YOU WANT TO FIGHT?
In this Checkpoints, in honor of Grandparents on Grandparents’ Day, Jerry, a musician sometimes called “Gator,” shares memories about his maternal grandfather, Early Whitfield.
“Hey, Mister – you want to fight?”
From the stories my maternal grandfather, Early Whitfield, and several other people, including my grandmother, Lois, told me, before Grandpa became a Christian, he loved to fight. Sometimes, he would yell out the challenge to someone simply walking down the road past his house— “You want to fight?”
But then, one day after years of fighting and drinking, Grandpa met Jesus. Grandma said that the day Jesus saved Grandpa, she heard some yelling from the nearby sawmill where Grandpa, then in his late 20's, worked. What she thought was yelling, she later learned, was Grandpa shouting and praising the Lord for saving him. When Grandpa got home that day, he took the bottle whisky he had planned to drink and poured it down the sink. From that day forward, instead of going to the bottle, Grandpa went to The Word (the Bible), to his knees (to pray), and to Jesus.
After Grandpa Early met Jesus, he preached in three Pentecostal churches he started in the Florida Gulf Coast area. Some days, he walked approximately 24 miles from Wewahitchka, Florida, where he and Grandma lived, to Port St. Joe Florida with cardboard in his worn shoes to get to church. Back then, most country folks in that area, like Grandpa, did not have much money. Sometimes, instead of many, people in the congregations where Grandpa preached, paid Grandpa with a chicken or something they may have raised on their farm.
Grandpa told me about Billy, a man who lived in a house alongside Highway 71 that Grandpa had to walk by on his way to Port St. Joe. When Billy saw Grandpa walking past his house, he would throw rocks at him. For some reason, Billy never could hit Grandpa. Instead of
wanting to fight when a rock would whiz by him, and rather than reacting in anger as he did in his past, Grandpa prayed for Billy and ultimately led him to Christ.
Sometimes, Grandpa stayed on his knees all night, praying. In time, because he regularly knelt down to pray, Grandpa’s knees became calloused. When someone would question him about his calloused knees or if his knees were calloused because he used to pick cotton, Grandpa would smile and say, “I just love Jesus and I pray.”
Grandpa prayed for family members who did not have a personal relationship with Jesus that they would come to know his Lord. He prayed for those who knew Jesus; that they would stay in the Word and grow not only in their relationship with Him, but also grow more and more and more in love with Jesus.
Grandpa not only prayed for others, but he also prayed for and over me. He often lay his hand on me as he prayed, “Dear Father, don’t let Jerry fall into the wrong doctrine. Let him find and live out Your will for his life. Help him to be true to Your Word. Let him know and love Your Son, Jesus Christ in a real, personal relationship.” Grandpa also laid hands on my car and prayed for it… that God would keep angels guarding me as I traveled around the country playing my music.
One day in 1972, toward the end of June, I sat with Grandpa on his front porch and talked with him. I felt a chill when he told me, “Jerry, I’m going to die. I’m going home to be Jesus in three days.”
“What are you talking about, Grandpa?” I started to argue. “You are not sick.” “You don’t have to be sick to die,” Grandpa said.
Three days later, I learned that Grandpa had gone home to be with Jesus. The night before he died, Grandma said, Grandpa kissed her good night and went to sleep as usual. But the next morning, instead of waking up and telling her, “Good morning,” Grandma said—“Grandpa woke up in heaven with Jesus.”
Grandpa encouraged me to pray and stay in the Word. He encouraged me to be real, to be the man God had called me to be… to “stir up” the gift of music that our heavenly Father had given me.
Grandpa taught and encouraged me to do what I now encourage others to do - to love and know Jesus, not in a religious way —but in a real, personal way.
Even though Grandpa didn’t leave us anything worth much in terms of what the world considers riches, when he went to heaven to be with Jesus, he did, however, leave us some things that I treasure. I still have the Bible he gave me and the memory of his challenging encouraging words, “Pray… stay in The Word.”
Grandpa also left behind several old pair pants with the knees gone, worn out from him kneeling in prayer. More than anything, however, I treasure the fact that Grandpa did not leave us with the love he had for us—he left us with his love for Jesus.
In living, Grandpa gave us the very best he could. His life, after he poured the whisky in the bottle down the sink, showed us that instead of challenging others with the attitude, “Hey, Mister—you want to fight?”, we are to call them to Jesus with/in His love.
One day, unless Jesus comes before that time, I pray that my grandchildren will also say, “My grandfather prayed for me.”
shELAH’s Note:
Jerry told me that one particular verse he read in the Bible right after his grandfather gave it to him, still encourages him today. 2 Timothy 1:7 reminds us: “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” In these “perilous times,” which the Bible foretells about, those encouraging words reassure us that as we stir up the gift God places within us, we can have power, love, and a sound mind. No matter what happens… No matter what powers of darkness threaten or fight against us, because of Jesus and His love, we have nothing to fear.
