A Man Called Norman

A testimony, by Mike Adkins.

I heard this testimony a few years ago when a friend shared it. I pray it blesses all who listen.

God bless,
Kathy

"Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself..." Mark 12:31



A Man Called Norman Part 1:

A Man Called Norman Part 2:


A Man Called Norman Part 3:


A Man Called Norman Part 4:



God On The Mountain - A Song of Deliverance

Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. (Psalm 32:7)

The following is the story behind the song, "God On the Mountain", shared by the song's composer, Tracy Dartt. You'll probably never hear the song again, without being reminded of what God did for Tracy, when he gave him that song;  but it was not only for Tracy and his family, but a song of deliverance for the Body of Christ.

At the end of the testimony is a video of the song ministered by Terre Brown, a minister of music with Water of Life Ministries.

God bless,
Kathy

God On The Mountain

1974 was one of those “trial of your faith worketh patience” experiences for Sharon and I (Tracy). We were living in Apple Valley, California. I had entered into a partnership with an old friend, building swimming pools in the high desert. Things seemed to be going well, sales were terrific, and customers were satisfied.  We were floating on air. Then came the end of the building season. We had nothing to worry about. We had a half-dozen pools under construction and a bank account full of money. Plenty, we thought, to get us through the winter with ease.

 Sharon and I had started a gospel group with another couple, June and Dale Wade. We had a pretty fair country gospel sound. We named the group the “Country Congregation”. I wrote most of the music for the group and secured a recording contract with Calvary Records in Nashville. While the group was developing, I noticed something disturbing in our pool business. The bookkeeper kept telling us to spend more money, but our bank account was shrinking faster than our pools were finishing. The wholesale price index was increasing rapidly with inflation. My partner kept increasing prices to compensate for the cost increases, but something was not right. I approached him on the matter. He was completely frustrated with the whole situation, and I realized he had hit the wall of burnout. He handed me all the books and contracts and said, “Here. You figure it out.”

 I closed myself in the office for the weekend. I went over and over the figures and laid it all out on a spreadsheet. The figures looked bad. I calculated that when all our construction was finished, we would be $22,000 in the hole. I couldn’t believe it.

 My partner threw his hands up. He was tired and frustrated. “Let’s bankrupt it,” he said. I didn’t feel it was the right thing to do. “Alright then. If you want to try to save it, be my guest! You can have it all!” He drew up a paper and turned everything over to me; office equipment, the truck, his car, and a $22,000 deficit. Sharon and I prayed. Boy, did we pray! What would we do now? It would be six months until the building season would return. I had pools to complete and no money to do it with. “God, help us!” We didn’t have much, but what little we had I had used to buy into this seemingly wonderful business. But now... wow!

 In the midst of the turmoil, I awakened from a troubled sleep one night. It was two o’clock in the morning. A tune was echoing in my troubled brain. I picked up a tablet and a pencil and began to write, “Life is easy when you’re up on the mountain, and you’ve got peace of mind like you’ve never known. But, when things change and you’re down in the valley, don’t lose faith, for you’re never alone.” “Thank You, Lord,” I prayed, “for being God in my valley.” The chorus came, “The God on the mountain is still God in the valley. When things go wrong, He’ll make them right...” In all, it took about thirty minutes. I again prayed, “Thank You, Lord,” and then settled back down to sleep.

 Morning came, breakfast and prayer time. “Lord, show us Your will.” I went off to work. Shortly after arriving at the office, the phone rang, “Mr. Dartt, could you please help us?” I grabbed my brief case and went to see the people who had called. Their son was a gifted athlete, but had been in a motorcycle accident and was paralyzed from the waist down. His doctor had recommended a swimming pool for the therapy the young man needed in order to walk again. I began the process of designing and building a pool for them. A few days later, another call came, “Mr. Dartt could you come talk to me about a pool?”

 So, through the off-season, we ended up selling and building 12 pools in all, at a time when no one else was building pools. The building season came, and all of a sudden, we were able to finish all of our construction and eliminate our debts. We were free and clear, without having to bankrupt the business. God had taken us through the valley.

 The song, “God On The Mountain” was first recorded in 1975 on the Country Congregation’s first album. Later, it was recorded by The Weatherfords, Mark Gray, The Ambassadors (Jim and Lawanda Beard), The Pacific Coast Baptist Bible College Chorale, and several other part-time groups. Thirteen years later it was recorded by The McKameys, from Clinton, Tennessee. Hal Spencer, from Manna Music, called me on September 10th, 1988. I remember the date exactly, because it was right after my first Sunday as the new pastor of Auberry First Baptist Church in Auberry, California. “Tracy,” He said, “Your song is number 10 on the charts!” “What song? In what chart?” was my reply. “The McKameys recorded “God On The Mountain” and it’s number 10 in the ‘Singing News’ chart!” I was dumb-founded. “Who are the McKameys?” I asked. He explained and then played the song for me over the phone. The sound quality was terrible, as we lived up in the mountains and were still operating on old copper phone wiring. “That’s number 10?” Was my reaction. My initial thought was that it was just a fluke. I figured someone spent a bunch of promotion money and that it would fade away quickly. October came and the song went to number 1. For five months it remained at number 1, and during the fifth month, the song drew more radio points than any song in gospel music history. Since then, “God On The Mountain” has been recorded hundreds of times, by artists such as Lynda Randle, Jake Hess, Jessy Dixon, John Starnes, the list goes on and on. It has been translated into several languages as well. This simple little song, comprised of 72 words and 4 chords, has been an encouragement to thousands of people.

“Thank you, Lord, for the mountains and the valleys, and the gifts we are given to share with others.”

 Tracy Dartt



The Smell of Rain

(Originally titled: "Heaven's Scent")

A cold March wind danced around Dallas as the doctor walked into Diana Blessing's small hospital room. It was the dead of night and she was still groggy from surgery. Her husband, David, held her as they braced themselves for the latest news.

That rainy afternoon, March 10, 1991, complications had forced Diana, only twenty-four weeks pregnant, to undergo emergency surgery. At twelve inches long and weighing only one pound, nine ounces, Danae Lu arrived by cesarean delivery.

They already knew she was perilously premature. Still, the doctor's soft words dropped like bombs. "I don't think she's going to make it," he said as kindly as he could. "There's only a 10 percent chance she will live through the night. If by some slim chance she does make it, her future could be a very cruel one." Numb with disbelief, David and Diana listened as the doctor described the devastating problems Danae could face if she survived.

She would probably never walk, or talk, or see. She would be prone to other catastrophic conditions from cerebral palsy to complete mental retardation, and on and on. Through the dark hours of morning as Danae held onto life by the thinnest thread, Diana slipped in and out of drugged sleep. But she was determined that their daughter would live to be a happy, healthy young girl. David, fully awake, knew he must confront his wife with the inevitable.

David told Diana that they needed to talk about funeral arrangements. But Diana said, "No, that is not going to happen. No way! I don't care what the doctors say, Danae is not going to die. One day she will be just fine and she will be home with us."

As if willed to live by Diana's determination, Danae clung to life hour after hour. But as those first rainy days passed, a new agony set in for David and Diana. Because Danae's underdeveloped nervous system was essentially "raw," the least kiss or caress only intensified her discomfort, so they couldn't even cradle their tiny baby. All they could do, as Danae struggled beneath the ultraviolet light, was to pray that God would stay close to their precious little girl.

At last, when Danae was two months old, her parents were able to hold her for the first time. Two months later, she went home from the hospital just as her mother predicted, even though doctors grimly warned that her chances of leading a normal life were almost zero.

Today, five years later, Danae is a petite but feisty young girl with glittering gray eyes and an unquenchable zest for life. She shows no sign of any mental or physical impairment. But that happy ending is not the end of the story.

One blistering summer afternoon in 1996 in Irving, Texas, Danae was sitting in her mother's lap at the ball park where her brother's baseball team was practicing. As always, Danae was busy chattering when she suddenly fell silent. Hugging her arms across her chest, Danae asked her mom, "Do you smell that?"

Smelling the air and detecting a thunderstorm approaching, Diana replied, "Yes, it smells like rain."

Danae closed her eyes again and asked, "Do you smell that?"

Once again her mother replied, "Yes, I think we're about to get wet, it smells like rain."

Caught in the moment, Danae shook her head, patted her thin shoulder and loudly announced, "No, it smells like him. It smells like God when you lay your head on His chest."

Tears blurred Diana's eyes as Danae happily hopped down to play with the other children before the rain came. Her daughter's words confirmed what Diana and the rest of the Blessing family had known all along. During those long days and nights of the first two months of her life, when her nerves were too sensitive to be touched, God was holding Danae on his chest, and it is His scent that she remembers so well.

A letter from Danae's mom:
http://texasbobsworld.org/ltr_danaes_mom.htm

A Supernatural Move By God

Doyle Davidson is founder and president of Water of Life Church, Plano, Texas. The following is a testimony that took place early in his walk with the Lord while he was still practicing veterinary medicine. 

It has certainly ministered to me and I believe it will minister to others.

God bless,
Kathy

A Supernatural Move By God
by Doyle Davidson

In 1974, I was living in Argyle and practicing veterinary medicine. I received a phone call from a horse owner who had a seventeen-year old mare that was giving birth to her first foal.  

I went out to the farm and it was about 100 degrees that day. I could see that this mare wasn’t going to live; she didn’t have the strength and she was suffering from heat exhaustion.  I said, 

 “Lord, I need some cool air.” 

A thunderstorm formed within minutes, and with it was cold air, dropping the temperature (at least) into the seventies. Patti was with me and she was praying. 

I just stood by and watched; the temperature came down and the mare delivered a live foal with no help from me. We watched both the mare and foal get up.  A grandson of the owner of the Baltimore Sun newspaper was visiting the farm that day and witnessed it all. He asked Patti, “Were you praying?” 

“Yes,” she said.  

He made a statement to the effect that he was wondering if God had done that and said, “I got my answer...” 

The land was west of Lewisville [Texas] on 1171, owned by a good friend of mine, Jack Christiansen. His son Craig was also present and witnessed the whole thing.  

That was one of the greatest miracles I have witnessed. Only God knows what that did for me and Patti that day.  

God bless,
 Doyle Davidson
Servant and apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ 

Saved from Hell by a Prayer of Intercession

My sister suffered a cardiac arrest on a Friday morning. She was intubated and airlifted to the hospital and remained in a coma for six days, and on the sixth day she woke up.

Her medical team didn’t expect her to live, let alone come out of the coma without brain damage from lack of oxygen and they told us as much. But God was in this, He was after hearts. I cannot speak for anyone else, but he was surely dealing with mine.

Each time we would tell an attending nurse something that we thought demonstrated a response from our sister, they would just look at us, often saying, “Yes, but it wasn’t a purposeful movement, it’s just reflex, she doesn’t respond to our commands to move her feet, or squeeze our fingers.”  

I was somewhat comforted by a conversation I had with my sister months earlier when I had asked her, “If you die, where will you go?” She immediately responded by saying, “To be with Jesus.” I believed I had committed her to God.

The first Tuesday (following her admission to the hospital) late in the evening, I saw her eyes open when they turned her, something she hadn’t done since the first day she arrived there. When the nurses weren’t in the room and sometimes when they were, I would stand beside her bed and speak to her, preach the gospel to her—I would tell her to call on the name of Jesus; I would tell her to think the name of Jesus in her heart, if she couldn’t say it. I talked to her every day like she could hear me; we all did. A friend had encouraged me with a message that I could still minister to her spirit.

And that night (Tuesday), I got right in front of her face and said, “Look at me, look at me! I know you are in there! Look at me!” Two times she opened her eyes and I know I saw her actually look at me for a brief instant. The night nurses said she continued to open them during the night. Wednesday morning, her respiratory team came in and told me they were going to try to switch her ventilator to C-Pap and see if it was possible to get her off the ventilator. She breathed on her own for about two hours, but was still not responding to their commands with purposeful movements, so they switched her back on ventilator to let the machine breath for her.

I had informed Doyle (president and founder of Water of Life Ministries) the morning she was airlifted and had kept him somewhat apprised of the situation. On Wednesday morning I sent a message:

“She started opening her eyes last night. This morning seems like she recognized my voice when I talked to her. They changed the ventilator to C-Pap and she is breathing on her own, if that goes smooth today, possibility of taking her off the ventilator soon if she begins responding to commands.”

I received a message back from Kathie:

I read this to Doyle. Yesterday morning while we were getting ready he was praying and said, “Jesus, intervene in this situation" (your sister). Keep preaching girl.

It was Tuesday morning that Doyle prayed that prayer. I knew in my heart God had given him that prayer and it was a prayer of faith.

We had been taking turns staying with her at the hospital, day and night, and Wednesday afternoon, I was getting ready to go home and I went to tell my sister goodbye. Her nurse was at her computer, just outside my sister’s room and said, “Come here, I want to show you something.” She placed two fingers inside my sister’s hand and said her name and told her to “squeeze my fingers” and she did, I saw it. “Now you do it” she told me. I was on the other side of the bed and slid my fingers inside her hand and said, “Squeeze my fingers” and I felt the slightest pressure from her hand. The nurse seemed barely able to contain her excitement as she told me she had commanded her to do it a number of times to be certain before she told the doctor and before she told us.  My sister had begun to wake up.

The next morning (Thursday) the night nurse described her as “alert and rambunctious.” Her ventilator tube was removed and replaced with an oxygen mask. After that she graduated to the nasal cannula and was able to receive ice chips, and then water and then was actually eating jello!

We knew we were witness to the power of God being demonstrated right before our eyes and her entire medical team.

But the most important part of this testimony is this:

Thursday, the family member staying with her that day called me and put me on speaker so I could talk to my sister and one of the first things I asked her was, “Where have you been?” I was not prepared for her answer.

She said, “Well first, I went to hell, and then I came back to my family.”

I did not expect that—and I didn’t want to believe her. I didn’t ask anything else; we talked a bit more and then hung up.

The next morning, when I got to the hospital, I hugged her and sat down beside her bed and she began to talk. She said, “I was in this really dark place, a dark, wooded place and I couldn’t get out. Finally I started praying and said, “Lord you have to help me get out of this dark place and back to my family.”

I knew heaven wasn’t dark, and I knew what Jesus said about hell—it was dark. As we continued to talk, I told her,

“I can’t do this for you; Doyle can’t do this for you. This is between you and the Lord. You must get before the Lord and talk to him. Romans 10 says, “…if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that he was raised from the dead, you shall be saved. You are going to have get before the Lord and talk to Him; this is between you and Jesus.”

The next morning, I was awake early and was just quietly praying the name of Jesus and she said, “I’ve been doing that too.

I said, “Doing what?”

“Talking to the Lord,” she said.

A day or two later during another conversation I asked her, “What did you ask the Lord?”

“I asked him to save me,” she said.

There were many, many people praying for her and we are so very grateful; but I believe God gave Doyle that  simple prayer; it was a prayer of intercession, prayed in faith. Without that prayer, I believe my sister would have gone to hell for all eternity. God saved her…I had NOTHING to do with it! He gave a prayer to His servant and that prayer accomplished the will of God, it brought eternal salvation.

I had ministered the gospel to her many times, she told me she was "going to live with Jesus” if she died. I thought I knew, but—I didn’t know anything.

I am convinced—convinced, we cannot do anything. It is God that saves and it is never too late!

These days my sister is sharing with many people, nurses, doctors, etc., that Jesus saved her, saved her life..she is confessing Jesus before men.

The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, NOT WILLING THAT ANY SHOULD PERISH, but that all should come to repentance.”
2 Peter 3:9

Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that THE GOODNESS OF GOD LEADETH THEE TO REPENTANCE? Romans 2:4

I am humbled...humbled, at the goodness of God.

God Bless,
Kathy

 

Independence Day, July 4th, 1776

America celebrates our Independence from Great Britain on July 4th. The following is a transcribed message that was delivered July 3, 2016 by Kathie Davidson, Water of Life Ministries. It may give you a new perspective on the founding of our nation.

God bless,
Kathy

Transcribed and edited from:
Sunday 6:00 PM July 3, 2016 Livestream Broadcast

Kathie Davidson:

In a couple minutes, we are going to worship and praise God and what we don’t know, what we have not heard was when the Declaration of Independence was ratified, and signed and they found that July 4^th was going to be a holiday, John Adams said, You know what we need to do? We need to spend July 4^th fasting and praying and praising God. So we are going to do what John Adams wanted.

When we were in prayer this afternoon, Doyle asked me, “Do you have anything to say tonight” and I said “No” and we started praying and God started talking and it was wonderful and I want to share it with you.

 I’m going to do something that is not normally done: I’m going to put church history and American history together, because they are parallel and you will see that.

I want to begin by sharing with you the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence. Tomorrow in America it is the 4^th of July; we celebrate our Independence Day.

The Declaration of Independence was ratified (voted on) on July 2^nd, on July 4^th they signed it—this is the day we decided to celebrate.

The second sentence in the Declaration of Independence, a huge document, that did something that history had never seen before said:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator…

And you say that our forefathers did not believe in God.

…with certain unalienable Rights, (certain rights that you cannot take away) that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—that is what our Continental congress voted on, to ratify the Declaration of Independence and what we were telling England was:

“We’re done with ya, we are done with you. We have our own country and this is why: because we have certain rights given to us by our creator and we’re going to follow those rights.”

Now, what you weren’t taught in high school, what you weren’t taught in elementary school, was, that in the middle of this, from 1720 to 1770 America was in a huge revival; look it up in your church history.  What happened was in 1720, one hundred years after the Pilgrims showed up, the preachers in 1720 realized that the children of all those people came across for religious freedom, to worship God as they saw fit, the children weren’t doing what their parents were doing. And they realized their children weren’t interested in God. All their children were interested in was money and land—sound familiar? Their children wanted prosperity, that’s where their hearts went.

So they started to pray and preachers started to preach and a revival broke out. If you remember the name, Jonathan Edwards, he was one of the first evangelists in America. Jonathan Edwards started preaching an interesting series of sermons: justification by faith alone. You know what I preached this morning? Justification by faith alone. That kind of made me happy when God showed me this.

But, Jonathan Edwards was one of the first evangelists and huge crowds started coming, huge crowds started listening and huge crowds started believing. He said in one meeting, 300 people were born again and that was just the beginning.

Then a little later on, we had another evangelist by the name of George Whitfield. I don’t know if you knew about George Whitfield but he came up in the time of the Revolution and George Whitfield had huge crowds come to him. This is in the 1700s and he would have 32,000 people show up to hear. George Whitfield had a friend, Benjamin Franklin.

Benjamin Franklin never publicly said that he was born again but Benjamin Franklin became a good friend of Whitfield and actually, he began publishing Whitfield’s books for him. They would meet and they would talk, and Benjamin Franklin made a wonderful statement. He said after Whitfield would minister in a town, in his town, he couldn’t believe the change in the people. We are talking thousands changing, thousands being born again. Ben Franklin said the change was amazing; he said he would walk down the street in the summertime and peoples’ windows would be open and he could hear people in their homes reading the Psalms out loud. Does that familiar?

Revival in America, and do you know what Whitfield preached? The gospel. He said to the people, “You must get back to the gospel; you must walk in the gospel,” that’s what Whitfield preached.

Now in the middle of this, we end up starting a revolution. We end up having a preamble to the Declaration of Independence that says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…” Where did that come from? It came from the revival. Who sent the revival? Our heavenly Father sent the revival. Our Father sent the revival. Why? Why did we have a revival? It was called the Great Awakening. Why this revival in the United States and why did It bring out the Declaration of Independence? Why did America escape from Great Britain? Why did America now have their own country?

Back to the preamble:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Go with me to 1 Timothy 2:

¹ I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;

² For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.

Does that sound like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Do you see what that bible brought us? It brought us the Declaration of Independence and not only that, it brought us the Constitution. And do you know what the First Amendment in the constitution is? Freedom of religion. Freedom to meet together, freedom to have the religion that you believe, freedom to walk in your conscience obeying God, freedom to walk in the gospel—that we may have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Do you see how those two things parallel? Do you see how that revival brought this? Do you see how God talked to our forefathers? Do you see how they heard this? And do you see how it showed up in our Constitution and out Declaration of Independence?

Yes, these men did believe God.

Go with me to John 10:10. Life, liberty, a pursuit of happiness—I know there are other documents, but you are talking about men that listened to people preaching the gospel for sixty years. Our forefathers heard them, John Adams heard them, obviously Ben Franklin did, Thomas Jefferson did; they heard these ministers, they were in their churches, they heard the gospel preached. And what does John 10:10 say?

The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

Do you see that out of that revival, God gave us a country and gave us the freedom to walk in the gospel?  Do you see that through the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution, we as a people were given the freedom, the freedom to walk in the gospel? Now who gave us that freedom? The heavenly Father, and where did we get it? We got it through the gospel.

America, America, you were given your freedoms to obey the gospel, to walk in the gospel; the freedom to meet together, the freedom to read that bible, the freedom to walk in the Holy Ghost and now you want to give it up. You want to give it up for Obama Care, you want to give it up for Social Security, you want to give it up for food stamps when you could have had what Jesus said, “that you might have life, and have it more abundantly.”

You know what America? There is a people here that are going to go on and they are going to walk in the gospel and they are the people of God and they are going to stand up, they are going to be the Church that Jesus brought, the Church that Jesus made and someday that Church is going to go be with Him in heaven. Amen. 

The Strength of the Spirit of the Lord Jesus

The following message ministered by Kathie Davidson will bless you and encourage you--it will stir up your faith. I encourage you to listen, follow along in your bible; it just might change your life!

God Bless,
Kathy

Scripture References:
Hebrews 2:14-18
Philippians 2
2 Corinthians 13:4...
1 Corinthians 13:4
1 Corinthians 6:17
Psalm 22:1-22
Habakkuk 1:13
Psalm 69:7-12; 13-21
John 15:7-10
John 3

You can find other messages by Kathie Davidson here.