Full-Time Training - Testimonies

Burning a Surfboard, Gaining the Lord, Garrett Hageman

In my second term at the Full-Time Training in Anaheim, I was freed by the Lord from a carnal affection for surfing. Actually I didn't realize how serious of an idol surfing was to me until after I followed the Lord to take care of it. An idol is anything that replaces the Lord as our first, best love (Revelation 2:4). I had been surfing for ten years, and I had recently bought a very nice surfboard which I treasured. So when the Lord spoke to me that I must burn it to deal with my past life of searching for the perfect wave, I was not quick to respond. I just thought it was too extreme. Perhaps I could sell it or give it away. I eventually admitted to the Lord that I had been thinking about surfing a lot, perhaps at times more than I thought about Him. Then the Lord Jesus gently told me that if I cooperated with Him to fully give up surfing, He would become richer to me. I knew He is unsearchably rich (Ephesians 3:8), and I realized that the problem was entirely on my side. If I did not deal with my love for surfing in a thorough way, I would not know the richness of Christ. The Lord told me again that if I would give up my love for surfing, which I realized was competing with my love for the Lord, He would have more of a way to make His home in my heart (Ephesians 3:17). This was when I began to give in to the Lord.

Now I believe that if I had not been in the Training, where we are learning to really open to the Lord, He would not have had the way to deal with my competing love for surfing. Praise the Lord, He did have a way! At the fire pit, when I thrust the surfboard into the fire, the Lord immediately began to fulfill His promise to me. As He replaced the void of my love for surfing, I experienced peace and joy to the uttermost. The chorus in Hymns, #310 expresses the experience: “Glorious freedom, wonderful freedom, no more in chains of sin I repine, Jesus the glorious Emancipator, now and forever He shall be mine.”

Main | History | Testimonies | Links