SID: Now Rick, as I said, is provoking me to jealousy. He’s on this motorcycle going 900, traveling 900 miles and God speaks to him. How clear did God speak to you?
RICK: Well it was as loud and clear, every, I mean, I could fully hear and understand every word.
SID: Was it like, I’m speaking to you right now?
RICK: It wasn’t outside audible, it was inside audible. That’s the only way I can describe it.
SID: What does inside audible mean?
RICK: As clear as you’re talking now, I could understand Him.
SID: And you know what Rick said to me, you know, when it happened, I couldn’t even come up with questions. I was in such a state of shock. But now I have a ton of questions I wish I would have asked. But tell me one question you asked.
RICK: Well I asked stupid questions like, “Lord, what do ou think of sports? Do you care about us?”
SID: That is a stupid question. I would like to know some other things.
RICK: I would, too. And now I’m just trying to do this. But I did, you know.
SID: So what does He think of sports? It’s not that stupid.
RICK: Well a lot of his answers weren’t direct answers. He said, “I love the things that you love.” He said, “I only wish that you would do them with me instead of apart with me.” It’s like doing things with the Lord, you know, just being cognizant of his presence of him being there and in fellowship with Him. And that’s what I felt. But he seemed to be fine with sports, you know.
SID: And then you told me you go swimming with Him. What does that mean to you?
RICK: Well every day when I’m on a vacation I try to swim an hour or two. A lot of times I’m out there, the porpoises are around, I’ll swim out to the porpoises or, you know, do different things. But I went out there and I can tell the Lord, His presence was so real, I just couldn’t stop focusing on Him and talking to Him. And that’s what he said. That’s what this whole vacation was about. I was planning to write a book. He said, “Forget the book. I can get anybody to write books.” He’s looking for friends. He wanted to be with me.
SID: But when you say you were conversing with Him, do you see Him?
RICK: No, not with these eyes, but with the eyes of the heart. I don’t know if He was in the water swimming with me or if He was walking on the water next to me. I don’t know. But His presence was so real.
SID: But you know, there was a Brother Lawrence and he was a monk in a monastery. His job, dishwasher. But he had what Rick is describing, I know he did, and people of the highest levels of government and authority would make appointments to see him because the presence of God wasn’t just in him, it radiated out of him. I mean, this is a dishwasher and everyone wanted to talk to this man. Did you ask God about Brother Lawrence?
RICK: I did.
SID: That was a good one.
RICK: That was a good one. He said He loved washing dishes with Brother Lawrence. They had, must have had a really special relationship.
SID: Okay. Help me out. You’re Brother Lawrence. You’re washing the dishes. Tell me what you think Brother Lawrence was doing in his relationship with Jesus.
RICK: I think, you know, washing dishes is a pretty nominal, menial task. You could probably think about, you know, anything, world events, whatever. Maybe he was conversing about those, you know. I think one he did, he washed the dishes as if Jesus was going to eat off of them. Because he said, “As you do unto the least of his little ones, you’ve done it to him.” And I think he may have been praying for the people who would eat off them. They had been talking to the Lord about those people, just, you know. But it was, he did everything, I believe, with the Lord, or tried to, you know, cognizant of His presence here. He’s with us all the time.
SID: I’ve been trying to do this and I’m ashamed to say, I forget. Does that happen to you?
RICK: All the time. Today I’m constantly, I mean, I felt like this summer I had the closest relationship to the Lord I have ever had, by far, never anything like this, as far as an intimate, personal relationship. And I can come, and to this day, you know, to now, still go half a day sometimes without thinking, I’m so busy and doing stuff, and I’m working. This is a process. And I want to do that. I want to get to that place, but I’m just starting.
SID: Well you and I had lunch the other day. You said, “Sid, I’d like to have competition.” I have an idea you’re a very competitive guy.
RICK: I am. It helps drive me.
SID: And I think that’s, there’s something good about that. I think you have to find a friend that wants, has a hunger to be God’s friend as much as you do, and challenge each other. Because as far as I’m concerned, I don’t know at this moment in my life a higher goal than to be a friend to God right now. But you even said that once you become a friend, you can go even higher.
RICK: That’s what he said. He said, “Friends are expensive. You’ve got to invest in the friendship. You’ve really got to give yourself to it.” But he said, “Sons are priceless.” I knew I felt this is what Paul the Apostle was talking about in Philippines 3, when near the end of his life, he’s writing this letter and he says, “I don’t think I’ve yet obtained.” He wasn’t talking about salvation or eternal life. He at that day believed in the atonement, of the cross. He talks about the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Near the end of his life, maybe I consider certainly one of the greatest men of God of all time. He’s saying, “I don’t consider I’ve yet obtained this, but I’m pressing on towards this mark of the high calling of God.”
SID: Okay. If Rick provoked me to jealousy on this conversation he had with God, how much more when after that, he went to Heaven for eight hours. I want to find out what he saw, what he heard, what he learned. We’ll be right back.
