The girl Dionysius and her boyfriend were admiring a one-piece swimsuit model and her one-piece swimsuit in the catalog. “Shall we read this paragraph again this day, O Dionysius?” asked her boyfriend, pointing to the written description of this favorite maillot of theirs next to the picture.
“Out loud, O Flanders,” said the girl Dionysius.
And they read together this paragraph that was almost as resonant as the maillot was pretty: “E. Angular Maillot. White inserts stair-step up a v-neck maillot for a slim look. By Carol Wior Slimsuit. Patented inner lining for total body control. Soft cup underwire bra. Adjustable crisscross straps. High back. Moderate leg coverage. Antron nylon/Lycra spandex. Hand washable. U.S.A. Black/white; or black/multi (not shown) 8-16. #D336 $74.”
The girl Dionysius’s was size 10; Flanders’s was size 14. Dionysius wore hers just like this one all day everyday to please herself and her boyfriend. Flanders carried his around everywhere, because he had a one-piece swimsuit fetish. Looking at this photo of the model who was modeling their favorite maillot, Dionysius put her arms akimbo and her hands on her hips, making sure to put her
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thumbs and index fingers upon her swimsuit fabric and her rest of the fingers of her hands upon the skin of her upper legs. “Do I look like her now, O Flanders Nickels?” she asked in flirt.
“Yes, Dionysius. Now you are posing just like her. But you are beautiful, and she is only pretty,” said Flanders.
“But who looks better in our swimsuit—I or she?” asked Dionysius.
“Why, you, of course, Dionysius Derby Drakeshire,” said Flanders. “You look like an outhouse when you put on what you put on.”
“Is part of the reason for that because you call me a dream girl?” asked Dionysius.
“You are a dream girl of visage and a siren of form, girlfriend,” said Flanders.
“Well you are a man after any maillot girl’s heart,” said the girl Dionysius.
“And you have the Holy Spirit of God indwelling you just as I have,” said Flanders. “That’s because you are a born-again believer just as I am. That makes you even more comely on the inside as you already are on the outside.”
“As a believer you take care of your girlfriend in a Christlike way that no unbeliever can treat his girlfriend, Flanders,” said Dionysius Drakeshire.
“We are ‘boyfriend-and-girlfriend-in-the-Lord,’” he said.
“Yes! Boyfriend-and-girlfriend-in-Christ! Yes!” said the girl Dionysius. “God is good.”
“God is always good,” said Flanders Nickels.
He stared into her most idyllic face. He looked upon her dark eyes and fell into sweet reverie. He looked upon her long and straight and brown hair and affectionately ran his hand down the sides of her head to her shoulders and took in the sultry touch of a woman’s hair. He looked upon her nose, and he romantically touched her nose with his nose. He saw the curve of her face, and he lovingly put his hand to the side of her cheek and held it there for a moment. He saw her teeth in their most delightful protrusions. He had an overbite to his teeth, also. He leaned his teeth toward her teeth, and she leaned
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her teeth toward his teeth. They covered their teeth with their upper lips. And they fell upon a most stirring kiss. And their lips drew apart.
“I liked that, Flanders,” Dionysius Drakeshire said in a sigh.
“I liked that, too, Dionysius,” he said.
“We don’t do romance like this very much,” she said.
“I don’t know if God would like us doing all of that romantic stuff with us not married to each other,” he said.
“Our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit,” said Miss Drakeshire.
“We do no immorality—you and I,” said Flanders Nickels.
“But hugs and kisses?” she asked.
“Some hugs. A few kisses,” he said. “We young lovers cannot resist those from time to time.”
“I got a kiss just now from you, but I did not get a hug just now from you,” said Dionysius.
“A hug is just as good as a kiss,” he said. And he reached out both arms, one hand still holding his own icon of the maillot, and he embraced his real woman of the maillot long and hard. Her long bare slender women’s arms in like hugged him back. Then they drew apart.
He said, “That was fun for me.” To him there was nothing like a maillot girl in his arms, and this Dionysius was his only maillot girl.
“That was fun for me, too,” said Dionysius Drakeshire. She loved to be the maillot girl in her young man friend’s arms. Before Flanders had come into her life, she had never been in a boyfriend’s arms.
“God probably did not mind that,” said Flanders.
“Do you think that He saw what we just did, Flanders?” asked Miss Drakeshire.
“If He did, it was from way far away,” said Flanders. “Heaven is not near here.”
“Pastor taught us that Heaven is somewhere beyond the farthest star, Flanders,” said the girl
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Dionysius. “Now that is way far away.”
“Far,” he said.
“Far,” she said. And both laughed.
A week later, boyfriend-and-girlfriend-in-Jesus went to the pool for a date of some romance and some fellowship and some time in the water. They had flirtatious frolics in the pool with water fights and wrestling and hair-pulling and much laughter until they could laugh no longer. Then they climbed out of the pool onto the cement for some sweet fellowship in the Lord. As Miss Drakeshire came up out of the water, herself dripping from head to toe, in her black and white one-piece swimsuit she and Flanders loved, young men called out to her, “Nice swimsuit!”
And she called back, “Why, thank you, guys,” and she felt flattered.
As Flanders stood there, dripping all throughout himself, dressed in his blue jeans shorts for his swimsuit, he said in flirt to Dionysius, “I wish I had a girl say that to me about my swimsuit.”
Just then a group of three two-piece swimsuit women walked by and called out to him, “Flanders, nice swimsuit!”
“Why, I did not even pray about it, and I got what I wished, Dionysius,” he exclaimed in fun. “Thanks for saying that, O girls!” he called out to the three.
“My admirers did not call out to me by my name, Flanders,” said Miss Drakeshire. “But your admirers called out to you by your name.”
“Yeah. They did. Didn’t they, woman?” he teased her.
“That’s because you’re the celebrity in town, and that’s why I am often known as ‘Flanders’s girlfriend,’ more than I am known as ‘Dionysius Drakeshire,’” she said.
Then those same three two-piece swimsuit gals came back and said to Flanders’s girlfriend, “Nice suit, Dionysius.” And then they walked back away, their words praising one-piece swimsuits with sincerity.
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“Why, even women like me,” bragged the girl Dionysius.
“Soon I will be known as ‘Dionysius’s boyfriend,’” said Flanders.
“Serves you right, boyfriend,” said Miss Drakeshire. And both laughed out loud at this comment.
Then they sat down for some Bible study, their King James Bibles waiting for them in his attache case that he had brought to this pool.
“Quick, open it up,” she said. “After all of our fun, I want some Bible now all the more.” And he opened up his attache case and took out their two Bibles, and young Christian man and young Christian woman set them on their laps where they sat beside the pool face-to-face.
He said, “I know a verse in Ecclesiastes that might be about our Good Books, girl,”
“The Bible talks about Itself in the book of Ecclesiastes, Flanders?” she asked. “Where is it that I get to read it?”
And he said “Chapter three verse fourteen.”
And she quickly found it and did read it out loud for the both of them, “I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him.”
And he went and told her why he thought this to be a Bible verse about the Bible Itself: “The Lord wrote the Holy Bible—that’s ‘whatsoever God doeth.’ And it shall be forever. The Holy Bible will be around for forever both down here and Up in Heaven. And nobody can justifiably add his own words to the Bible and still call it the Bible. That is ‘nothing can be put to it.’ And nobody can justifiably take away God’s words from the Bible and still call it the Bible. That’s ‘nor any thing taken from it.’ God wrote the King James Version Bible, and we all should fear the Lord Who wrote His Good Book.”
“I’m so glad that Pastor taught us that the only perfect English language Bible is the King James
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Bible,” said the girl Dionysius.
“We both love the K.J.V. Bible,” he said.
“Yes. We do,” said Miss Drakeshire.
“And we both love going to church all the time,” he said.
“You and I have yet to miss church when the doors are open,” she concurred.
“And we both love to win souls for Christ,” he said.
“Rare is the Thursday Evening Visitation when I do not go knocking on doors with the women of the church and you do not go knocking on doors with the men of the church,” she said.
“And we both love our special hymnbooks,” he said.
“I love my hymns, and you love your hymns and your Christmas carols,” she said
“And we both love to tithe,” he said.
“In our cases, Flanders, tithes and offerings,” she said.
“And we love the name of Jesus,” he said.
“It is written, as we both so well know the verse, Flanders, ‘O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!’ Psalm 8:9,” she readily agreed.
He then paused and hesitated. And he said, “How have your prayers been lately, Dionysius?”
She sighed and said, “Not so good anymore. Not like they used to be. You know.” And she asked, “Are you still able to pray?”
“Not so much, Dionysius,” he said. “They used to be my funnest worship to share with God.
You know,”
“Shall we try again, Flanders?” she asked. “Right now? Do we dare pray even for the cause of spontaneity?”
“You mean an impromptu prayer meeting—you and I alone– right now?” he asked.
“Our best times together were always us alone and praying out loud to God,” she said.
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“Dear Dionysius, those best times are behind us,” he lamented in great spiritual sorrow.
“Let’s not pray,” she said tentatively.
“Let’s not,” he agreed. And the two born-again Christians refused to pray by reason of such words to God “going no higher than the ceiling.”
How did Flanders Nickels first find Christ as personal Saviour? It was through the testimony of a mighty woman of God in town entitled “The Thanker.” This Thanker was a silver fox of a woman forty years of age. This prematurely gray-headed lady went all about town telling people of all the things that God did for her and about all the things that God did for them. No believer gave forth such sincere and glorious and fervent thanksgivings as did the Thanker. God was most duly honored and glorified by this woman’s constant givings of thanks. And everyone in town loved her. There came a day for the young Flanders of that time when the Thanker came up to him and introduced herself to him and he to her. She was dressed in a women’s solid white one-piece swimsuit. And the first thing she said was, “I thank God that swimsuits like this are so comfortable for us women.” The young Flanders who found himself talking to this local celebrity was right at the age when boys start liking girls. And with this maillot silver fox giving him so much attention in the Lord, Flanders Nickels first discovered girls, though yet only just a little. He had found the charms of maillot women, and he had to talk to this Thanker in her maillot just a little while longer.
And he said in searching to the Thanker, “What should I thank God for?”
And she said, “You can thank God for your youth. It is great for me to be a middle-aged woman. But you can thank God that you are yet a child with probably your whole life ahead of you,
Flanders.”
And Flanders looked up to Heaven and thanked God experimentally, “Thank You that I am a kid yet, Jesus.”
“That’s good, Flanders,” said the Thanker. “That’s very good to say to God.” Then she said, “It
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is written, ‘…: and be ye thankful.’ Colossians 3:15.”
Curious, maybe overly confidential, surely tentatively, the quickly maturing young Flanders said, “Thanker, where did you get your one-piece swimsuit?”
“Are you thankful for it toward God?” she asked with a sophisticated bend in conversation.
“I thank the Lord for that,” he said.
“I do, too, Flanders. I thank my Maker for finding this for me at Kresge’s,” said the Thanker. “I thank my Creator for letting me still look good in a maillot.”
“What else can a person thank God for, Thanker?” asked the young Flanders.
“A person can thank God for the air he takes in in his next breath, and a person can thank God for the strength he needs to take his next step,” readily thanked the silver fox Christian.
“I can run a whole mile,” said Flanders. “I thank God that I can run a whole mile.”
“You are a great student, Flanders,” she praised him for his spontaneous thanksgiving just now, and he beamed in gratitude. This Thanker not only had a great form, but also a pretty face. Flanders had never known two such things before about the female gender.
“I thank God that you know Him so well, O Thanker,” said Flanders.
“We born-again believers all know God that well,” said the woman of thanksgiving.
“I don’t know Him at all like you do,” said Flanders.
“We believers thank God, and He hears us. When nonbelievers thank God, He does not hear them,” warned this greatly spiritual woman.
“I don’t think that I am a believer yet, Ma’am,” said Flanders.
“Do you want the Lord to hear you when you say ‘Thank You’ up to Heaven, Flanders?” she asked him.
“Oh, yes. I do, Ma’am,” said Flanders.
“It is written in I Peter 3:12, ‘For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are
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open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil,’” recited the silver fox witness warrior.
“Does God hear the prayers of the believers, but not the prayers of the unbelievers?” asked Flanders with good understanding of this verse that the Thanker had just shared with him.
“You are exactly right. In like, Flanders, God lets the believers into Heaven when their time comes up, but not the unbelievers when their time comes up,” she taught him cogent eternal truths.
“It that Hell?” asked Flanders, “where unbelievers end up when their time comes up?”
“Yes, O Flanders Nickels,” said the Thanker. “In Heaven all the saints thank the Good Lord
in worship kneeling down before Him on His throne. But in Hell, all the damned grit their teeth in great fires and wish that they had not rejected Jesus all of their lives on Earth.”
“How does a thankless unbeliever like myself become a thankful believer like yourself here in this life?” asked Flanders.
“Simply ask Jesus to save your lost soul, trusting Him and Him alone, and He will save you,” said the Thanker woman.
“It is that easy, Ma’am?” asked Flanders.
“It is free, O Flanders.” she said.
And right there, Flanders asked God to save his lost soul, trusting God and God alone for this saving, and he found so great salvation.
And the first thing he said after becoming a believer was, “Thank You, Jesus, for saving me from Hell and for saving me for Heaven.”
“Now that thanksgiving coming from you now, Flanders, God did most surely hear up in Heaven,” praised the Thanker, rejoicing over another soul that God had used her to win for Him.
And the Thanker went on to say, “Thank You, O Lord Jesus, for saving the soul of Flanders Nickels.”
Then, at once this silver fox of a one-piece swimsuit lady went away to look for another lost
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soul to win for Christ and to tell everyone how great things that Christ did for her with fervent effectual givings of thanks.
Ever since this personal conversion through the witness of the Thanker, Flanders had come upon a favoritism for one-piece swimsuit women and a most eccentric fetish for women’s one-piece swimsuits. And ever since this first day of salvation with this Thanker, Flanders Nickels himself sought to emulate this great woman of God by filling all of his prayers in his quiet time with only thanksgivings every time every day from the start of his prayer to the end of his prayer. And in all due glory to God, Flanders quickly learned how to thank his Lord for the bad things as spiritually as he did the good things in his life. Even when his daily prayer life began to run out on him with an obsolescence, he went on to thank God that his prayer life had fallen upon temporary hard times. But the hard times in his once-living prayer life proved long-term. And he found that he could not long thank his Lord for the loss of his prayers. And his prayers died like an old song sung too many times.
And his great and grand thanksgiving prayers passed away on him for forever. And praying became boring to him. And part of him died inside because of that. Flanders Nickels, the disciple of the Thanker, had in essence, run out of things to thank Jesus for.
How did the girl Dionysius Drakeshire find Christ as Saviour? She got saved from another well-loved Christian about town—a visitor man who spread the Word of God at all the beaches in town—beaches of lakes and of ponds and of rivers and of creeks. He reminisced over life’s good old days with a most grateful joy of the Lord. He was called by everybody in town “The Reminiscer.” And he reminisced with God in his prayers over all the good and happy times long ago and not long ago in his life, and he did so without any regrets at all. He was happy then, and he was happy now, and he was most happy now remembering when he was happy then. And he went around and told his eager listeners at the beaches stories of ago in his life. He reminisced in nostalgia over his own personal yesteryear. And as much he loved to tell others these memories as a storyteller of real stories, he loved
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most of all to tell God these things and to relive them in his prayers to God in his quiet time with the Lord. The Reminiscer had a favorite Bible passage, and it was Psalm 77:5-6, and it read, “I have considered the days of old, the years of ancient times. I call to remembrance my song in the night: I commune with mine own heart: and my spirit made diligent search.” This Reminiscer rejoiced even in reliving with God his unhappy days before salvation and all the bad things that he had done and all the bad things that had happened to him. Reminiscing over his unsaved days as a saved man now only made him all the more glad that he was saved now.
Young Dionysius first met him at the beach at the pond in the countryside just outside of town.
She was wearing a one-piece swimsuit when she met him. Herself being yet a girl and not a woman, her one-piece swimsuit was made for a girl and not for a woman. And it had a blue floral pattern all throughout. She had just stepped into the pond and stood there in the water up to her ankles. Suddenly everyone at the beach said, “Look! The Reminiscer is here!” Everybody loved the Reminiscer, and he was a most effectual soul-winner as well as a true tale teller. In her room at age ten the day before, she had been thinking upon her old days of her fifth birthday, and she thought how sweet it could be if she could tell the Reminiscer what she had been waxing nostalgic over from five years ago. And now here he was, at the same beach she was at right now. She had to tell him of her fifth birthday present. Lo, he came right up to her first of all at this pond’s beach of all people.
He said, “Young maillot girl, I can see thoughts in your eyes. What are you thinking about?”
“O good Reminiscer, I was thinking about when I was five years old.” said Dionysius.
“Ah, a great time for a girl your age to think about,” he said. “What’s your name?” She told him her name. And he asked, “Dionysius, were you reminiscing about your birthday present?”
“Why, yes! How did you know?” she asked.
“Birthdays and birthday presents are some of the most happy times I relive in my own life,” he did say. “What did you get for your fifth birthday?”
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“I got my first tricycle, sir,” she said.
“Ah, a trike!” he said, sharing her nostalgia.
“It was painted golden yellow, sir,” she said.
“Golden yellow,” he said. “The color of the gold that the wise men brought to Jesus as a gift when he was a little child.”
“It had three wheels– one big one in the front and two little ones in the back,” she said.
“A trinity of wheels. God is a trinity—Father and Son and Holy Ghost,” he said.
“A little girl like myself was safe riding my trike, sir,” she said.
“Every child of God is kept safe in the wings of the Lamb of God,” he said. “Nothing happens to a born-again believer that God does not allow for His glory.”
“Reminiscer, what do you reminisce over the very most in your true tales and your true prayers?” asked Dionysius the little girl.
“The day I become born again,” he said. “No day before that and no day after that has been more nostalgic for me than that day.”
“How can I become born again, sir?” she asked.
“I am glad you asked, Dionysius,” he said. “To become born again, one has to call upon the name of the Lord, and one has to believe in the name of Jesus.”
“What does that mean, sir?” she asked.
“That means that one has to pray and ask the Lord Jesus to become his own personal Saviour.”
summed up the Reminiscer. “I did that fifty years ago, and it was the best decision I ever made in my life.”
“What will happen to me if I become born again?” she asked.
“Then you get to go to Heaven someday,” he told her.
“What will happen to me if I never become born again, sir?” she asked.
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“Then you will have to go to Hell someday,” he told her.
“I definitely want to become born again, Reminiscer,” she said.
And right then and right there at the beach of the pond, this good and holy man led ten-year-old Dionysius in her little girl’s maillot to salvation. And the first thing she said after praying her prayer for salvation was, “I think that I will remember this day for the rest of my life.”
“You shall rejoice in reliving this first day of your salvation in telling God and in telling others for the rest of your life, Dionysius, and you will be giving due glory to Christ by doing so,” the Reminiscer told her.
“I promise to reminisce over what just happened for me just now for forever, sir,” she said.
“That is so good to hear, O Dionysius,” he told her. “Nostalgia is always best when it is about Christ in one’s life.” Then, just like that, this mighty messenger from Heaven saw a young man at the beach here who needed to hear about the Saviour of the world. And right away the Reminiscer obeyed God’s call and left Miss Drakeshire and went over to this young man to speak to him.
That day with the Reminiscer at the pond when she had on that little girl’s maillot was the main reason now why she was a woman now who had on a woman’s maillot. She had found Christ when she was dressed in a one-piece swimsuit, and now she lived for Christ daily with herself dressed in a one-piece swimsuit. And in her years as a believer since, she lived her Christian walk with the Reminiscer as her role model. She made sure to make all of her prayers of her prayer life prayers of nostalgia about her past. She reminisced about Grandma and Grandpa and Mom and Dad and her brothers and her sisters. And she reminisced all about her own yet young life. And she reminisced over her first day of salvation just like she said that she would. But after a while, her prayers became like TV show reruns. She had prayed them before, and she would pray them again. And they became no longer so new and novel. And they became tiresome and dull. And she ended up running out of things to reminisce about in her life as a young woman. And her healthy prayer life became a sick
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prayer life. And her prayer life perished into tedium and desuetude. And she could no longer pray to God as she had used to. And Dionysius Derby Drakeshire gave up praying to God because of that.
And now she felt like she were an incomplete Christian no longer on fire for God as a prayer-warrior.
And she was sad about her great loss. But she could not do anything about this. It just happened. And it could not come back to her.
It was Sunday now for Flanders Nickels and his girl Dionysius. And, once again they were faithfully at Blissful Promise Baptist Church, being the first ones there once again right after Pastor and Pastor’s wife Emmy. They even beat the deacons and their wives here this time. But the boyfriend-and-the-girlfriend-in-Christ had come to church for their first time not dressed formally for church.
The boyfriend-and-girlfriend-in-the-Lord, most morose over the great loss of their daily prayers, had come to church in their respective gender’s swimsuits. Instead of her long church dress, Dionysius had on her trademark black and white one-piece swimsuit at the house of God in worship of all things here.
And instead of his suit and tie, Flanders had on his blue denim shorts and nothing else. And in his hands he held not a Bible and a hymnbook, but rather his own little black and white one-piece swimsuit that he had always carried around with him. Pastor confronted them for the cause of the holiness of God and for the holiness of His church.
Flanders said, “I’m sorry, Pastor. Dionysius and I are having personal problems in our Christian lives. And we thought that we would go to the pool this morning.”
And Dionysius said, “Yes. He’s right, Pastor. And I am sorry. We’re both kind of mad at God for how our prayer lives crumbled before our very eyes. We went to the pool to forget about God and to have some good fun together as boyfriend-and-girlfriend.”
“But we both changed our minds, and we came here to church,” said Flanders.
“We both had lots of time to get dressed for church, but we are both still mad a little at the Lord.” said Miss Drakeshire.
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“I am dressed too scantily for church,” said Flanders.
“And I am too skimpy in my maillot to be here,” said Dionysius.
“Do you two not want to be here?” asked Pastor, seeking to help.
“Now we do, Pastor,” said Flanders.
“And you, Dionysius?” asked Pastor.
“I want to be here, Pastor,” said Miss Drakeshire.
“Your swimsuits are of the world, and this church is not of the world,” said Pastor. “Dionysius, you will tempt the men in my congregation to lust after you while I am preaching. And Flanders, women will be looking at you instead of hearing what God has to say from the pulpit.”
“I’m sorry, Pastor,” said Miss Drakeshire.
“And I am sorry, too, Pastor,” said Flanders, unthinkingly holding up his women’s maillot in his right hand.
“What is that?” asked Pastor, losing his great patience.
“It is my women’s one-piece swimsuit,” said Flanders. “I take it with me everywhere I go, except to church.”
“I will not have that garment in my Baptist church!” declared Pastor.
“May we stay for church?” asked the girl Dionysius.
“Could I stay for church?” asked Flanders. “I’ll hide the maillot underneath the pew.”
These two swimsuit parishioners this day had long been Pastor’s most faithful members of his flock. Now they were backslidden. And he felt grave despair for them in his love for Christ and for them. And his feelings wrestled between forgiveness and unforgiveness toward them for the cause of Christ. Everybody in church knew how Pastor said that people were to come to church in their Sunday best. Women were not to wear shorts or slacks in church. At church they were to be decently covered in dresses or skirts and blouses. As for the men in his church services, they were not to wear the kinds
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of clothes that they would wear around the house. At church they were to be formally attired, and that always meant wearing a tie. And here his two pillars of the church were dressed for the beach! And the pastor was angry at such immodesty in this house of God for his first time.
Then Emmy spoke up in her empathy so abundant in her woman’s heart, and she said, “Pastor, something is bothering them in their walk with the Lord.”
Having a unique chemistry with Emmy as her husband of many years, Pastor suddenly became thoughtful in his countenance. And his features mellowed out. And he showed favor for Flanders and the girl Dionysius as he had always done toward them. A quiet while passed while Pastor prayed in silence for the Lord’s will be done with this crazy new circumstance suddenly upon him first thing Sunday morning like this. And then Pastor rolled his eyes, took a breath, and asked them, “Would you stay for church this morning, Dionysius, Flanders?”
And they both readily said, “Yes, Pastor.”
Feeling kind of naked in their swimming suits in the decorum of the Baptist church, Flanders and the girl Dionysius sat in the back pew so that none could see them while Pastor preached. Heads were turned back to look upon them. Many women and some men were indignant upon Miss Drakeshire’s apparel. And many men and some women were indignant upon Flanders’s attire. Teenagers of both genders turned to look, but they were curious and did not mind them. And little boys and little girls looked back at them and stared in childlike incomprehension upon them. And there was whispering in the pews and pointing of index fingers about what Flanders had underneath his pew there in the back. Pastor was right, and they were wrong. They had definitely made themselves a distraction from the attention of the flock to what their shepherd had to tell the flock. But they still knew that they had come to the right place on a Sunday morning. Maybe God could still speak to them, if He could not speak to the others, with two swimsuit grownups here in the back.
And Pastor began his sermon. And God spoke powerfully and mightily to the two swimming
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suit adults sheepishly sitting in the back. And no one besides the two in sin could tell to whom this message was meant. God was instantly speaking right to them in Pastor’s message. Flanders and Dionysius could tell that this preaching was just for them. No one in the congregation could tell. Pastor himself could not tell. God could tell. And so could the two who could no longer find joy in prayer. And God’s Words were filled with love and compassion and gentleness and encouragement and exhortation for Flanders and his maillot girlfriend.
“What is prayer?” asked the preacher of Blissful Promise Baptist Church, beginning his Sunday Morning Worship service sermon. “What does God want us to pray about? Why does God want us to pray? What do we say in prayer, and how do we say it? I will seek to answer these questions in today’s message.” He went on to repeat, “What is prayer? ‘Prayer’ is ‘asking.’ What does God want us to pray about? He wants us to pray for others lots. Why does God want us to pray? He wants us to pray so that He can answer our prayers and get the glory from doing that. What do we say in prayer, and how do we say it? We simply talk to God as we would to each other. Turn to your Bibles and read with me, if you would, I Timothy 2:1-4.” And the good little flock read these four verses out loud with Pastor: “I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men: For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.” Pastor went on to preach on this verse: “We believers are to pray supplications, which are requests for God’s help. And we are to pray prayers, which are askings for which only God can answer best. And we are to pray intercessions, which are requests for others who are not ourselves. And we are to pray thanksgivings, which are us saying, ‘Thank You, God,’ in our prayers. And these four types of prayers in verse one of our reading this morning are meant to ‘be made for all men,’ as it says. As long as we have a prayer list for other people—as long as we pray for others beside ourselves—we will always have something to
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pray about. No prayer-warrior can pray long praying only about himself. God wants us to pray for others in need. Just look at so tremendous a need for prayer that our government has. We who are Christians need to pray for our President and our Vice-President and our governors and our mayors.
We who are Christians need to pray for our congressmen and our senators and our state assemblymen and our state senators. We who are Christians need to pray for our judges and those judges on the Supreme Court. For what can we pray for them? That they get saved and make decisions as God would have them to make. That way the people of our country and of our state and of our county can live a happier life. Government people need to become born-again, too, just like other lost people we might have in our prayer lists who are near and dear to us.”
Pastor paused, then said, “Turn with me, if you would, to Philippians 4:6. And let us read this together out loud.” And the good flock read along with their pastor this Bible verse aloud: “Be careful for nothing: but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.” Pastor preached this prayer verse: “What does it mean to ‘be careful for nothing?’
It means to ‘not be full of cares and concerns about anything.’ Do not worry. Let God take care of it.
What does this Scripture say to do instead of fretting? It says to pray, instead. What do we pray to not fall into this sin of ‘carefulness.’ as the Holy Bible calls it? We are to pray prayers and supplications and thanksgivings as we ask God our favors that we need to ask Him for. It does not say just prayers or just supplications or just thanksgivings, but rather all three in equal measure.”
Pastor then said, “Turn with me, if you would, to Hebrews 4:16 and let us read this verse together unto God, also.” And the faithful little flock read in unison, “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” And the pastor expounded on this verse learnedly, “Prayer is best when it is a son asking something from his Father. Our Heavenly Father loves to answer our prayers and to have us thank Him for having answered our prayers. But take note: All thanking and no asking can weary even a giving father.
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Our Heavenly Father wants us to come to Him for His help and for His grace and for his mercy. That is why we humans are here. And that is most of what God wants from us His children. He wants us to need Him. And he wants a healthy spiritual balance between asking for and thanking for in our prayers to Him. It is said that ‘a praying Christian is seldom a backslidden Christian,’ and ‘that a backslidden Christian is seldom a praying Christian.’
So many things Flanders Nickels was suddenly learning about how a good healthy prayer life was meant to be! And very soon in this same sermon, his girlfriend Dionysius would learn what she needed to learn for her own good prayer health.
And Pastor, never afraid to name names and refute doctrinal error, just as God tells pastors to do in the Bible, went on to preach upon Flanders’s role model and upon Dionysius’s role model: “I am sure that you all have heard about the Thanker and the Reminiscer. They are good believers who give out the Word of God and who lead many, many souls to salvation. But their doctrines of Christian living are not the whole Word of God. We pastors are called to preach the whole counsel of God. And those two do not preach the whole counsel of God. One lives only to thank the Lord; the other lives only to reminisce with the Lord. Both are good and wholesome things to do in one’s prayer life. But one’s prayer life must not be only givings of thanks. And one’s prayer life must not be only reliving in nostalgia with God. We are commanded by God to pray about all things. If our prayers are all of only one genre of prayer, sooner or later our prayers to God will go no farther Up than where we are kneeling. And our prayer life dies on us. And we backslide on God. What can we people of Blissful Promise Baptist Church pray about to keep our praying life intact? We can pray for each other daily and never run out of things to ask God for for each other. Is any backslidden? We can pray that they come back home like the prodigal son. Is any a babe in Christ? We can pray that God get a hold of his life and make him on fire for God. Is any a mighty pillar in the church? We can pray that God keep him in His ways. And what about myself? I need and ask for prayer, too. You all know how on
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Prayer Meeting nights on Wednesday evening services I ask for prayer for myself—that God give me boldness in utterance when I share the Gospel, and that God give me strength for the ministry. And what about unsaved members of our own family? We need to pray that they get saved. Pray that God will soften their heart and open their eyes and show them their need for the Saviour. And what about unsaved friends and fellow workers and neighbors? We need to pray for their salvation, as well. And what about those of us in the flock who have a sickness or a trial or is wounded? Pray that God can make them well, that God get them through the trial, that God take away their pain.”
Pastor then went on to finish his sermon on prayer for this day, by preaching, “There are two days never to worry about—yesterday and tomorrow. Yesterday is done and over with, and tomorrow has not yet come. That just leaves today.” Then he said, “If any of you in my flock here in this auditorium has been spoken to by God in my message today, and you want to come up and make it public, I ask you to come to the front and tell us what you have decided to do about it.”
Flanders in his men’s swimsuit and Dionysius in her women’s swimsuit looked at each other. Yes, God had spoken to them both most convincingly this morning in the message. They both wanted to come up and tell the church what God had said to them. They both needed to tell their brothers-and-sisters-in-the-Lord the great thing that they were going to do. God was giving them a brand new prayer life. And Flanders and the girl Dionysius stood up, held hands, and walked side-by-side up to Pastor and stood next to him upon the dais.
Pastor asked, “What did the Lord say to you today, Flanders, Dionysius?” His pastor’s heart was overflowing in gladness and in love for them as their shepherd as he asked them this.
Flanders Nickels confessed, “For now on I shall start praying for other people besides myself.
That is a good way for me to keep my mind off of myself.”
And Dionysius Drakeshire confessed, “For now on I shall start praying about today and not yesterday. And I shall start praying for everybody else of my todays. That is a good way to keep my
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mind off of my own past.”
“Amen!” said Pastor.
“Amen!” said the good and kind flock.
And love for prayer came back into the hearts of Flanders and Dionysius, and their fellowship was restored whole once again with their Heavenly Father, and they found their joy in the Lord come back strong into their souls and their spirits.
The next day, Flanders and his girl Dionysius went on another date at the beach on the creek. The first thing she noticed about him was that he had not his own maillot with him on this date. She said, “Flanders, you forgot to bring your one-piece swimsuit with you. You never forgot that before.”
“Uh oh, girl!” he said. “I think that I left it at church yesterday, underneath that pew in the back.”
“Uh oh, O Flanders,” she teased him.
“Silly me,” he said.
“So, Flanders, how was your prayer last night after church?” she asked, justifiably confident of a happy answer.
“I got alone with God in my bedroom, and I prayed for all of the people of our church for two hours straight, and I had the best time ever in my walk with Christ, O Dionysius,” he said. “I am happy now again these days.” Then he asked, “How did your prayer go in your quiet time with God yesterday after church?” He was equally confident about her good answer.
“I got alone with God in my den, and I prayed for all of the unsaved people I knew about, and I cried for them, but I had the most satisfying prayer with my God that I had ever had in all my years as a believer, Flanders. I think that they all might get saved now, because of my prayer. And that makes me happy in Christ.”
“I even prayed for my iconic Thanker,” confided Flanders most ironically.
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“That is funny. I went and prayed also for the great Reminiscer myself,” confessed Miss Drakeshire in her own irony.
“Do you know how all these good things happened for us?” asked Flanders.
“I do,” she said. “All these good things happened for us because yesterday at church we surrendered our prayer life to Jesus.”
“And Jesus gave us back our prayer life,” he said. “bigger and better than it was before.”
“We surrendered all, Flanders,” said the girl Dionysius.
“That’s the name of that great hymn that we all sing at church, girl–’I Surrender All,’” he did say.
“Let’s sing it right now, boyfriend,” she said.
“I may have forgotten to bring my one-piece swimsuit to the beach this time, but I did not forget to bring my Bible and my hymnbook,” he said to her.
“And I brought my Bible and my hymnbook with me, too,” she said.
“God would love to hear two swimming suit Christians singing to him at a creek’s beach,” said Flanders Nickels.
“Psalms does command us believers ‘to make a joyful noise unto the Lord,’” she did quote Scripture.”
“And to speak in ‘psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,’” recited Flanders more scripture.
And they opened up their green hymnbooks to Hymn #394, and boyfriend-and-girlfriend-in-the-Lord sang together this song of their personal revivals—the hymn “I Surrender All”:
“1. All to Jesus I surrender, All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him, In His presence daily live.
I surrender all, I surrender all,
All to Thee, my blessed Saviour, I surrender all.
- All to Jesus I surrender, Humbly at His feet I bow;
Worldly pleasures all forsaken, Take me, Jesus, take me now.
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I surrender all, I surrender all,
All to Thee, my blessed Saviour, I surrender all.
- All to Jesus I surrender, Make me, Saviour, wholly Thine;
Let me feel the Holy Spirit—Truly know that Thou art mine.
I surrender all, I surrender all,
All to Thee, my blessed Saviour, I surrender all.
- All to Jesus I surrender, Lord, I give myself to Thee;
Fill me with Thy love and power, Let Thy blessings fall on me.
I surrender all, I surrender all,
All to Thee, my blessed Saviour, I surrender all.”
Right after having sung this, the girl Dionysius said, “Flanders, shall we try our hand at a prayer meeting between just the two of us again right now and right here?”
“It will never have to be ever again like it was last time we thought to try and gave up before we even began,” he said.
“This time our prayers will go all the way up to Heaven right up to where our Good Lord is sitting on His throne,” she said.
“Our praying words this time will be as alive and living as our risen Saviour, O Dionysius,” he said.
“Let’s split Heaven wide open with great and exciting intercessions and supplications, O Flanders she said.
“There is suddenly so many new and exciting things for us to pray about, O girl Dionysius,” said Flanders.
“Oh, Flanders, let’s not wait another second,” she said, all caught up in passion.
“Let’s get right down and do it, girlfriend,” he said.
And right away Flanders and his girl Dionysius knelt down upon the sand by the flowing little creek side by side, bowed their heads, and began a prayer meeting that was the greatest prayer meeting they had ever prayed before alone with each other in all of their years together with Christ.
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It is written in the beatitudes of the sermon on the mount, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” Matthew 5:6.
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