Understanding the AnointingI never was so glad of anything in my life as I was when that
class was over each Sunday morning. I'd lay that teacher's
quarterly down and say, "Whew, now I can relax for another
week."
I so detested teaching that I wouldn't look at the Sunday
School quarterly for the whole week. Sometimes I didn't pick it
up to study it until just before the class started the next Sunday
morning!
I could get by with that because I had developed a unique
ability—after I was born again—of being able to read something
once and never forget it. I didn't have that talent before I got
born again. But afterwards I could read a chapter in my high
school history book once and recite it word for word for the
teacher. It was because I learned to walk in the life of God.
Doing that will increase your mentality. I could hardly
remember anything before.
So I could read the teacher's lesson once from the quarterly
and rattle it off. Then I'd say, "I'm glad that's over! Now I can get
back to preaching!" And I'd preach up a storm, going like an air
hammer, waving my arms like a windmill. (I thought it wasn't
preaching unless you did that.) I was a preacher, and I loved it.
I'd have rather preached than eaten.
I preached for nine years. All I had was the evangelistic
message. I never preached anything else. I didn't have anything
else!
But I remember one Thursday afternoon at 3 o'clock. (The
year was 1943. I had been preaching since 1934.)
I'd been lying down. I walked across the parsonage living
room and into the kitchen for a drink of water. As I was coming
back across the living room, right in the middle of the room,
something dropped down on me and inside me. It just clicked
down on the inside of me like a coin drops inside a pay phone. I
stopped dead still. I knew what it was. It was a teaching gift. The
anointing to teach had dropped inside me. I said, "Now I can
teach."