FROM RAGE TO RICHES

By Dick Stoddard

There is a man mentioned in the Bible who had such a character transformation after he had an encounter with the Lord that it caused all who knew him to marvel (Mark 5:20). So it is with a friend of mine who lives in New Jersey.

The man in the Bible was called Legion because he was possessed with thousands of demons; my friend's name is Chris, and he was under the control of something just as damaging but harder to expel than demons. Both men lived in torment: the man called Legion was possessed with demons, Chris was obsessed with rage. Both men were set completely free, but it took longer for the Lord to get the rage out of Chris than it took to get the demons out of Legion.

Rage is a deadly affliction that eats away at the soul as cancer does the body. It began to develop slowly within Chris at childhood and grew rapidly as he aged.

He was born and raised in a poor family in Newark, New Jersey. Poverty was not a problem to him as a young boy, for he knew no other way of life; he thought everyone lived in the same type of environment that he did. What did affect his childhood was having an alcoholic father whom he cannot recall ever seeing sober. He was twelve when his dad died; by the time he was eighteen, he was arrested for assaulting a police officer. He grew to be a big man, weighing two hundred eighty-five pounds. His anger grew with him, making him a danger to society.

The Bible says, "Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man thou shalt not go" (Prov.22:24). Chris, like Legion, was a man to avoid if possible. (His handle (name) over the C.B. radio was Great Dane.) Edging him out in traffic was not a wise thing to do. If you cut in front of him, he would chase you with his car, roll down his window, and curse loudly as he waved a gun at you. He stockpiled guns, and he made a habit of carrying two in case he shot someone who was unarmed; then he would have an extra gun to throw down beside the victim to make it look like he had shot in self-defense. And he got heavily into pornography.

In his own misguided way, he loved his wife and two daughters, but his behavior took a heavy toll on his family. He was a controller who ruled that only he was allowed to vent anger. His dictatorial attitude provoked both his girls to leave home in their teen age years and caused his wife to develop phobias.

He made no effort to control his anger; in fact, he nurtured it. He hated the Blacks, the Jews, the Hispanics . . . He now tells, "I didn't like anybody!" Different nationalities were too broad to take aim at; it was easier for him to have one individual to have as a target to use as a release for his rage. That victim became available in the year 1982.

His oldest daughter and her boyfriend were walking on a road leading away from a fireworks display, when an eighteen-year-old boy came swerving around the corner in his car, ran into her, and killed her. It would have been a hit and run, but the crowd stopped him at the next intersection.

Needless to say, this event fueled the rage that was already brewing to a boiling point within her father. It was during visiting hours at the funeral parlor that he made a contract with a man to assassinate the boy who killed his daughter. But before the hit was carried out, his wife, who was now separated from him, heard about it and told him that if anything happened to that boy, she would never again live with him. He then cancelled the contract, sparing the boy's life and preventing the alienation of his wife; but this only increased the rage that continued to build within him like a bomb ready to explode.

He now was alone, living in total frustration, not being able to get revenge on the one he referred to as "the kid who killed his daughter," fearing that if something did happen to this boy, his wife would think he had done it. One day a man said to him, "Someday you are going to have to forgive that kid." When he heard that, his thoughts were not of forgiveness but rather of throwing that man down a flight of stairs.

We were not made to live in rage but to abide and function in the love of God. This rage toward "the kid" took a heavy toll on Chris's health: his weight dropped one hundred pounds; at one point his blood sugar level jumped to seven hundred; his vision had begun to blur; and he also experienced grand-mal seizures. He eventually became blind, and he is convinced that the prolonged anger was what caused his blindness.

It was two years after his daughter's death that he began to search for something more in life. It was then he heard that Jesus died on the cross for him to take away his sin and make him right with God. When he received the forgiveness of God by accepting Jesus as his Savior, the rage in his heart was replaced with the peace of God!

Chris was given a new life by the power of God, and all things were becoming new (2Cor.5:17). He was now in a family of believers who demonstrated real love. His life was changing in a way he did not understand. His wife saw the change and returned home to live with him.

Still, even with all this, there was something within him that he had to deal with, something that hindered his relationship with God. It was not rage, for that had been removed when he came to the Lord. What remained was a trace of anger that he still carried for the one who had killed his daughter.

One day, three years after the death of his daughter and a year after he became a born again Christian, Chris said, "LORD, I FORGIVE THAT KID!" and the peace of God that "passeth understanding" entered his inner being. However, there remained one more thing that he knew he had to do and that was to locate the kid, who was now a young man in his twenties, working in Manhattan.

Chris was able to reach him by phone and told him that he was the father of the girl whom he had killed with his car five years ago. He said to him, "I forgive you!" The young man responded, "I don't know what to say . . . thank you . . . thank you!" It was after that conversation that Chris was finally set free!

That same year his wife suffered a heart attack, and as she was being rushed to the hospital, the Lord spoke to Chris and told him that she had been through enough and that He was taking her home to be with Him.

Sometime later when he was alone in his house, he was thinking about his car sitting on the street that he could not drive due to his blindness, and the Lord spoke to him saying, "The only thing that is important is people!" Those words were heard, for the one thing I notice most when I am with Chris is his concern for people. He cannot see the expression on your face, but with a handshake he can tell if you are hurting. If he doesn't shake your hand, he can tell by the tone of your voice; and if he senses you are hurting, he will tell you that Jesus can handle all your hurts.

He gets around so well that it is easy to forget he is blind. His friends sometime worry when he leaves in the morning that he will not find his way home, but he says he has absolutely no fear. He will go anywhere at anytime. He travels around the country, speaking in prisons, in churches and anywhere he feels the Lord wants him to go. He, like Legion in the Bible who was freed from demonic possession, wants to tell about the kindness of the Lord and what great things He has done for him (Mark 5:20). Not only has he been able to communicate the gospel to large congregations, Chris was also given the privilege of telling the young man who killed his daughter about the goodness of our Lord Jesus!

Is this the same man who at one time would chase you, curse you and wave a gun in your face? It is understandable why such a character transformation by the Hand of Jesus causes men to marvel!

I have heard Chris speak and he has a practical message, telling how Jesus is alive and well able to help you. He also tells that if you have any unforgiveness, you can be set free. He says, "Give up unforgiveness and you will release the law of life!"

If you have received Jesus as Lord and Savior, you have eternal life, a promise from God that you will never perish. However, there may be more in the inheritance that Jesus purchased for you on the cross that you could be enjoying right now; such as, a peace and joy that the world cannot produce. Don't let anger hinder you from claiming your full inheritance. If someone has wronged you, don't take revenge; but rather forgive them from your heart. And the Lord will replace your rage with His riches.