stationed at Fort Meade, Maryland. I worked with both military and civilian personnel.

Through co-workers and circumstances, I found myself at an unexpected crossroad. I had a sudden realization that I believed in a God, that I didn't know. In my arrogance and pride, I decided to pray and fast for 40 days and see if God would give me what I wanted. I had three secret wishes/prayers that I wrote down.

Now fasting also implies other considerations. You rest yourself, and shut out the world. You turn off your TV. You read Scripture, pray, and meditate. You must become still before God. Yet, while I was doing all of these things, I never realized that I still had this angry chip of insulting arrogance on my shoulder.

On the 38th day of the fast I was really weak. Every minute that passed seemed to be an agonizing struggle. On this day, however, a stranger walked into my life, who knew what my three prayers were. Her name was Betsy Tucker.

When I asked Betsy how she knew these things about me, she told me point blank that the Lord had revealed them to her. Her introduction itself contained only the three answers. To anyone else alive, what she said would have made no sense at all, and do you know what she did? She invited me to her church, which was located in Silver Spring, Maryland.

I swallowed my pride, and I drove to this distant church. Betsy, I later discovered, had come to Fort Meade to pick up her son, who was getting out of the Army. What had happened to her was spontaneous.

I was so excited about going to this lady's church that I arrived an hour early and sat in my car in the parking lot. It was an Sunday evening service.

"What kind of a church is an Assembly of God Church?," I remember thinking, when Mrs. Tucker showed up. I stuck to her like glue because I was afraid that I would do something to offend God. And from the time that I went inside until the time that I left, I could barely stand up. I could hardly even talk correctly, and the light seemed to glow everywhere. When the service started, I found myself slumping over, yet I wasn't tired. After the service Mrs. Tucker invited me over to her house.

When she talked about the Lord, I could see her glow. She explained many things to me about how God works in people, while I was seeing it happen in her. I was overwhelmed with what was happening to me, so I decided to head home. I could not take anymore, or so I thought.

AWAKENED BY MY GUARDIAN ANGEL

Silver Spring is just outside of Washington, DC, and I had to drive to Glen Burnie, which is about 35 to 40 miles away. I left Mrs. Tuckers house around 3 o'clock in the morning and picked up the Baltimore Washington Parkway heading north.

I don't remember falling asleep at the wheel, but I can vividly remember the thumping sound of my tires on the concrete highway. I had been traveling about 60 miles an hour, which was pushing it for my 1961 Plymouth Valiant.

The next thing that happened is more than just a memory. I was struck with something as powerful as a bolt of lightning. Living words were drenching themselves through my entire being as a Voice said clearly and powerfully, "Seek the Holy Spirit, Hunger and Thirst after the Holy Spirit." I awakened, and slowly lifted my head.

My eyes were open, but I could only see a white light with the living words that were now fading. I could feel the steering wheel and as I strained my eyes to regain my vision, I began to see the white divider lines, and almost at the same time the sign for the Jessup 175 overpass went racing by. I looked around to see who else was with me. My body was washed in love, as the memory of this experience was burned into the very depths of my spirit.

When I returned to my apartment, I took off my clothes and fell asleep immediately. At 4:24 A.M., the light exploded through me a second time. This time it struck me with such force that I thought that I was driven down through my bed into the concrete floor, and the light lingered deeply in me. The words "Seek the Holy Spirit, Hunger and Thirst after the Holy Spirit" washed through my being like a cleansing tide of clear, heavy water.

When I realized I was in my bed, I savored the memory of this visitation. I let it sink all of the way into my being. It came with the deepest experience of sleep and rest that I have ever enjoyed, and when I woke up the next day I was not the same, yet I was perplexed about what more I could do beside what I had already been doing.

I am convinced that both of these messages were delivered by my guardian angel, because that is what angels do. They guard us and deliver messages to us as needed. The message itself belonged to God.

I spent all my energy seeking God and I was clearly being asked to "Hunger and Thirst" after the "Holy Spirit." I never expected that God would move so directly and powerfully in my life.

I now began to realize that because I refused to fully humble myself, God did it for me. I wept, and I knew that as I finished the 40 days of fasting and prayer, that something wonderful would continue to happen to me. Every moment of the last day of the fast was a spiritual agony, yet I was able to complete every minute.

I was physically weak from fasting and from overworking myself, yet now I felt empowered to make changes in my life. I decided to quietly rest in the strength of the Lord, and listen for once in my life.

For the next few months, I repeatedly had experiences too difficult for me to put into words. Day and night I was in a protective spiritual bubble, which both strengthened and enriched my body, soul, and spirit. The Bible became the living word which was now opened to me so that I could understand it and experience it as the truth.

I was beginning to understand just how spiritually powerful God's Word is. I had made a public confession accepting Jesus as the Christ, and had decided to travel into Washington, DC and attend Betsy Tucker's church regularly.

"Now I am doing everything right!" I said to myself, and then the Lord stepped in to answer my prayer and start His work in me. Everyone with any religious upbringing knows what faith, hope, and charity are. I for one had read enough of the Scripture to know of it intimately, or so I thought. The only problem was that my Lord knew me better than I knew myself, and He also knew that in my heart I was committed to Him.

ALIVE IN THE SPIRIT

As a result, I had two central experiences that were both profound. The first one was a lesson in faith, the second a lesson in love. Both of these experiences were characterized as great personal hope for me.

The first experience was a literal deliverance from the evil fear that had once tried to enter my soul. I thought that when my three prayers were answered, Christ's victory was automatically given over such adversity. It was not. The reason that I had been repeatedly instructed to seek the Holy Spirit was of critical significance. The enemy of my soul had not been dispossessed of his claim over me.

I wanted to experience the power of God at a safe distance, but when you fast and pray earnestly to God, He knows what answer you really need. My own arrogance was such a part of me that I failed to see things clearly, but that soon changed.

One evening late in July when I had retired, I had fallen into a sound sleep. I suddenly felt a touch on my right hip, and the touch was a healing touch. It was full of peace, life, and well-being. It was a gentle experience, and then the Lord spoke to me and called me by my name "Michael." When he spoke to me, he was calling me to Him. I was pulled upward above my body and was turned over so that I could see my body laying below me in bed.

"What do you see, and how do you feel?," I was asked.

At first, I had great difficulty believing what I was looking at, but I was not distressed. In fact, I was undistressable. What I was seeing and what I was feeling were perfect questions at the moment. I was experiencing my spirit without my body. The real me was much different in spirit then I was in my flesh. My spirit is the real Mike Stein. What I was feeling allowed me to understand that when you are with God in the Spirit, all things are experienced in truth and in absolutes.

You cannot lie, and you don't want to. You cannot flatter God, and you are certainly not concerned about political correctness. With God your spirit has no desire for such absurd things. At that moment, I was standing at the edge of a vast universe, which only God can fill, and His Words alone brought me to the very brink of it in an instant.

The idea of absolutes can only be imagined by human beings, because of the limited sensual nature of our flesh. It is because of our fleshly nature that we are blind to spiritual truth. When you are with God in the spirit all experiences are absolute. When we decide something, we are compelled to experience an absolute, honest reality of truth and nothing

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