Dear Walk Show Family:,
Do you like heavy stories? How about a “holographic” one? May I tell you one from the extraordinary life of Michael Wells—unexpectedly and unexplainably cut short a month ago this week?
My experience with Mike on the very first day I met him is like a hologram, wherein what he did and said that day reflects the whole of his life’s message, which was, in his own words:
There’s nothing that the nearness of Christ cannot overcome.
As I remember it, Michael was unexpectedly asked one day in college, “What are you going to be when you grow up?” Without thinking, Michael found the following words welling up within him: “Help defeated Christians!”
Mike already knew that, although every believer has escaped eternal hell, few actually find victory over the daily hell in which they live. Bondage to adverse circumstance, people, sin, and the past continues to steal abundant life from God’s children. Immediately following was a rapid succession of personal “defeats,” followed by decades of personal ministry to “defeated Christians” in some 160 countries.
Every day of Mike’s life shared the same powerful, life-transforming story, which I now share with you in order for you to get a glimpse of the bigger story communicated throughout his life worldwide.
The Holographic Story the Day I First Met Mike
When I first met Michael Wells about five years ago, I was picking him up at the airport to take him to our home and a scheduled interview on The Walk Show the following day. Instantly we were jabbering away like life-long friends—as only sons and daughters of the eternal kingdom know how to do—whereupon I announced to him that I was taking him for a massage.
Over his protestations I informed him that I was only obeying his wife, Betty, who had tipped me off that Mike had been sick on the road for four days of constant speaking engagements and that he had never before heeded her request that he get a massage after returning from such a stressful speaking tour. I got stuck with the mission impossible.
Fighting our way through rush-hour traffic, we arrived at the health spa at 5:30 p.m., whereupon the receptionist curtly informed us that the massage therapist had only a half hour remaining to give Mike a massage prior to the spa’s closing.
“Better something than nothing!” was my response, although it has always been my conviction that a really good massage takes an hour and a half.
An hour and forty-five minutes later Mike and the massage therapist still had not emerged from one of the several massage rooms! The spa was closed, and I was the lone survivor in the now-darkened waiting room. For some unexplainable reason the very receptionist who had told me she had to close down earlier, had continued to work at her desk and let the clock tick. But, at 7:15 she finally slipped a note under the door of the massage room with the query: “Is everything alright in there?”
At 7:30—precisely the two-hour mark—the door to the massage room flung open, and a female massage therapist (whom I’d never met) ran down the hall and actually threw herself on me in my overstuffed chair with the exclamation: “
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I have just had the most intelligent conversation I’ve ever had with a man in my entire life! I just couldn’t stop the massage any earlier!
Upon loading a noodle-like Mike into my car for the ride to my house, you can imagine what was the first thing I asked him:
“What on Earth did you talk with her about all that time!”
Mike explained, “When I first arrived, she started with sort of a New-age routine. She first asked me, ‘May I feel your chakras?’ [Chakras are defined by some as “any of the points of spiritual power located along the body, personified by gods, and which can be released through the proper exercises.”] “I said, ‘Sure, go ahead!’
“Holding both hands inches away from my body, she ran her hands around my head and down my shape, finally commenting, ‘Oh, I see a great light in there!’
“‘You got that right!’ I said.
“Then she started talking to me along the familiar lines of ‘All roads lead to God, you know.’
“I let her continue for awhile, then I asked her: ‘Would you say that what you’re describing is sort of like a giant wagon wheel, with God in the center as the Hub, and all the spokes representing the various roads that all lead to God?’
“‘Why, yes! That’s a great picture of what it’s like!’ she exclaimed.
“‘Mind if I illustrate from my travels in over 160 countries of the world?’
“ ‘Go ahead!’ she gushed with a happy look of expectation on her face.
“‘Well, when I was in India, I saw a woman throw her son of a bridge into the Ganges. Although he drowned in front of a large crowd, that was evidently her road to God.
“‘Then, I heard about the Brahmans who forced their wives to drink their dirty bath water, but, hey, that was their road to God.
“‘In New Guinea I ran into a tribe where all the men in the village raped each boy or girl when they reached the age of puberty. But, you know, that was their avenue to God.
“‘Then, there was the time when I had to be smuggled through a province in Nigeria at 3:00 in the morning, because the king’s “road to God” required him to be buried in a tomb with the heads of 12 foreigners in the tomb with him!
“‘Then, along comes Jesus Christ and insists that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and that He is the only road to God, and in a way completely different than the others.
“‘So, what I would conclude is this: If all of these spokes of the wagon wheel lead to God in a similar way, then that God is one psychotic Dude, and I want to have nothing to do with him!’”
Then the real conversation began in earnest.
That massage therapist’s life was permanently changed that night. Next time I ran into her, she exclaimed, “Mike Wells sent me his ‘Abiding Life’ DVD series, and I am watching a segment of them every night!”
The Abiding Life Ministries organization Mike and Betty Wells founded calls itself “an evangelical discipleship ministry committed to helping defeated believers find victory over the daily obstacles of life.” Michael’s books, such as Problems, God’s Presence & Prayer; Sidetracked in the Wilderness; Heavenly Discipleship, Untold Stories & Unknown Saint; and now, My Weakness for His Strength, extend Mike’s vital ministry well beyond the scope of his physical life among us. And, Mike’s “Abiding Life” DVD Series will instill new hope that you can, after all, both find and fulfill both your divine destiny and design as you pour yourself out on behalf of others, just as Jesus and Michael did on behalf of you and me.
A few weeks ago Mike’s office called me and asked if I would like a case of his latest book, My Weakness for His Strength, but Mike moved on to his reward before the books arrived here. At first I was in denial, then angry, as I got mad at Mike, at God, then at myself for somehow allowing this to happen! Viewing Mike’s memorial service at www.abidinglife.com helped me start working through these stages of the grieving process. I now thank God afresh for the crucial role Mike played in “holographically” acquainting me with the powerful, life-transforming reality that I am of one Spirit with the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, Michael and Betty Wells, and all of you!
Michael, you poured yourself out on behalf of so many of us. May your books, CD’s, DVD’s, your helpful memorial service at www.abidinglife.com, and our very lives multiply your message in the crucial, earth-shaking days ahead, ‘till we meet again.
Still Pullin’ and Prayin’ for and with you,
Ken
Host, The Walk Show