Reuel Green

I am thankful to be a Christian and a member of the family of God. My parents were both saved and sanctified before I was born, making me too young to remember the first time that I heard about Jesus. It was a privilege and a blessing to have Christian parents who were not only interested in their own spiritual welfare but their children’s also.

There was never a reason to wonder what church to go to; at only eleven years old I recognized the truth and the Lord dealt with my soul. It was in my bedroom that conviction was so heavy upon my heart that I prayed and confessed the sins that were in my life, and the Lord saved me. Although I had not gone deep into sin, the Lord came into my heart and made a change. This isn’t something that I just learned; it was an experience with God and it has sustained me down through these many, many years.

The Lord never forsook us.

My twin brother was saved the same night. We served together in the United States Army during World War II. The Lord never forsook us. He helped us and kept us true to Him all through those many months. I remember the last church service I was in just before going overseas during the war. It was a young people’s meeting in our church at Sixth and Burnside in Portland; we had prayed for a number of hours, and before I left that altar the Lord gave me a song and it was, “Keep me true, Lord Jesus, keep me true.” From the very depths of my heart, I wanted to be true to what God had done for me. As we went, we knew that we had the Lord with us and that we had the prayers of God’s people behind us.

During the war my brother and I were sent to Okinawa. While there we went through a typhoon with winds up to 175 miles per hour. We were in tents, and I became desperately ill. We prayed because we couldn’t do anything else. That night, above the howl of the storm, I heard something. It wasn’t audible, but I got a promise. The Lord said, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” Bless God for that promise. The Lord doesn’t always move the storm out of the way, but He is there in the storm to see you through. Bless the Lord, I was thankful He was holding my hand.

I told God that if it were His will to see me back home, my life would be His.

One day, as I thought about the men in the cemetery in Iwo Jima, I felt if only I could take someone’s place in order to give them another chance to find God; the Lord let me understand that I could be an instrument in His hands to help some soul find the Lord. I stood and thought, “Are we going to bring sheaves to lay at His feet?” I told God that if it were His will to see me back home, my life would be His. I would do what I could to see others saved. That consecration is still in my heart. I am glad that my brother and I could come home from the war with victory in our hearts.

I remember the evening that it was our privilege to walk up the gangplank in Yokohama and start for home; I looked up in the sky and was thankful for the privilege of going home a Christian. The Lord had kept me safe with a sound body, a sound mind, but most of all, I was thankful I was still saved and had kept the victory all that time.

It wasn’t long after I had come home that the Overseer of our church talked to me about giving my time in the service of God, working in the church printing plant. What a great privilege I felt that would be. I felt my whole life belonged to the Lord. Whatever He said, that was what I wanted to do.

Life hasn’t always been easy, but we were never given the promise of an easy life.

Although I have not attained anything great from a worldly standpoint, I cannot feel that I have wasted my life. I don’t feel I have missed anything by turning from the honor and wealth of the world to give all my life in service to God. Life hasn’t always been easy, but we were never given the promise of an easy life.

I am thankful for those unsearchable riches that are found in Christ. I thank the Lord for the material blessings and the physical blessings that He has given to me. But I thank Him more for the spiritual blessings. I know my road is clear: my heart is right with God. I am looking forward to the day that I can meet Him. I believe I owe my life, my time, my talents and my strength to the Lord.