Going God's Way

Their lifestyles changed by salvation,
this couple followed God through life-changing decisions,
one step at a time.

By Steve and Merrill Mixer

Steve:

God’s blessings began for me when I was born to Christian parents who loved God and taught their children to love God too. My parents attended the Apostolic Faith Church, and my early memories include coming to Sunday school where God’s Word was taught. In church meetings, people testified of how God had saved them from a life of sin, and the moment they were saved their life was changed. I believed what I heard, but when I heard them tell about being delivered from drinking and smoking, I would think to myself, I would never do that.

As a young boy, I would read the testimonial tracts. The accounts, “In the Days of Wooden Ships and Iron Men,” “From the Cattle Ranges of Idaho,” and “In Time for God’s Roll Call,” were interesting to me, and they reinforced the fact that when God saved a person, the sin was gone.

Rebellion

When I was around ten years old, I started getting into trouble and had a bad attitude. My mom was distressed by what she was seeing. After one particular incident, she told me that I needed to get saved. Even though I was young, I knew that when you were a real Christian, it changed your behavior.

When I was a teenager, I really rebelled against the Gospel and my parents. I lived a life that I knew was wrong, and it brought condemnation into my heart. I knew better than to get involved with drugs, but I had the wrong kind of friends, and it seemed like all of them were smoking pot; so I did too. For the first year, I remember the excitement the devil gave me when somebody said, “Let’s go get stoned,” or when I had just bought some dope.  For a little over ten months, I smoked four to six times every day. Toward the end of my junior year of high school, I started buying better stuff. I was taking speed too, and it went the same way: before long I had to take more or better speed. Then I tried acid.

For a time, I tried to hide the sin I was involved in and to act as though everything were okay, but the drugs began to take their toll on me. My mind was constantly in a haze, and my short-term memory was deteriorating.

My parents were concerned about me, and they were praying for me. I developed an attitude where I didn’t care, and I didn’t try to hide it. I could not have cared less about school and was cutting classes almost every day. There was a three-week period when I skipped all my classes, and I had no desire to go back for my senior year.

The summer between my junior and senior years of high school, I was working a part-time job, but I was fired from that job because of the way I was living. I remember feeling embarrassed because of that and God really started talking to me. What unhappiness was in my heart!

Surrender

I decided to go to our church youth camp, thinking it would be a week away from home and my parents. I did not intend to seek God, but He really spoke to me there in the chapel services. One of the counselors began talking to me about my soul’s salvation, and I put him off through the whole week we were at camp. However, during the Sunday night church service after the close of youth camp, God called me again. That counselor came to where I was sitting and encouraged me to pray. At that moment, it seemed that I had nowhere to turn but to the Lord. I went forward to an altar of prayer. There I knelt and asked God to forgive me for the sins in my life. As I poured out my heart to Him, He took the sin out and put in peace and happiness. What a load of unhappiness was lifted!

God put a desire in my heart to make restitution for things I had done that were wrong. Our next-door neighbor had several bamboo trees, and I had cut those down with a hand saw. It was a foolish thing to do, and that is how I felt about my behavior, but God gave me the grace to confess that action to my neighbor. I explained why I was trying to make it right—because God had saved me and made a change in my heart.

Direction

After I was saved, the verse in Proverbs 3:6 stood out to me. It says, “In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” I have had an opportunity to prove that promise. Some years after I was saved, God gave me a wonderful wife, and He blessed us with two children who love the Lord.

During the past several years, our family has gone through some changes. In 1995, we felt the Lord leading us to Murphysboro, Illinois, where the Apostolic Faith had a small group. I researched the possibility of a transfer within the company where I worked. When it looked as if there were no openings near enough to Murphysboro, we dropped the idea. Then one day I received a call at work telling me that there was a job closer to Murphysboro, and the indication was that a decision had to be made in a few hours or the position would be taken. I called my wife, we prayed, and I told them I would take the job. When it was actually time to move, I remember the anxiety I felt, but we trusted in the Lord. We really enjoyed the time that we lived in the Midwest. God blessed us and was with our family.

Last year, our family moved back to Portland, and I can see how God has been with us as we returned to this area. He provided me with a job and a great home for our family. I know that God can and will continue to direct our paths if we look to Him for guidance.

 I am thankful for the privileges that I have today to serve Him, and it is my desire to see the Gospel go forward.

Merrill:

The Lord found me when I was not even looking for Him. I was searching for love and acceptance in all the wrong places, but I found them in Jesus. 

My journey toward God started when I was about fifteen. My family was pretty straight; there was no drinking or partying in our home. That was boring from my perspective, and I wanted a little bit more excitement in my life. I was a shy girl, but I wanted to fit in, and I found that a little alcohol would make me loosen up and be more comfortable in a group. Before long, I discovered that I had an appetite for alcohol. Because I could not go and buy liquor at that age, I would steal it. I was not happy doing these things, and often I would wake up the next morning feeling bad for deceiving my parents. However, that did not change my behavior.

My new friend

One day, a new girl showed up at my after-school job, and we found out that we both had boyfriends who were involved in rock bands. As Linda and I got acquainted, I began to aspire to be like her, and she had a great influence over me—even to the point that I became a vegetarian for a time. Then she and her boyfriend and two others from the rock band were born again.  After driving by the Apostolic Faith Church and noticing the sign, “Jesus, the Light of the World,” they started attending services there. I saw a real change in their lives. One time, I told Linda that I was a Christian too—because I believed in God and lived in America, I supposed I was a Christian. Still, I saw the difference in their lives, and it was real. I could not argue that, but I continued to go my own way.

A series of events led to my conversion. On the last day of my tenth grade school year, I casually mentioned that my house was going to be vacant of parents the next day. That’s all it took; the next day there was a party at my house. Somebody delivered a keg of beer, and lots of people showed up. When the party was over, I thought I did a perfect job of cleaning up before I went to work. However, one of the kids who had been there got in trouble at home and told about the party. Her parents called my parents. My parents confronted me and started to present some evidence about a party being held in our home. I denied it, and then I had to lie to cover a lie, to cover a lie . . . and it got to the point after several days that I could not remember what I had said the day before. I was caught up in a major web of deceit.

My new life

During this time, I was feeling strong condemnation. Influenced by the change in Linda and her friends, I had begun to read the Bible. In Matthew 5:23-24, I came to these words: “Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there remembereth that thy brother hath ought against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.” I knew that I needed to bring my sins to God for forgiveness, yet I had this problem with my parents. Finally, I broke down. After praying, I went to my parents’ room and confessed the whole thing. What a relief! That burden rolled away, and there were tears on my face, because in my heart I was repenting to the Lord. Jesus forgave me, and in a moment of time, He made a new creature out of me.

God made all kinds of changes in my life. The Bible became alive; I felt it was written directly to me. However, my boyfriend didn’t want anything to do with my new way of life, and I lost some of my other friends too. My parents thought I was involved in a cult and did not like me attending church. In spite of the difficulties, the joy of the Lord in my heart was so wonderful, I did not think it could get any better. I had begun attending the Apostolic Faith Church with Linda, and there I would hear older people testify that the Gospel was sweeter as the years go by. I thought, How can it get any more awesome than this? They were right, though; it does get better.

My husband

After I had been a Christian for a couple of years, God told me He would help me find my husband at the altar of prayer if I would stay and pray after church instead of trying to get a date. And that’s exactly what happened. One evening, after a service, some of us were still around the altar seeking the Lord, and that night, when the prayer time ended, Steve asked me out. We have been married now for almost twenty-five years.

God has guided us through our life together, and He has been patient in teaching us lessons along the way. Once, we built a home on four acres in the country. We thought it was our dream home, but one day my husband brought up the possibility of selling it. I didn’t want to—we had put so much of our own hard labor into it, and I loved it. But God helped me change my mind; He said He would give something better if I would just trust Him. After that, the house was not so important to me. In fact, I was actually happy when the time came to sell it.

My home

Shortly after that, God led us to Murphysboro, a small rural town in Illinois. He worked so quickly that we were practically running to keep up with Him! God was true to His word—life was better for us there. We had a lot of growing to do, and it was a good place for our children to prosper in the Gospel. It was so obvious that the move was God’s will that we did not question anything.

After seven years in Murphysboro, it was decided to close that branch church.  Our house was for sale, and we were waiting for someone to come and buy it. My husband had told the company he was working for that he might be leaving. It was important to us to worship in a church with the doctrines we knew to be true, so we spent time looking online for jobs in cities where there were Apostolic Faith churches. Every day I thought, Is it going to happen today? And then the thought would come, What if we find a job before the house sells? What will we do? I realized, though, that God did not have to work in the same way that He had worked when He brought us to Murphysboro. This time, all we could do was to wait on the Lord. Nothing we did would make it happen any more quickly.

After a time, the thought came that maybe God did not want us to move. Maybe we were supposed to stay in Murphysboro. Yes, things were comfortable in Murphysboro. We had a house with a small mortgage nearly paid off, the cost of living was great, the lifestyle was simple—but what did those things matter if we were not worshiping with the people God wanted us to? Through the Bible, God showed us that no matter what the cost, it would be worth it to raise our teenagers where they could be part of an Apostolic Faith congregation.

Eventually our house sold, and my husband resigned from the company where he had worked for many years. It was time for camp meeting to start in Portland, and we still did not know where we were supposed to go. So we decided to come to camp meeting with everything we owned—lock, stock, and barrel. And even though Portland was suffering economically—many people were out of work, and few jobs were available—my husband got a job immediately. Exactly one year after resigning from that company, his same job opened up for him in Portland. God has taken care of us! We may not always understand exactly why God puts us here or there, but it is good to follow Him. God knows what is best for us and our children. 

Sometimes after going through an experience where you trusted God and He guided you, you feel as though you passed the test. However, I know there will be more challenges down the road. Still, I have the assurance that if I live for the Lord one day at a time, and keep trusting Him and asking for His way in my life, He will work all things out for good.

I am so thankful that God found me. Giving my life to Him was the best decision I ever made!

Steve and Merrill Mixer are members of the Apostolic Faith Church in Portland, Oregon, where he is a minister.