“That dance” in Charleston, Mississippi (see “Narrative of the Not Many’s, Part 1 and 2) was used by God to move me to Florida Bible College and to at last respond to the gospel of God’s wonderful grace. I learned quickly that I finally had a Father: a Father that would never leave me nor forsake me (Deut. 31:6-8), a Father who is the King over everything in this entire universe (Dan. 4:24-35), a Father that loves me with an everlasting love and whose love will never change (Jn. 10:28; 1 Jn. 5:12-13), and a Father that holds me in the strong grip of His mighty hands and will never let go (Jn. 10:29-30; Rom. 8:17). But like a good Father, He disciplines me when I rebel against His will and step out of fellowship with Him. His discipline always perfectly restores broken fellowship between us. His chastening hand always balances God’s perfect righteousness with His flawless justice (Heb. 12:5-12). The reason is that righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne (Job 89:14; 97:2). As a child of God I can never sin and get away with it – never.
The Spokesmen
Another life changing piece of the puzzle of my life happened when I joined a singing group called “The Spokesmen.” Mike Otto, a fellow Bible college student, was a gifted musician and song writer. He had started a singing group called “The Spokesmen.” He, along with Bruce Porter, Dave Shipley, and Don Smith, were looking for a certain voice blend. They did not want the normal quartet sound with a strong deep bass and a very high tenor, but rather a light, crisp yet mellow blend in the medium range, much like the Lettermen. I remember the audition in that small room. I had heard that when voices blend. . . well, they sound like one voice. I recall when we sang together the first time – there it was! The blend that Mike had been praying for filled the room. We all sensed it when we heard it.
Our signature song was appropriately titled “Speak out Spokesmen.” The Spokesmen became spokesmen for the Lord Jesus Christ that day. Mike wrote a song called “Looking Through His Eyes” that became a favorite. Lines in that song still change lives of those who hear it. “Let me see this world dear Lord, as though I were looking through your eyes,” it begins, and ends with the final plea, “For if once I could see this world the way You see, I just know I’d serve You more faithfully.”
Another song on that album that still resonates in my heart is titled, “One Man.” I think it was D. L. Moody who once said, “The world is yet to see what God can do through one man fully yielded to Him.” The lyrics go something like this “One man, one sinner saved grace. Who with the help of God will run the race. One man who runs to win, not weighted down by sin, one man not satisfied with second place. One man who like a craftsmen builds with care, his life upon God’s Holy Word and prayer. One man who will lead the lost to Christ at any cost any time any place and anywhere.” And the final line sums it up. “Lord help me to be that man.” I wanted to be that one man.
The Spokesmen sang everywhere that the president of our college spoke in the late 60’s; civic clubs, churches, prisons, and some 200 high schools and colleges. Sometimes we performed a flash mob for a restaurant audience before we even knew what a flash mob was. We would sneak a guitar into a restaurant and before the meal was finished, we would stand up at our table and break into a song.
In the summer of 1967, my father in the Lord, Nap Clark, along with Ken Sheppard and Wayne Neal, began a youth camp called Ikthoos. That first camp was in Hendersonville, TN. After camp, I followed Nap back to Mississippi where he pastored a small church in the Delta. I served as his youth director that summer.
My years at Florida Bible College flew by. I graduated in May of 1969. The vast bulk of my time was spent attempting to make sense of the inner battle of my flesh versus God’s Holy Spirit. Paul described the battle going on inside me, “For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish” (Gal. 5:17).
I rested in the fact that I had been reborn as a child of God and could never undo that relationship. But learning the wisdom of living in fellowship with Christ was a different story. I had come to faith as a babe in Christ, and I needed the milk of His word in order to grow in my faith (Heb. 5:12-14). Motivation to stay in fellowship with God in order to take in that milk has to be learned by every believer through the disciplining hand of God. When a believer sins – and we all do – we are removed from fellowship with God. To be restored to fellowship, detailed confession of our sin to our Father is a must (1 John 1:9-10). This battle will continue throughout our entire lifetime. The writer of Hebrews makes this battle clear.
“You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin. And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD, Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; For whom the LORD loves He chastens and scourges every son whom He receives. If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. The idea is to become trained by the Holy Spirit to live in fellowship with the Savior (Heb. 12:3-11).
The Letter
God had given to Adam – because he was the representative head of the human race – the privilege of naming all the animals. That was a high honor indeed. God had also given every male animal a mate and the ability to call this mate to himself. Every male had an answer to his call, but for Adam there was no such answer. So, God created one for him. God’s method of creating her had long lasting spiritual meaning. God put Adam to sleep, and while he slept God took from him a rib. Out of this rib, God fashioned a woman, the mate for Adam. This lost rib symbolically made Adam one rib short of being complete. It also gave the woman an extra rib; a rib that had but one purpose and that was to belong to the right man.
I assumed that God was going to use a music ministry for my work of faith (James 2:14-26; 1 Thess. 1:3). But God had different plans for me. I knew deep in my heart I wanted to teach God’s word. I wanted to help make disciples (Matt. 28:18-20). I felt God’s guiding me to study and teach His word. I knew it would be best to get a seminary education. But where? And how? But if I was going to go to seminary, I had to upgrade my education.
Florida Bible College had applied for accreditation, but it was still in limbo. So, I decided to get some accredited classes in order to upgrade my degree to get into seminary. Nap, my major mentor, had gone to Mississippi College, so I thought that MC would be a wise choice. So, it was off to school at MC I went, with little money and a few clothes. I was able to get a job at a dairy co-op, Dairymen Inc. We offered quality control checks on the Mississippi farmer’s milk, both for quality and quantity. I worked in the lab at their office in Jackson.
My whirlwind days at Mississippi College led to a very important piece in the big puzzle picture of my life. I was friends with a guy in the dorm who introduced me to his girlfriend, Linda McKay. When I saw Linda for the first time, God just filled that room with an atmosphere that I cannot begin to explain even today. I was immediately drawn to that dark-haired, tanned girl. I drove her home to Kosciusko for the Christmas holidays and went back to visit her several times. Linda and I began to talk. We were just drawn together like a moth to a flame. It was “the look” I had waited for all my life, but I could not process it as such.
Back at school the next semester, I invited her to go to Shoney’s. After the meal, I discovered that I had forgotten my wallet. I had to borrow money from a friend to pay for our meal. I was a bit embarrassed, but I felt freer to talk with Linda about what God was doing in my life than anyone I had ever met before. We sat in the car across from the dorm, and I shared with her my deepest spiritual dreams. I must have talked her ears off, never giving her much time to respond. I just enjoyed her company. But I was so consumed with the idea of doing music for God that I was really blinded by the idea of doing anything else.
I could not get Nashville – to me the ultimate in music – out of my mind and music out of my heart. I had to get back to Nashville. A friend from Delta State agreed to take me to Nashville in his new hot Dodge car in the spring of 1971. After that trip, I transferred to the Nashville branch of Dairymen Incorporated. I spent my working days there and my off days learning the ropes on music row. I met a lot of people in the business and even got my name on a song I co-wrote that was recorded by Jim Ed Brown and Marty Robbins – “If Her Blue Eyes Don’t Get You.” I did a small radio show at a place called Hermitage Landing. I tried to cram myself into the music scene. It became the call of the wild for me. But it was not spiritually God’s will. God was shouting “no” to me, but I was not listening. But God many times trumps the rebellious streak in His sheep.
Two passages of Scripture became life changing pieces of life’s puzzle. Habakkuk 2:4 states that the righteous shall live by faith. The Christian’s life is a faith life from beginning to end. Paul seized the truth of this verse and applied it to the Corinthian church. “For we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). God backed me into a corner before I applied both of these passages to my life. The first was to give me the need to serve Him. I knew from the moment that I trusted Him that I wanted to spend my life in service to the living God. And about a wife, well . . . that was in God’s plan too. Just as God’s Son brought Eve to Adam, God had brought Linda McKay to me.
The process of God applying passages that guide our lives is called sovereignty. It is also known as predestination. Predestination is a word that many believers hate, but it is a Bible word and a Bible teaching. Predestined means that God has had a plan from the beginning of time. The word literally means “to see beyond the horizon.” God has given His children a path to follow beyond their horizon long before they are born (Psalm 139:16). I guess the best way that I can put this is that I found Linda McKay finding me.
I know there have been many letters that have changed people’s lives. But there was a letter used by God to forever alter the plan and purpose of my entire life. This letter came to me from Linda at a time that I was seriously struggling with God’s direction for my life. Life as a musician had all but lost its luster. Even doing Christian music. I came face to face with many struggling writers and singers who were just barely living, and I did not like the life they were living. I also came face to face with what I said to God the day I was saved. What I really wanted in life was to live it for Him. That had not changed. I wanted to serve the God who had saved me by His amazing grace.
I had also really loved the time spent with Linda McKay back in Mississippi. I had experienced a deep abiding joy just being with her and a strange aloneness when I was not. God had seriously eased the draw of music and let me know that I needed to give it all up to Him. I must lay every part of my life before the God who had created me for His purpose. I must give it all to Him. I must truly present my body a living sacrifice to Him (Rom. 12:1-2). The Boca Raton decision that I had made seconds after I had trusted totally in the finished work of Jesus Christ as payment for my sin was to serve Him only for the rest of my life. This decision settled in me. Only then did the letter mysteriously come. It came to me just like those original tapes from Donald Gray Barnhouse – it came mysteriously, and in hindsight, the timing could not have been more perfect. God’s timing is always perfect.
It was as though God fulfilled for me the same act that He had performed for Adam. He created a mate for him, and then He brought her to the man (Gen. 2:22). Linda wrote a long, heartfelt letter to me. She said that at the Fall BSU Retreat in October, she had shared with a girl that she really cared for Dick Hill and would never be able to love anyone until she knew that there would never be a chance for anything between us. The girl said, “You need to tell him!” So, she wrote a long letter telling me that she would never commit herself to anyone until she knew there was no chance of there ever being any hope for us. She asked me to write or call and let her know my feelings.
The Phone Call
I called Linda from Nashville one October night and over the phone asked her to marry me. She later said, “I was shaken, excited, but scared.” In November 1973 we met in Starkville, where she was attending the BSU State Convention and where my good friends Nap and Dixie Clark lived. I officially proposed. She accepted. We were married in December and moved to Warsaw, Indiana, in January 1974 where I enrolled in Grace Theological Seminary.
Linda has far exceeded my expectations as a wife, mother, and grandmother. She became the perfect answer to my deepest longings. We now live in a small cabin on land gifted to us by Linda’s mom. We lovingly call it “The Ponderosa.” We now have nine grandchildren, three dogs, and two cats. We live in a world where nothing is certain, but the writer of Hebrews picks me up here. “Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ So we may boldly say: ‘The LORD is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?’” (Heb. 13:5).