About the Author
The Spiritual Saga of a Modern Prodigal
My earthly journey began in Hanford California at 8:40 A.M. on September 7, 1946. I was a 10 lb. 4 oz. baldheaded bouncing baby boy. My father was 57 at the time and my mother was 32. They had been married (first time for either) only one year and five days before my arrival. They were devout Christians and I was raised in church throughout my childhood.
When I was a fourteen-year-old high school freshman, my father passed away and my mother and I moved to Pomona, California. There I became very active in a church youth group and choir. During these years, I realized there was a call on my life to the ministry.
After graduating from high school, I enrolled
in a Bible college in Oklahoma City. This is where I met my wife,
Ronna. At the end of my freshman year, she and I eloped to Pomona
and were married by my pastor. Our son Stan was born in October
of 1966. Ronna and I worked in a home for the multi-handicapped
near Palmdale, California for about two years. It was during these
two years that I began my journey away from God.
The Journey Away
It did not happen suddenly. Slowly I began to question everything that I had been taught and much of what I had taught others. Within a few years, I found myself rebelling against the call on my life. I decided I could become a teacher instead of a preacher. I set my sites on this alternate goal. We returned to Oklahoma where I enrolled once again in college. My spiritual journey was taking me farther and farther from God.
By my junior year, my studies in psychology and sociology had replaced by Bible study. I only opened the Bible to argue with others. I dropped out of church completely and had nearly become an agnostic. I say nearly, because although I did believe in a higher being, I no longer was sure that he/she/it was the God of the Bible.
I could never be an atheist, as I believe one must ignore all of nature and the universe in order to say there is no God. The mere fact that so little is known about the universe makes it foolish to proclaim, there is no God. So much exists beyond our small scope of scientific knowledge. What a blindly egotistical person an atheist has to be.
There came a time in the summer of 1978 when God began to deal with me. I had by this time again dropped out of college and was working for a large restaurant chain. I was the assistant area supervisor and by all indications working myself up the latter at a rapid pace.
The Journey Back
Through a set of circumstances, which in hindsight I know were directed by God, I became very miserable and dissatisfied with my life. I had developed an ulcer and so I took a medical leave from work at the doctor’s insistence.
My mother was living with us at the time, so she and I went to Missouri where several of her folks lived. My aunt had a farm and I was sure that a week of rest would help me to heal. I was looking for physical healing but God had a better plan.
All of that week I kept running into God. I saw billboards that had scriptures on them. If I watched TV, listened to the radio, read a newspaper or simply was talking to the family, something would be said that reminded me of a scripture. God was calling be back through the very scripture that I had rejected. By the end of week, I had decided that I had to solve this enigma. The prodigal had turned from the hog pen and was headed home. That is if he could find his way.
When we arrived home, I asked my mom to stay with our son. Ronna and I went to a motel. There I shared with her what was happening. She and my mother had been praying for years for this day to come. I told her I wanted to get back with God. I wasn’t sure how I could. This is the prayer as close as I can remember it.
God if you exist, and you are the God of the Bible, I want to come back to you. However, I have no faith to do so. I only want to come back if I can have the faith to come back 100%. I do not want to be hypocritical.
I heard no bells ringing or angels singing nor did I experience any great elation. A wonderful, great peace did settle over me. Within 24 hours of that prayer, I could read the Bible without any doubt that what I read was indeed The Word of God. This remarkable change was a pure act of God’s grace. I did not intellectualize it nor was it the result of any action on my part other than a true surrender of my self to the one that had died for me. God’s Word was always in me but it took God to make it real to my heart. The longest distance in the world is the distance from a person’s head to their heart. And only Christ can connect the two and restore us in whole beings.
That was over 25 years ago and although the road has not always been easy and I often stumble, God has been faithful each mile of the way.
It is my prayer that, as you read my poetry, you will do so with an open mind and heart and focus on the message, not on me or my poetic abilities. I would that you see Jesus and the truths of God’s Word.
L.Anguss Smith
