Biography

By : Pastor Maud Ryder

At a very young age, I sensed an earnest desire in my heart to know, serve, and follow the ways of God, close and fervently, like others I read about in the Bible. I was deeply touched by the warmth that flowed into my soul as I read about the close relationships others had with the Lord and the spiritual abundance that the Lord poured out into their lives as they walked with him. The mere fact that God would speak to them and teach them his ways made me yearn for the same outpouring and fellowship. Pouring out in such vast amount that would enabled me to walk closely and faithfully with the Lord. Although I knew very little about the Lord in those years, the ways of Lord seemed the only right way I wanted to follow. As I grew older, I grew more and more passionate about the things of God, because the word did so much for me whenever I read the bible. Even though I was unsaved I felt a great conviction of the way I was living and the wrong things I did and the shame and hurt it caused. A shameful life of wrong doing I had no idea how to change. The more I heard the old gospel songs and read the Bible on my own or had what we called Bible studies with my family, the deeper the aching and longing in my soul for the Lord became. As I meditate on them and memorize them in my spirit out of my heart flowed life and joy.

Such deep feelings that caused rich, sweet singing to pour from my soul unto the Lord, from these days long ago I know my soul only feel happy when I was desirous to know and serve God. I wanted every word of each song or the words I read from the Bible to manifest in my life. I studied and memorized as much scriptures as possible from the word and songs from my dad old hymnal, so I could sing to the Lord wherever I was. I felt very blessed whenever the opportunity arose to sing to others. One song I love with all my heart was “And Can It Be That I Should Gain an Interest in the Saviour’s Blood.” From the first moment I heard it sung in the Methodist church I attended once in a while, my heart was filled with love for the words, and sadness for the suffering the Lord suffered for me. This song was personalized in my soul so deeply that I felt my guilt and recognized that God deserved all glory and honor from my life as long as I live on earth. Each time I sing the song, tears filled my eyes, and throbbing, sorrowful pain filled my heart as I tried to fathom how could we not love and serve God with all our hearts, knowing what he did in death for us. I knew nothing about salvation or how to be saved, but I knew I wanted the chains that bound me in sin to vanish and whatever was of God’s power working in what I hear and read to fill my soul so I could preach the word and serve the Lord.

My limited knowledge of God when I was growing up was like most of the people I knew including adults and children. We all believed that God was up in the sky somewhere and was not seeing what we were doing, but this song blesses me each time I sing it with a deeper longing to know God. Although it causes much heartrending sorrow in my soul, I could not stop myself from singing it. My soul was humbled by the words. My heart was delighted, especially when I sing the line that says, “My chains fell off my heart was free, I rose went forth and follow thee.”

Each time I sing this verse in the song, I felt relieved, knowing I could be set free from the sorrow and pains that seem to be always there. The words to this great song became my strength in the toughest times of my young life. They were my way of salvation, for I knew no other. My whole heart and soul was gripped with conviction, as I think of the pureness and sincerity that the writer felt when they wrote those words. Although I do not have the most beautiful voice, I sang this song everywhere the opportunity arose. Regardless of my singing ability, pouring into my heart was a sensational message as each wordstirred a deep longing to know the Lord and work for his kingdom just as the song says, “That I should gain an interest in the Savior’s blood who died ye for me, me who caused him to suffer such brutality and anguish.” Knowing that he died for me was not enough. Knowing and serving him because he died for me was all I longed after. At the age of fifteen, I sang at a local concert and felt so blessed for the privilege.

Although I did not sing very well; to share my heart’s desire toward the Lord with others was the greatest blessing I could ever hope for or give to others. At this point in my Life I did not have the vaguest idea how to witness or serve, but I thought if I would be called of God to become a witness of the very wordsof that song I loved so dearly, I would want men to feel the depth I felt when I sing the words. Because of this tremendous eagerness in my soul to witness for the Lord my ability to sing was secondary. Yet in a fleeting moment this desire and hope was dashed by words so crude, so cruel, that I could not sing for years. I may not have known what the plan of God was when I desired to serve him, but the devil knew, and it did not took him long to squelch my joy and rob me of my weak, unproven faith, by the words of a young man that could sing so much more beautiful that I could ever dreamed. As we walk home from the concert in a group of about six young people. We stop to talk about how we thought the concert went. Standing among us was the young man with the beautiful voice. In the midst of our conversation, in the presence of my friends he said, “You might have sung something else, you sounded terrible.”

The chains of hell on my soul gripped firmer as I received those words into my spirit that night. My world of singing crashed to an unhappy end, but my love for the words of that song grew stronger as I whisper them in my heart to the Lord. For many years, the backlash of that terrible night relived in my soul, cutting me down like a sharp dagger. Every time I thought of doing something for the glory of God, the horror of that night rises up in my mind as a hindrance. I did not seek after or accept another opportunity to sing at concerts in my little home town again because I believed the words placed upon me so completely. After I was born again, the chain of fear seemed to grow tighter. Although I desperately wanted to join the choir, I would not, for fear that people would hear me sing and a recurrence of the past would take place. However, I could not give up my desire to sing unto the Lord. In time God gave me courage to speak to the choir leader. When he asked me to sing so he could hear my voice and know where I belonged in the choir. My teeth clatter with fear knowing he would hear my voice. I eventually joined the choir, but sing softly so no one would hear me singing.  The wound from the past caused such fear, it silenced my singing although I had not stopped singing that beautiful song unto the Lord. I realize that the seed of that song was planted so deep into my soul that not even the worst kind of fear or inferiority complex could affect the deep interest it established in my heart to know God. The power of those words was wedged n much deeper than I ever dreamed because I was far more sincere in my heart to serve God than anything I had ever done or wanted to do in my entire life. I did not yet understand the great ability of God to set me completely free, but my freedom came through the words of this scripture: “God has not given me the spirit of fear but of power and of love and a sound mind,” words that were revealed into my spirit one Sunday while I sat in service. After these words took hold of my spirit, nothing could hinder them from setting me free from fear’s bondage.

Not the words of this young man, my lack of confidence to sing, or man’s expectation of my ability or voice. The Lord saw my hurt and desire and did not give up on me although I had given up on singing that night. The Lord delivered me completely at the lowest point in my life and, to my amazement, used a song titled, “Jesus Is the answer.” It took a long time to develop the confidence to begin singing again and even to write this book because not only did the evil words spoken over my life crushed my desire to sing, it released upon me a bondage of fear, incompetence, and low self-esteem, which hindered me from believing I was able to do the things I truly love and desire to do for the glory of God. Sometime after I got saved and began to get a little more settled in my spirit, on what the Lord commanded, the Lord allowed me to see that the words of the man did wound, but what was said was long past and that I was the one who  had to let go and live in the present. As I let go and began to trust God, healing flowed, and the meaning of that song took an effective role in changing my life as the Lord intended from the beginning. The Lord also brought me to the understanding that the person of the present is who I was, not what they said in the past. My present and future would be much better for what pain I suffered in the past, if I establish who I have become in God. Naivety and blindness to the truth of the Word of God was one of my main weaknesses. I did not realize that the devil and the flesh, to which I have been giving keen attention, were my greatest enemies when it came to the things of God. Low self-esteem formed my opinion of who I was because of the words of the young man. I did not know that God’s estimation of who I was and is was all that counts. The enemy blinded my eyes to see this truth for a long time and used this blindness at every opportunity possible to plague my soul.

These degrading and self-defeating thoughts were highly cherished in my mind to the point that they kept me self-conscious and reluctant to open my mouth to even speak good, encouraging words to others. These feelings I held on to were used effectively by the devil to stop me from moving away from the fear and the control of the curse words spoken into my ear, which I received into my soul. For many years after the words were spoken against me, I lost confidence to trust that not everyone would think about me the same way. Self-preservation was very easy, for the devil and his host and the words of this young man echoed in my ear constantly to control me and keep me back, for I had not only received the words spoken to me into my ear but into my heart and soul. They actually became what I believed about me. The only thing the devil or anyone else had to do to make me tremble with fear was to repeatedly tell me that I was not good enough or qualified to do the will of God. In my naïve, unlearned state, I had no idea of the changed life God could give if someday he grants me mercy because of the interest I had burning in my heart to know him. I give the devil credit for his persistent labor against me learning the truth of who I really was. I credit him for his effort to relentlessly tell me I was not able or good enough to serve God and that what I could do for God was dependent on my ability. He knew I had no wisdom as to what the will of God was for my life. If God’s wisdom was at work in me at that time of my life, I would truly understand the honesty about what Satan said on the subject of our inability and qualifications to do for God what he gave us to do. Liars are sometimes used to make us wise, and this is the purpose of the enemies we face each day. Satan was right although he said it to hurt, to hinder, and to stop me for a brief period of my life from fulfilling the goal God set for me to fulfill.

In the end I am the one who gained the benefit from the hurt and hindrance. I have learned that I can never qualify myself to do the will of God. Neither am I good or qualified enough in my human ability or base on my own goodness or my own strength to fulfill the desires in my heart for the glory of a holy God. I had not learned that a change had to be made in me that would enable me to perform on the level God desired. From the evil works that came against me, I learned not only to trust in the power of God to deliver and supply but the power of God to enable me to serve him. Through all the self-touchiness and pessimism, I learned to slay the one thing that could hinder my walk with God, and that is myself. You see, God brought me to the realization that when he gives me something to do, he does not send me off by myself but stays by my side and does his work through me. Realizing this, I try my best to be obedient to the Lord and to none other.

I have learned to trust each day that God will not give me anything to do that is not in his ability to do through me. God’s Instruction to Write When the Lord instructed me to write, he encouraged me by telling me that the books I write would encourage the unbelieving and turn hardened hearts to walk in his way and serve him sincerely. Despite the encouragement the Lord gave when he told me to write books, the words of that young man came flooding back; self-doubt and incompetence took control, telling me I could not do anything to please God, much less help with the saving of men’s souls. But the Lord be praised; that, too, is a lie, for today I know I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me to labor for the Master’s glorious name. I had the wrong concept of what my salvation in Christ meant. I did not know that salvation in Christ brings into my life the ability and power I did not have to do what I could not do for the glory of God. I did not know that only God can give us what is needed to do all he commands me to do. I thought I could

gain the power to do as God commanded through my own ability, based on what others think of me. I thought what I could do in my own strength was what enabled me to do the will of God, but I was so very wrong, for without Christ I can do nothing. I also set the weight of my victory on man’s concept of who I was and what they thought of what I can and cannot do. The only truth is what God can do in and through me as I surrendered my life to him. I thank God that it is his ability in man that enables man to do all things for his glory. One day as I sat in meditation, the Lord spoke to my spirit and said, “Even preachers and teachers that I have called to do my will are out of my will sometimes, because when I give them a message to preach, they preach what they choose. Because the message might be strong or out of the norm, they do not obey because they think it is them that speak but if I call and am doing my will through them, they must obey.” He continued, “They are out of my will, when they do not do what I tell them to do, when I tell them to do it. If they are laboring for me, the only message they can speak that will stand as truth before me is what I tell them to speak, and do what I want to do through them.”

He continued, “I do not call anyone and send them off by themselves to do what they please, but to do my will. I call men out of sin, save them and give them commandments to go, that through them I might speak my word, show my power, lead in the way of my truth and be an encouragement of how me must walk in my will.”

These words gave me the motivation I needed to obey the Lord’s command and write this book you are reading. If we depend upon feelings, emotions, self-will, and what people say or think of us to validate us when it comes to doing God’s will, we will never faithfully do the will of God. Man’s knowledge of us is based on how they see themselves. The knowledge they have of themselves is based on how others see them, and how they are seen is not necessarily how they are or who we are on the inside.

This is the reason what man thinks they know, or feels about me, does not matter anymore. I am responsible before the Lord to know who I am and whose I am as a child of God. No one else does. What man thinks, along with my own feelings, emotions, and self-worth, no longer plays the main role in knowing and understanding the ways of God. Nothing they bring to me is accepted on its own merit but scrutinized and judged extensively by the standard of the Word of God. My thinking that I am unable or able is no longer my dependence. My faith that God knows what I am able to do enable me to confidently do as I am told. In this frame of mind letting God become my total dependence and ability is the only right thing to do. As long as I remind myself continuously that God has not given anyone anything to do that he does not enable them to do, I can therefore say I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me by his indwelling presence and overcoming power. Having the presence of God with us and his spirit residing in us is more than enough to make us close out all the enemies’ lies and do his will with all our hearts. It is simply a question of trusting his Word and believing that all things are only possible with God not man. After a long time of self-torture, guilt, and a lack of knowledge of who I was in Christ, I began to write. Regardless of how I felt in my weak flesh, the spiritual quickening of the Holy Spirit, who overruled all I think and say, enabled me to do as the Lord commanded. Praise be unto God, who is able.