The Lord's Recovery of Me, Tom Engel

In God's eyes, to be recovered as a human being is to go back to the beginning; back to Genesis; back to the garden where there is just God and man.

In life there are innumerous things that draw us away from God--some are good; some are not so good; and some are real bad. Yes, even good things are not necessarily godly. It depends on the source. In Genesis there are two trees of significance--the tree of the “knowledge of good and evil” and the tree of life”.

As a young boy around 10 years old I had a sweet salvation experience. Jesus was the Captain of my salvation. I loved Him and He was growing in me by my tender childlike faith.

But being a teenager in the 60's, there was a gradual but steady pull toward the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. After a few years I found myself completely away from the tree of life which is actually God Himself and fully immersed into the hippie culture, which seemed to be good at first, but eventually was very evil and damaging to my mind and my body. My heart that was made to love God was damaged severely.

I do thank God for intercessory prayer and all the things He did to show me that I needed to have some recovery work done in me. My dear Lord also helped me with the willingness to pray that I would be recovered fully back to Him.

In 1972 He answered my prayer so wonderfully. He brought me into an atmosphere where I was brought back to God, where there was nothing between Him and me. After coming back to Him, I found that, in the local churches, He was recovering others also, bringing them back to Himself to express Him, have dominion, and eat Him as the tree of life.

I'm so glad to have been recovered by the Lord.