Slowly We Were Awakened to See!

by Bus and Marge Williams

“Except the Lord build the house, we labor in vain, - -“

As I look back over my life and reminisce with respect to my association with the man who became my ‘Spiritual father’, Norman P. Grubb.
 
I had been to BIOLA Bible College and was pasturing a small church in Pomona, Calif. While there we were looking to the Lord for further leading as to where we were to serve the Lord, for I was happily married and with three children, ranging in age from 3 to 10. We were praying about missionary service with an Indian Missionary Organization and also about staying on as pastor of the church, but the Lord had brought us into contact with members of a missionary organization that had a regional headquarters there in the area where we lived in Alhambra, Calif.

Through the teaching we received there and the lives and testimonies of the missionaries at the headquarters, Marge and I began to see the reality of ‘union with Christ’ in everyday living, and what a wonderful privilege it was. For we began to see wonderful answers to prayers, not only in the lives of the personnel there, but in our own lives as we began to walk in this new found reality. Although it took a good while for the full truth and understanding of the teaching that produced a further growth in God’s grace in our lives. For in my learning through College and in the reading that I did I was beginning to see that the truth of Gal. 2:20, especially the latter part, “ - and the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God - - -“. This was yet to be understood and was yet to become a reality in our lives. We knew that Christ had died for our sins, that we were forgiven and that we possessed eternal life, but we did not know real victory in our daily living and the reality of Christ in us as us until later on.
 
It was there at the Regional Headquarters of the Worldwide Evangelization Crusade that we met Norman Grubb for the first time, for he was the leader and director of the mission. He lived, at that time in England, and was over here in the States on a visit in order to recruit new personnel as well as to speak at meetings that were arranged for him. Marge and I had the opportunity to hear him several times and what we heard and saw in him certainly began to grip our hearts and lives. There was indeed something different in his life and the lives of the personnel of the Mission.
 
The Mission was strictly a “Faith Mission”, that is, each family and person there were daily looking to the Lord for their daily provisions for their daily needs for the feeding of the 15 to 25 members that lived in the headquarters, but they looked to the Lord for the needs of the traveling of all the personnel as the needs arose. We saw that the Lord was a wonderful reality to them, not just someone off in the heavens somewhere. He was, indeed, their Savior and provider, not only for the distant future, but also for the NOW of their lives. This truth Marge and I, and the children learned in the next few months.
 
Needless to say, but the Lord led us to join the WEC, as it was usually known, in the next few months and in so doing we divested ourselves of most all of our earthly goods and moved into the headquarters and began to take over our responsibilities there. Immediately I was out into services in different churches there in California with the Director and we began to learn what it was to live a “Faith Life”. And from the beginning the Lord proved Himself more than faithful, though there were ‘lean’ times, but He never forsook us in so far as meeting our needs and the needs of the children.
 
After a period of about three months at new headquarters in Pennsylvania, we were having some meetings there, and Norman was a primary speaker. One day I asked him if I might have the opportunity of talking to him alone and an appointment was made. I went up to his room where we were to have the time together.
 
After chatting a bit, I asked him a question that had been on my mind for some time, for in the preceding months I had had the privilege of driving him to several of his meeting while we were in California and as a result I had really begun to have my spiritual eyes opened to this wonderful truth of our Union with Christ. So I proceeded to ask, “Rubi”, (this is the name the Africans gave him, for they couldn’t pronounce his name ‘Grubb’ correctly, they would say ‘N’brubbi’ which meant ‘pig’ in their language, and they weren’t about to call him by that name, so, the nickname ‘Rubi’).
 
“Rubi, who or what have you read that has influenced your understanding of God’s word as it has?” Norman looked at me for a moment, and said, “You really want to know, don’t you?” and I replied, “Yes, I do.” With that he leaned back in his chair and laughed and laughed, and then said, “Bus, you’re the first person to ask me that question in a very long time.” But he proceeded to tell me of the books that he had read and people he had talked to and listened to through the years that had been of tremendous influence in his understanding of the Scriptures. The primary one was an old German mystic named Jacob Boehme (1575-1624). Boehme’s writings were not widely accepted in his day, but they had great influence in the thinking of men such as Isaac Newton and John Milton, as well as George Fox and played a vital part in the thinking of the early Quakers and Puritans and later in the life of William Law.
 
Through this talk with Norman, he proceeded to loan me many of the writings of Boehme that Norman possessed, which I returned some months later. But what an influence they had in my own life! And that influence is still working, praise God! For through all this we have come to the place where we do indeed ‘Rest in the Lord’.

Slowly the Lord was able to quicken these truths to our spirit, for man does not understand these things through the thought process. They could only be understood as they became part our own life after the Holy Spirit quickened them to our heart. May this be the experience and testimony of all who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Glory

And Marge adds………

At our headquarters in Pennsylvania we could knock on Rubi’s door and though he would be busy typing, he always had time to talk about Jesus. Those big blue eyes always showing forth Jesus. Fellowship with him was an awesome experience. Rubi traveled with Bus many times during those years sharing in homes as well as in church meetings, everywhere we went people loved him for he would always share Jesus with them. They loved having him in their homes for he loved their children and their pets, especially their cats and dogs.
 
Often in his sharing he would pause, drop his head and close his eyes, we never know if he just dozed off or was talking to God, but all of a sudden he straightened up and come out with some stupendous thought. We noted that collage age young people loved to sit at his feet after the close of a home meeting and ask him questions and pick his brain.
 
When in our own home again a few years later, when he would come for fellowship, we would have hungry people who would come to be taught and blessed by this dear man. Norman loved us, our children and our pets, our Benji dog, and our Sugie Cat, for they would both jump upon his lap and take their naps.
 
Bus and I, yes, our whole family, owe so much to this dear man of God for God used him to change our lives just because he was full of Jesus.
 
Rubi, I can see your blue eyes sparkling as you look down on so many of us who were blessed and led, all because of you. We’ll always love you and we will see you one of these days in the not too distant future. United forever!! We love you!
 
 

Bus and Marge Williams
Albuquerque, NM
Email: wfwbus@msn.com