WHO IS MICHAEL REW?

Michael: You tried to make me a killer!
David: (laughs) You are a killer!
- The Lost Boys. Warner Bros., 1987

My first sonnet: "The Suicidal Love Dove."

Anger, hatred, rebellion, and death preoccupied my mind when I wrote it. But it and other dark poems were destroyed after a new life began in Jesus Christ. Inwardly, I felt like a coldhearted killer, and might have killed others, too, given more time as a lost soul. I certainly would have killed myself. But God loved a young man who loved death.

Some travel around the world to find someone who will love them. But go next door or across the street. You will find someone who needs love. In the tenth grade, I was invited to a Bible-believing church. The Gospel of Jesus Christ had never been explained to me, although I grew up in United Methodist churches. I asked the preacher what "salvation" meant. I had never heard the word! Do you know what it means? I was a sinner, dead and lost, who needed Jesus Christ to save me from my sins. After I was asked to read from the Bible, I prayed to ask Jesus into my heart.

But the church had problems. The youth minister who preached to me that night was laid off. With him went most of the youth group. But I did not leave. As a new believer, I had not learned to leave when a popular minister leaves. I wanted love from people who loved Jesus Christ. But the one man who did spend time discussing the Bible with me was committed to a mental hospital. I never saw him or the youth minister again, and I fell away from God.

"When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out. And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first" (Luke 11:24-26 KJV).

Just two years before I asked Jesus into my heart, I fell into depression and suicidal thoughts. Pictures doodled and notes written revealed how much I hated my life. I was treated by psychiatrists, but their final diagnosis was not good. How long would I last before succumbing again to the darkness? Despite having asked Jesus into my heart, the unclean spirit returned, and with it came a living hell seven times worse than my first depression.

I dreamed about writing and obsessed over it. Sheer boredom and a desire to "make a difference" drove me to be a great writer. But I was convinced that great artists needed to be insane, so I tried to drive myself insane. New writings, filled with despair, won attention. The more I won, the more I wanted, the more disturbingly I wrote.

My anger burned hotter. I had no purpose. Writing was my life, but my writing had no life. I hated. People feared: for my life and for theirs. More therapy and more drugs followed, like the woman with the issue of blood who "had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse" (Mark 5:6 KJV). I suffered under counselors, social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists. But my situation never improved. I grew worse.

I nearly failed out of high school. My parents no longer forced me to go. When I went, one teacher let me sleep on the floor. I threw away the antidepressants and antipsychotics. Withdrawl intensified my anger. After I wrote "Let's burn the school" on a blackboard in German, I was assigned a tutor for the final courses I needed to graduate, and I was forbidden to return. I was giving up, and people seemed to be giving up on me.

"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14: 26).

How did it end? My parents no longer knew what to do. My younger brother was terrified of me. My older brother was infuriated with me. Lying in bed, depressed, I knew my life would spiral out of control again. The cycle would repeat itself. Then I said in disgust, "This is stupid." I rose from my bed, walked away from those sorrows, and returned to Jesus Christ. Only by God's grace could this have happened. Years later, the feelings returned in a dream. Outwardly, I smiled and laughed. Inwardly, I felt utterly crushed with despair. I wondered when I woke how I survived that time without committing suicide. I thank God that He saved through His Son Jesus Christ for His own sake and glory.

I glorified death. Now I glorify Jesus Christ's death on the cross. I wanted to kill myself. Now I want to die to myself. If you are contemplating suicide, then listen to someone who endured that dark night of the soul. Your life has already ended. You are dead! I died when I disobeyed God, and I felt that death within me. But Jesus died for me, rose from the dead, and defeated death with His life. Yes, I still feel sad sometimes. I often wonder what purpose my life has. But my worst day now is better than my best day was without the Lord in my life.

"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new" (2 Corinthians 5: 17).

What happened to my writing? The old was destroyed, but with it was thrown one of my first godly poems, He Clothed Their Stems with Love. I remembered parts of it, rewrote it, and recited it at a talent show. My poetic talent was resurrected, born again as I was born again! But I still felt obsessed with writing. (I spent about two years revising "He Clothed Their Stems with Love" before I laid it aside.) I offered up my talent to the Lord, never to write again if He desired, so I could focus on Him alone. The response to my prayer followed so quickly, and I wrote it down so fast, I believe it was and is the answer to my prayer whenever I feel like giving upwriting. Here follows the parable I believe the Lord gave me:

The Minstrel's Offering

Once upon a time, a minstrel walking the road well-travelled by pilgrims passed by a small church. When he heard the handbell being rung for alms, his heart was moved by its simple melody. In his pouch were the only coins on which he had to live, but even these he emptied into the offering.
        The elder ringing the bell marvelled at this, for the minstrel's clothes were in tatters, and his skin covered with dust from the road. "Kind stranger, why do you give alms when you yourself look like a beggar?"
        "I once was a wandering minstrel, lauded by many a knight and king, loved by many a princess and maiden," the minstrel answered. "Never a night was my pouch wanting of gold, or my bed wanting of love."
        "Have you changed your paths?" the elder asked with hope.
        The minstrel nodded. "While learning a hymn from a pilgrim, I was told the Gospel. Hence, I have repented and forsaken all to follow Christ, even my instruments."
        "You speak this with sadness," the elder remarked with surprise. "Many have not done as well!"
        "I am no longer the minstrel I once was, but now I have nothing left to offer the poor or the Lord."
        "You are no longer the wandering minstrel you once were, if you no longer wander in sin. But you are still a minstrel, for this is God's gift to you. You cannot give up who you really are, like you can gold and sin. As long as you have breath to live, offer up praises to Him through your singing and playing!"
        The minstrel was exceedingly saddened and vexed. "How can I, seeing I have sold my instruments? I do not even have a handbell such as yours, that travellers may hear to give alms!"
        "Trust in the Lord," the elder assured, "and He shall show you the way."
        The two talked and prayed a while longer until a sound caught their ears, as though flutes played on the wind. "Pray tell, elder," the minstrel entreated, "from whence comes that melody?"
"From a river not far from here."
        The minstrel thanked and bid farewell to the elder, then sped down the road to a bridge spanning a river. Near the river shore grew the whistling reeds, which the minstrel plucked for a reedpipe. And with the simple instrument, he praised the Lord in song and melody all along the pilgrim's road, all the days of his life.

Do You Know Jesus?

"For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Philippians 1:21).

Now I want to live, not because this life has anything for me, but because I want to be like Jesus. Now I want to die, not because this life is intolerable, but so I may go to be with Jesus. Do you want this kind of peace and purpose, simplicity in a complex world? Ask Jesus Christ to come in your heart and save you:

Admit you are a sinner. What is a sinner? A sinner disobeys God. How do you know if you have disobeyed God? To summarize, read the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20):

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me" (v. 3).
"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image [idol], or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments" (vs. 4-6).
"Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain" (v. 7).
"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it" (vs. 8-11).
"Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee" (v. 12).
"Thou shalt not kill" (v. 13).
"Thou shalt not commit adultery" (v. 14).
"Thou shalt not steal" (v. 15).
"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour" (v. 16).
"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's" (v. 17).

If you have worshipped the god(s) of any other religion, dishonored your parents, murdered, had sex with anyone not married to you, stolen anything, lied about anything, or coveted anything belonging to someone else, then you have sinned. "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23).

Admit you deserve death for your sins. "For the wages of sin is death..." (Romans 6:23a). This is eternal death: "But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death" (Revelation 21:8).

Admit the only way to eternal life is through Jesus Christ. "...but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 6:23b). Why Jesus Christ? "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). Jesus paid the penalty for your sins with His blood on the cross. "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit" (1 Peter 3:18).

Ask Jesus Christ to come into your heart. "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Romans 10:9).

If you have believed this, confessed that you are a sinner, and asked Jesus to come into your heart; or if you would like further explanation of this, then please email me:

Email Me
witness@psonnets.org

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