Gene Hall
The Word Works
One day, there I was, standing alone, devastated, and at the end of all hope. I had reached for a knife and knew that I could take care of this quickly, as I was not only contemplating, but now determined to slit my wrist and watch the blood drain from my body. How did I get here? I was thirty two years old , hearing a voice that I thought was God, only it wasn’t. The voice was telling me everything I had ever done wrong. It was the deepest, darkest hour of my condemnation. There was no hope, no light, and no future. Suicide seemed to be the only option. Then, the phone rang. I answered it by sheer instinct reaction. Out of the darkness I could hear myself say “Hello”.
My background was one of a loving family. I was taught to do things right. I was strong willed and stubborn. As a teenager and young man, I was rebellious, crafty, deceiving, dealing and doing drugs, a thief, overindulging in alcohol and getting my sexual desires met at a very young age. I was Satan’s fair headed boy. Evil energized me and the craftiness of getting away with evil things gave me a rush that I was addicted to.
Thank God, that through the strict discipline of my father, which I am forever grateful, and the gracious mercy of my mother, which I thought probably kept me alive, I learned to do what was right. Somewhere in my heart was ingrained to “do the right thing”. We had no religious exposure of any kind growing up. My parents were good hearted people, even though they had marital problems and in my later years they divorced.
I got married to Juliana, my high school girlfriend while in this drug and alcohol stupor. We had our first beautiful daughter, Krista, when I was nineteen years old. However, somewhere in the marriage to my first wife, Juliana and I both sobered up. We found out that not only did we not know each other; we didn’t even like each other nor did we have any common interest. We thought by having another child it would improve the marriage and family bond. So my second child, a beautiful baby girl, Brooke was born. Juliana and I both knew the marriage was over when we realized that children could not bring us together. So Brooke did not have knowledge of having two parents together. For her, the divorce situation was normal. Krista was affected by the divorce, even though she must have known that it was better than all the fighting and yelling back and forth that she was exposed to. The divorce was a hard adjustment for her.
Six months after this divorce, there I was in an empty home, no furniture, no family, and no children. Even the smallest of sounds echoed the emptiness bouncing off the walls. The echoing noises were reminding me and confirmation that my life had amounted to nothing. In desperation for answers about my life and what and where I was going, I went to a palm reader. When I walked in, she had statues of Jesus, and Mary, etc. It was a conglomerate of religious stuff. So I thought ,”Well this must be good, right?” Remember, I had no religious upbringing at all. So I thought anything that looked religious had to be good. “I must be in the right place,” I thought. She had teased me with some information about myself. Then she said for exactly $12,000 which had to be in cash only, that she could tell me my whole future. That was remarkable! How did she know that $12,000, to the penny was all I had managed to accumulate in my small construction company? There I was, knowing this must surely be my answer. So I got the cash and gave it to her. She told me more of my future.
The next day, the darkness consumed me. The voice was there telling me everything about my failures in life. It was deafening and penetrating. I felt nothing but the total disappointment that I must be to God and to everyone I had ever come in contact with. The weight and power of this darkness seemed heavier than I could physically or mentally bear. Surely, God must be so angered at me for my wasted life and this voice convinced me to take my life.
Then that God orchestrated phone call came. Only this God wasn’t condemning me. Mercy stepped in with preordained timing for my destiny. So there I was with a knife in one hand and the phone in another. One hand led to my death and one led to life. So as I heard the sound of my voice breaking forth out of the thick darkness, I said “Hello” as if nothing was happening. Life was about to step into my world. On the other end of the phone I heard “Gene, I don’t know what you’re about to do brother, but God told me to call you and to tell you to STOP! You have to come to church with me.” It was Paul Hodge. He was one of my workers in my company. We Used to be “drinking buddies”. We would work out at the gym and then go get drunk regularly. We spent a lot of time driving in our trucks with six packs of beer. This seems to be a southern ritual here in Georgia. It all changed for Paul because something had happened to Paul one day. He told me that he had met and gave his life to Jesus. He became radical and he was always talking about the goodness of God and being born again. Well, all that talk just pretty much ended our friendship. I just had to get away from him, because his new found light shining forth was affecting my comfortable and familiar darkness, but this morning was different.
I agreed to go to church with him. There, at the back of that church, my fist clenching the back of the pews so hard till my knuckles looked like white marbles. Sweat was pouring off of me, drenching my clothes as the serious struggle of life and death was happening inside of me. The minister was asking if anyone wanted to come up to the front for prayer. I don’t know how it happened, but I must have floated up there or something, I went from clenching the back of that pew, to suddenly standing in front of the minister and he was asking “what do you want me to pray about?” I didn’t know what to say. Suddenly, I heard this voice, “Tell him you want to be saved”. I didn’t even know what it meant, but I said it. We asked Jesus to come into my heart and to save me. All of a sudden, I felt like thousands of tons of weight had literally been lifted off my shoulders and body.
Later as we walked outside, normally I would only focus on my treasured truck, but something was gloriously different. My eyes drifted up to a breathtaking blue sky, and the brilliant green trees. There was a new light on everything that I was looking at! The colors in the world and all of its beauty were actually different and more vibrant than I had ever seen before in my whole thirty two years of existence.
So, who was this God, this Jesus that saved me.? I felt a peace and joy that I had never experienced before. For the first time in my life I had a hope, a peace, and love that I had never known before. I had to know more of Him. I found a little pink Precious Moments Bible that the girls had. I would take it to work with me at the construction sites, sit on the roof of the Belk’s building at the mall, and read it. I hardly understood a word that I was reading. But now, the most treasured still small voice with all of this love was talking to me. I knew it was Him. It was Jesus. He said “Just keep reading it, anyway. I am milking you like a newborn baby.”
I did. I read the Word day and night, every moment I got a chance and still do to this day. I became a lover of His righteousness (right standing with God). All I wanted to do was to please God, the one who saved me. He showed me this scripture:
2 Corinthians 9:10 (NKJV)- Now may He who supplies seed to the sower, and bread for food, supply and multiply the seed you have (sown) and increase
the fruits of your righteousness.
Now, many people that read are people looking for the seed, looking for the bread and food and the multiplication of that but the thing that caught my attention was “increase the fruits of your righteousness!” I longed for the increase in fruits of righteousness. The scriptures around that phrase that caught my attention were verses 6-12. It talked about God loves a cheerful giver and that God would supply abundance for every good work. The scriptures also say how weare enriched in everything all liberally, which causes many thanksgivings to God.
II Corinthians 9:7 NKIV – [So let] each one (give] as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver.
Il Corinthians 9:8 NKJV – And God [is] able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all (things), may have an abundance for every good work.
11 Corinthians 9:9 NKIV – As it is written: “He has dispersed abroad, He has given to the poor; His righteousness endures forever.”
Il Corinthians 9:10 NKJV – Now may He who supplies seed to the sower, and bread for food, supply and multiply the seed you have (sown) and increase the fruits of your righteousness,
Il Corinthians 9:11 NKJV – while (you are) enriched in everything for all liberality, which causes thanksgiving through us to God.
My goal and desire was His righteousness maturing in me. I sought God on how I can participate in increasing the fruits of His righteousness and an intimate relationship with Him. He answered me by saying that there was a minister from the Bahamas that He called to the small town of Guyton Ga. He was ministering in an old abandoned bar room with no roof and using a stretch of carpet for the roof. The Lord wanted me to find this man and worship with him. When I found and met Brother Samuel Macintosh, he had a small congregation and he was baptizing people in a little bathtub outside that was probably abandoned on some construction job, Brother Mac, as I lovingly refer to him, is a man from the Bahamas that truly walks, lives, and breathes his entire existence and provision trusting the hand of God.
I worshiped with him and his small congregation and then the Lord gave me a vision of a new church. The Lord spoke to my heart and said to build Brother Mac a new church and don’t charge him a dime. In the vision of the church ,I began to see all the details of the church that I was to build. I drew it out. I could see in my mind every screw, hinge, bolt, beam, and board needed beforehand. The church was built to seat about 200 people. As I was building ,there were others that came alongside and donated their labor and resources. So there was no doubt that God was in it. As I finished building him the church using my own money to complete it I began to realize that the Lord was showing me the beginnings of wisdom and the blessing of prosperity. Unbeknownst to me, I just wanted more of Him and what I received that day he saved me and He was showing me the way-GIVE!
During the construction of the church, I was awarded a one million dollar job to build a financial center. The owner wanted the contract to state that for every day the job was late ,that I would forfeit and lose $500 per day. I inquired of the Lord and He gave me the wisdom. The Lord said to tell him that I would agree to the penalty for delays and forfeit $500 a day for every day over scheduled completion if for every day the job was done early that I would be paid an additional $ 500 bonus. He agreed knowing that it was unheard of. He knew that in normal construction nothing was ever completed on time and most assuredly would not be completed ahead of schedule. In normal construction, being early on getting a job completed was rare.
We completed the job three months early! It happened so miraculously that I felt terrible about sending the customer the actual bill with the early day’s bonus. I sent him an invoice without the bonus. He called me up and said, “No I want you to send me the correct invoice”. He was so happy to pay the extra money because he himself could not believe that the construction of that magnitude happened literally superseding time. The revenues for this project more than covered all my cost in building Brother Mac’s church.
As my quest for the fruits of His righteousness and giving thereby caused many thanksgiving continued, I purposed myself to meditate on the Word of God day and night. His goodness continued in my life.
Not long after completing Brother Mac’s church the windows of heaven opened up. It was immediately after that that I got the opportunity to bid a job that would run around fifty four million dollars. It consisted of 186 condos at an average of 2500 square feet each, 1 clubhouse, a pool, and a pavilion. The project had to be completed in eighteen months. I didn’t know how I could pull off such a big job. I had never ever attempted or had done anything like that before. I didn’t really have the office or crew staff to do this. But the Lord said to bid on the job and He gave me the figure to use. I did and I won the bid. I was completely dependent on the Lord. I needed His wisdom. Then something supernatural happened that to this day I am amazed and still stunned! The people just showed up out of nowhere to do the work and, like swarms of bees, they all worked at a miraculous and unified pace. It looked like a city was being resurrected out of the ground before our very eyes. Needless to say, I will make this story short into saying that God has empowered me with His grace over and over again because of His Word. I only sought the fruits of His righteousness by meditating on His Word day and night, and God has given me so much more. You see, meditation on the Word gives light to the soul, and as my soul prospered, I indeed experienced prosperity in all things, even my health.
This brief story here is just the tip of the iceberg of events and supernatural happenings of miraculous proportions, wisdom, revelations, signs, wonders and mighty deeds that have overtaken my life in a glorious, blessed way.
I found that because of my love for Him and His Word that I meditated on day and night, He has made me a walking testimony that “The Word works”. I have seen the fulfillment of this Word over and over again in my life.
Psalms 1:1 NIV – Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.
Psalms 1:2 NIV – But his delight is in the law (the Word) of the LORD, and on his law ( the Word) he meditates day and night.
To this day, I meditate on the Word day and night and every chance I get. Because of this and my seeking the fruits of His righteousness,The Lord has made me a multi-millionaire. I continue to listen to His voice and give liberally as He directs knowing full well that:
Pro 11:24 NIV – One man gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty.
Pro 11:25 NIV – A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.
I continue in giving liberally as the Lord’s Spirit directs and the Lord continues to pour more wisdom and revelation, increasing the fruits of His righteousness in me. The blessings are overflowing and abundantly more than I can ask or think. He has blessed me with five beautiful children, two grandchildren, and two awesome sons in law, several very successful businesses, a ministry, many wonderful friends and a gorgeous and godly wife, Zennie, which all are far more than I had ever dreamed of.
Praises and thanksgiving continually go forth while He increases the fruits of His righteousness in me and through me.
The Word Works!
I found that because of my love for Him and His Word that I meditated on day and night, He has made me a walking testimony that “The Word works”. I have seen the fulfillment of this Word over and over again in my life.
