Why Was I Found "Guilty" In Court

Now that I get to unpack how much Daddy God loves me, it has gotten easier to look back at painful times in my life.

In fact, I do not think I would have run to Him for help in the trying times outside of me and within me if not for this "Guilty" verdict in the courtroom on October 25, 2018.

I had such unease in my spirit throughout the protracted trial. I just had this unease about everything, since so much evidence was supressed. The district attorney lied to the jury, and I was not allowed to call up my witnesses, either. Unreal.

After the guilty verdict, and my decision to delay sentencing until the next Tuesday, I went out to grab a bite with my friends who had attended the hearing. I was relatively calm, at peace. I was saddened, but not grieved, panicked, fearful, angry ... yet.

When I went home that night, lying in bed, the rage just bellowed out of me, as well as the panic. "WHY GOD! HOW COULD YOU ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN?!"

I was terrified, truly terrified. Was I alone in this world? Was I living in line with a lie now?

Why didn't you help me? Where were you, God?

I cried to my boss, Brian, for an hour. The pain was so great, the loss, the terror that followed. How could this be happening?!

I then called another friend of mine, who revealed to me the pain and loss he had suffered following a criminal conviction of his own.

It then occured to me after that. I had to stop running to other people. Even if they were there for me, they could not help me. I had to run boldly to the throne of grace.

I had to put this in His hands.

As I write this now, I recall the pain, the outrage, the fierce anger when my mother had left me at the airport in 1995. What was God doing? How could He do this to me?

The next day, two decades ago, this incredible peace had washed over me. For the first time in months, I was not depressed, fearful, caught in condemnation. If things had progressed better, I would have stayed there and never gone back to my mother ever again.

Fast forward to last year ...

I now look at what happened in 2018, after the guilty verdict. A level of peace washed over me that weekend. I began to meditate on my righteousness, actually His righteousness imputed to me.

No, I still am not stating it accurately:

"For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." (2 Corinthians 5:21)

He became sin--the noun. We became the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. Not just righteous, and not just any kind of righteousness, but the righteousness of God.

We took on a completely new standing. This is quite a revelation, and something that has still yet to permeate within me.

I meditated on His righteousness, and the right standing that I received from Friday, when I flew off to Texas, to my return flight. It was a great time, despite the legal recriminations hanging over me.

Thank you, Jesus, for your gift of righteousness, which You call on us to receive--and keep receiving! (Romans 5:17)

I am a new creature, a New Creation in Christ Jesus.

Six months later, I look at what has happened. My life has really changed. My awareness of Jesus, of His love for me, has developed in ways that I would have never anticipated.

Here's the most important thing that I needed to learn: that Jesus loves me, and that the proof of this love does not depend on what is happening to me in the world. 

And therein was the problem. I needed to receive a "Guilty" verdict in the world as assurance that God loves me and that I am "Not Guilty" and "Never Guilty" before Him--and His witness is greater (1 John 5:9).

Before the guilty verdict last year, this witness for me still depended on what was happening in the world.

That is wrong, and that will not work. Recall the account at the end of Mark 4, when fearful disciples cried out to Jesus as the storms battered their boat. Jesus did still the storm, a megacalm followed, but they were even more afraid!

These discpiles at the time didn't understand who they had in their boat! They didn't realize that Jesus was not just "Master", but "Savior." For me, I didn't have the fullest revelation of God's love for me. It was all based on outer circumstances. 

During that trial, I was relying on myself, my efforts to try to get God to get a "Not Guilty" verdict for me. I did not see Him as a loving, active Savior ready to step into my life, into my circumstances right then and there. I admitted to Him that the lingering terrors of courts, of magistrates were still so great to me.

Yet what does Peter write to his beloved fellow-believers?

"But and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled;" (1 Peter 3:14)

There is an attempted terror in the powers of the state. And what of it?!

Besides, righteousness brings immense protection!

"No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD." (Isaiah 54:17)

Not only that, but a friend of mine then called me two weeks after the verdict was rendered:

"Arthur, I have looked at everything. Your life doesn't change." He meant, of course in the sense of bad things happening to me. "These are misdemeanors, so you won't lose privileges which would happen if you had been convicted for a felony." He then shared with me about friends of his who had protested abortions and stood outside of abortion clinics. Those individuals were convicted of "tresspassing" to save lives.

One lady I knew was not only convicted, but went to jail for two weeks! In the jail, she worked with other women and she helped lead a few of them to believe in Christ Jesus. WOW!

This same woman had come to my aid in the past. She was even present in the courtroom that day that I was found guilty. She told me "Just give it to God and let Him take care of it."

At the time, I had a hard time with that. I could not see the best in all of this, even though I had been reading and meditating on all of God's blessings in the life of Joseph. The lawyer who was assigned to me didn't even understand what I was talking about. What a shame--at the time.

I have started realizing that God has been loving me since the very beginning. There was so much that I had not seen, had not undersatnd about God's unflailing love for me. I just didn't get it at the time.

Over the last six months, then three months, then three weeks, I had to place everything in His hands. I had no choice. There was no amount of effort that I could engage in. I could not fix this problem. I could not right the wrongs placed before me. I had to cry out to God all out.

This happened about two weeks ago. I just cried out to God, and His supernatural peace just overwhelmed me.

God promised as much through the Apostle Paul:

"6Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. 7And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:6-7)

I used to think that my fears, my sexual perversions, the warring desires and feelings inside of me were blocking of frustrating God's love for me. I later learned, and in the midst of this very trying time and process, that all of that is not true. He was actively loving me, has been actively loving me.

This love just freed me from so many perversions. The fact that His love was in place before I was born secured a sense of freedom, took away any sense of fear.

The ravishing love of the Father has been rushing into me like never before! I LOVE THIS!

And all of this had to come about through a "guilty" verdict.

What irony. I know how righteous, how justified I am because of man's empty, hollow, meaningless condemnation.

Thank you, Jesus, for this small trial! Again, Peter shared:

"3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, 5Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: 7That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:" (1 Peter 1:3-7)

This small "setback" was a set-up for God to do even greater things for me.

What great love He has for me. So much that I needed to see, yet had not seen.