Over the years I have been on both sides of the fence in my Christianity and sometimes even a fence straddler.
I was raised in a Christian home to be a Christian. Faith and ministry was important in our home.
My dad was a Baptist preacher in the ministry and my mom a Sunday school teacher, so I was taught to have a deep love for the word of God and from a child I knew God’s word.
My parents sent my brothers and I to a Christian school and the word of God and church was my whole life growing up.
My dad was a street corner preacher back in the 60’s. When I was 5 years old my parents would take me and my little brother downtown Chattanooga every Saturday to pass out gospel tracks.
My dad with several other preachers from our church would stand on the streets and preach the gospel.
My brother and I would compete to see who could give someone a gospel track the fastest. Handing someone a gospel track was exciting for a little 5 year old boy. We were telling people about Jesus.
Over the years I have heard testimonies of people who were saved just by someone handing them a gospel track. It makes you wonder if someday in heaven you will meet someone who came to Jesus just because you handed them a track.

My parents came up with the idea to open a mission.
In the beginning the purpose was not for housing people but rather to give people a place to hear the gospel who otherwise would not go to a church.
I remember at our first service the building was full. I was 7 years old at the time but I remember it like it was yesterday. It was the very first time me and my brother James ever sang in a church service. James was 4 years old. We sang “I Must Tell Jesus”.

There was a man who came to that first service by the name of Ray Perim.
I can’t remember if Ray got saved that day, although he must have because I do remember everyone crowded around him after the service shaking his hand and patting him on the back. I do remember that.
Ray didn’t have a place to stay and was sleeping under the bridge downtown. So, my dad told him you can stay in the back of the building.
Well, the next day Ray went out and found some other homeless buddies and brought them back to the mission. Of course we made room for them, got some beds donated, setup a kitchen area and thus the Wayfarer’s Gospel Mission was born. We ended up having to get a bigger building as more and more people came to the mission. We operated the mission for over 25 years and we saw thousands come through the mission. Many received Christ and many lives were changed.
I tell people all the time I grew up in a homeless shelter. Although, every day after school that’s where we would go for several hours until we would go home.
I did my homework on the kitchen table at the mission.

Now I don’t know how many times a week you went to church growing up but not only did we go 3 times a week to regular church services, Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night prayer service. We also had services at the mission every night and on Sunday afternoon.
That’s 9 times a week. Then because my parents sent me and my brothers to a Christian school (Tennessee Temple), 5 more times a week of chapel after lunch. That’s being in church 14 times a week, 52 weeks a year. Not to mention Bible class, Missionary Conferences, Bible Conferences, Revivals, Youth Bible Meetings, Word Of Life Club, The Bible Quiz Team, Saturday Visitation and Bible Camp. My whole life was about church and God’s word.
I remember one time in high school (Tennessee Temple) sitting in the back of a class every day reading and studying my Bible but the teacher never said a word.
He was a preacher and I believe he must have thought what I was reading was more important. I don’t remember his name or which class but that was my passion for being in God’s word even as a teenager. My dad told me one time, son you spend more time at church then you do at home.

Then when I was 21 years old we had a falling out in our church. It really hurt me and I ended up going in another direction. Hanging out in bars and nightclubs. Getting involved in drugs. It wasn’t long after I begin to deal in drugs. When you get out in the world living in the flesh you become immoral, dishonest, indifferent living for yourself and living for your own desires.
My two brothers and I begin to follow the Grateful Dead all over the country because that was where the drugs were. My drug of choice was always weed but both my brothers got hooked on pills and my brother James begin to shoot up. Morphine or anything he could get his hands on.
I have watched him draw blood into the syringe and mix it with the drug he was shooting. If the needle would happen to brake he would shoot it into his mouth blood and all rather than to waste the shot.
They say once a shooter always a shooter and statistics confirms that only 5% of people who shoot up ever get clean and stay clean. It is a constant day to day battle that pulls at you and the desire is so great that those who get hooked fall into a pit of misery that just becomes a part of life.
My brother James died in 2020 of liver sclerosis and cancer but he came back to Christ and spent all his time in prayer and in the word of God.
He went to church but he was rejected by church members and so he just spent most all his time at home in his room. I would hear him in his room singing gospel songs and reading his Bible. My brother Chris and I were there by his side when he passed away. He became unable to move or even speak but he had a peace about him. He knew he was dying. A couple of hours before he passed away and before he could no longer speak. I was watching him and I saw him bow his head and in a low voice I heard him say, “Jesus, be merciful to me a sinner”. Then shortly after he could no longer speak. Not long after that we watched him take his last breath.
My brother Chris has also repented and is on the road to recovery. He prays constantly and he is not afraid to tell someone about Christ. He and my brother James were very close and with my brother’s passing it has really affected him to be closer to Christ.

Years before all this happened my brother James and I were in New York in 1994 for the 25th anniversary celebration of Woodstock 69. We had been following the Grateful Dead for years so this was just another show for us to deal drugs.
I had two nitrous oxide tanks that were worth about $3,000 each and we were there to sell and to find any kind of drug we could buy to take home and sell.
We had a friend with us and a girl that traveled with me on tour and scoring drugs was the only reason we were there. We didn’t care about the music, this was just business for us.
When we got to the concert that had been advertised it wasn’t what we expected. Then we heard there was a gathering happening at the original site that was more in line with what we were looking for so we headed out for Bethel New York.
When we got to town cars were bumper to bumper and we saw people camping out in a field. So, we decided to stop and spend the night.
I pulled out one of my tanks and people began to line up.
Candice did her thing which was to go scout out where all the drugs were and find who had what.
A little while later she came back and told me that some guys wanted to trade for one of my tanks.
When they came over to make the trade it was apparent they were not there to trade but rather they were there to take my tank.
There were nine of them and three of us not including Candice.
The guy I was dealing with kept saying show me what you’ve got.
I told him, show me what you’ve got.
We went back and forth and then he begin to pound his fist on my trunk saying, open the trunk.
Then I saw one of the guys take his belt off and begin to wrap it around his hand.
I knew the time had come.
I calmly walk over to the back seat of my car, sat down in the seat where I had two pistols and when I stood up I had one in my hand.
The guy who was in my face look me in the eyes and with all the demons of hell he said, shoot me.
I stuck the pistol in his gut and cocked the hammer.
Just then my brother stepped between us and pushed him back and said, it stops here.
Within just a moments time I could have shot him and he would have been on his way to hell and I would have been on my way to jail.
We got in our car and left leaving the tank I had pulled out behind. As we drove off the crowd that had gathered dove on the tank and was fighting over it as we left. It was almost empty anyway.
We got back in line and made our way down to the concert site but when we got there I didn’t pull out the other tank.
If you have ever watched film footage of Woodstock 1969 you will notice there is a hill in the background. 25 years later it had not changed.
I sat there all night on that hill listening to the music and thinking where have I come to in life that I was now ready to kill someone over a drug?
I had been raised in a Christian home with parents who were in the ministry. I had gone to church my whole life and attended Christian school and I knew the word of God. What was I doing here?
The next morning we packed up and came home. I didn’t even pull out my other tank.
When I got home I turned my life around, gave my life back to Christ and I begin to work for the drug awareness program.
I wrote a book called Drugs And Disaster and made it available for free on the internet for anyone to read. I learned later it had become required reading in several drug rehabs.
It was a sad time in my life and like the prodigal son I had come to the point that my choice was either remain in the misery I had created for myself, or come back to the Father.

Let me just say, “train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it”. Proverbs 22:6.
That’s The Power Of God’s Word.

When I had finally had enough of that life I came back to Christ turning my life completely over to him.
That does not mean I didn’t have trials but now I had Jesus to lean on.
Coming back to God I was on fire to serve the Lord. It was all I could think about.
It had been years since I had been in church and I thought I might as well go to a church I knew, The Highland Park Baptist Church because that’s where I had gone to school and I knew people there.
So, I started going to services and it was wonderful. I was excited to be back in God’s house. I hung on every word. I was home.
One night at church I saw someone who had come to preach at the mission when he was a young preacher getting started. His name was Steve.
I said hello and he recognized me and we had a short casual chat.
Steve told me he was working there at the church in the church office across the street and I told him how I had just recently come back to Christ. How great it was to be back in church and serving Christ.
Later in the week I was driving past Highland Park / Tennessee Temple and I thought I would stop in to see Steve and talk to him about a ministry.
Steve was in his office and he invited me in to sit down.
I begin to tell him my testimony of where I had been and how I had come back to Christ. I told him I wanted to serve Christ and completely give my life to Christ.
Steve just sat there not saying a word. I begin to feel a coldness as if he was only being tolerant to listen to what I was saying.
Finally I looked at him and said, “you don’t think I’m saved do you”?
He looked at me and said, “no, not really”.
He said, “ let me ask you a question”.
“When you were away from God all those years did you ever pray”?
He said, “the reason I ask and I can’t show this in scripture (which is when I should have stopped him) but he said I believe if you do not spend time with God in prayer you are not saved”.
Really? There I had just gave him my testimony how I had come back to Christ, spending hours on my knees in tears and repentance, wanting now to serve God and he is telling me I’m not saved.

Here is what you should know.
If you cannot show it with certainty in God’s word, do not say it nor believe it.
God did not leave anything out of his word for you to come along later and fill in with your own thoughts and conclusions.
There are no new prophecies nor doctrines.
If either prophecy or doctrine cannot be confirmed in God’s word it is false.

He stood up and made an excuse that he needed to be somewhere so I walked him out to the side walk.
Even if he thought I was unsaved he made no attempt to share the Gospel. Not one verse.
Standing there across the street from Highland Park Baptist Church / Tennessee Temple I told Steve, this church has become lukewarm. It no longer serves the purpose of Christ. It has become desolate and a stumbling block. God is going to judge this church and if this church is found wanting GOD WILL CLOSE THESE DOORS.
Then I reached down and did something that stunned Steve.
I brushed the dust off my shoes and I brushed the dust of my clothes as Steve watched. Then I turned and walked away.

3 Years later the doors of The Highland Park Baptist Church / Tennessee Temple CLOSED FOR GOOD. Just a few years later the church building burned down to the ground.

That day after the incident I went home and wrote a scathing letter of rebuke to Steve, which I delivered to the church office the next day.
I showed the letter to my dad before I delivered it because my dad knew Steve. My dad only said one thing, “send it”.
A few days later after I delivered the letter to Steve’s office I begin to have conviction that I may have been to harsh in my rebuke. It certainly was not in the spirit of meekness, Galatians 6:1.
So, I wrote another letter to Steve but this time in the spirit of meekness I asked him to forgive me.
I never heard from Steve and I’ve never seen him since that day but I do hope he found some wisdom in that encounter as I did.

Dr Lee Robertson who founded Tennessee Temple always said, “everything rises and falls on leadership“. He was so right.
His words were prophetic for the school and church he help to build.
When I came back to Highland Park it was under a new pastor. This was probably the 4th pastor since Dr Lee had retired and later died.
I suppose it’s a good thing that Dr Lee didn’t live to see his beloved school close their doors.
A school that once had over 4,000 students in attendance each year now barely had 500 and an auditorium that held thousands at one time now only saw maybe a few hundred on Sunday morning.
The services were dry just going through the motions. No real joy of being in God’s house. No real sense of purpose for the ministry of God’s Work. Like most churches you see across the country today.
Jesus said in Revelation 2-3 that the church in the last days is lukewarm and unless God’s people repent he will remove their candlestick, Revelation 2:4-5.
The power of God is real. Revelation 3 says God opens and shuts doors.
God shut the doors on The Highland Park Baptist Church / Tennessee Temple Christian School. A testament to the judgement of God when you will not do His will to serve HIS PURPOSE and bring souls to Christ.

I had come back to God and was serving Christ but the lifestyle I had been living while I was running from God finally caught up with me and I spent 4 months in jail because of it. It was the best time of my life for God’s purpose those 4 months I spent in jail.

Fasting in prayer is when a servant of God puts away food and sometimes drink to quench the desires of the flesh to be closer to God in the spirit.
It is a time of deep solitude in prayer communing with God to allow the Holy Spirit to completely take over your mind, body and spirit so that God can use you for His will and glory. It is a time of testing the spirit of man to see if he is capable and willing to be used of God to achieve God’s work.
Jesus fasted for 40 days in the wilderness being tested of God.
Moses and the prophets also fasted for 40 days to draw nearer to God to be an instrument of God’s purpose.
In 1995 I found myself in jail doing four months time for being completely stupid. The reasons of my time in jail is not important but let me just say it was the best four months of my life.
Being raised in a Christian home with my dad a Baptist preach and my mom a Sunday school teacher and from attending a Christian school I knew the word of God.
Then at the age of 21 I turned my back on God which led me down the path to find myself in jail. I had already begin to turn my life around before I did my time but nonetheless I was in jail.
I begin to pray and to read my Bible and God begin to work in my life. Trust me, you know when God is working in your life and when he isn’t.
On November the 14th I decided to begin a fast to seek God and to pray. I wanted God to use my time in jail as a witness to the other inmates what God can do to change a person’s life.
Fasting in jail is not hard to do. If you have ever been in jail you know the food is not all that great.
When I started my fast it was just between me and God and I didn’t say anything to anyone about what I was doing but it didn’t take long for the other inmates to figure it out when at every meal I was giving my food tray away.
My fast began as a time of prayer and at the time I didn’t plan to fast for 40 days but as each day went by it became more of a testimony to my faith in God.
I had already done 30 days in the county jail but when I got transferred to the workhouse I began my fast the very same day.
In our county trustees were given work to do in the laundry of the county nursing home but there was a crew that did ground maintenance and I was assigned to that crew.
About the third day I was assigned to do maintenance at a section of the nursing home where I was alone all day and I even had a room in the basement with a locker where I could spend most of my time as there wasn’t really much work for me to do. Ever so often the director would come around and give me something to do but for the better part of the day I was alone.
For eight hours a day I was free. Free to walk around the grounds and enjoy the fresh air but I spent most of my time in my little room on my knees pouring my heart out to God.
I was told at noon to eat lunch in the cafeteria but I was fasting, so I would fill a styrofoam box full of food and take it back to the guys in my cell block.
Needless to say I became very popular with the guys in my cell block really quick.
The first two days of my fast was probably the hardest especially the second day. My body was craving to eat but my will to fast was persistent.
About the fourth day I was at my job and I was told to rake leaves around the building.
I was completely weak from not eating, so I would rake for five minutes and then I would have to sit down for a few minutes to regain my strength.
Around about the sixth day my cravings for food were completely gone and my strength came back and from that time on I was able to do my work with no problems.
God used me in ways I will not go into here but it was indeed the best time of my life. God became completely real in my life and He did things I could not have ever imagined.
I broke my fast on Christmas Day. I hadn’t planned for it to be on Christmas, it just happened that way.
40 days and it was an amazing time. I got closer to God and He revealed Himself to me through His Holy Spirit.
After doing so much time I was able to put in for an early release and when the day came for me to go before the judge I prayed God would release me but I also prayed that His will be done.
Now I was in jail under two separate judges. The judge I went before told me He was going to grant my early release but Judge Holcomb would also have to sign off on my release. Uh oh.
Judge Holcomb hated me. He knew me very well and so I knew that was the end of that.
They took me back downstairs and put me in a holding cell to wait for the van to take me back to the workhouse. It was a long corridor with cells on every side.
I was put in a cell alone and of course there was the usual roar of chatter coming from all the people in the other cells.
I remember across from me was a man who had killed his family. I don't remember the details but he sat in the corner with his head held down just staring at the floor. I said something to him but he didn't look up or say anything.
I begin to sing Amazing Grace as loud as I could sing. All of a sudden it got very quiet. Unusual for jail. I heard someone say, someone’s singing. A guard came by a couple of times to see what I was doing but I just sat on the floor of my cell and continued to sing. A little while later they came and got me to take me back to the workhouse. On the way back the driver asked me, did you get your release. Knowing judge Holcomb I said probably not but that’s ok. That just means God has more work for me to do where I’m at.
Now I didn’t know this but my dad was sitting in the back of the courtroom. He told me later that when the hearing was over he left and was on his way to his car and he thought to himself, well there isn’t anything more I can do.
He said all of a sudden someone said to him and of course we know who it was, the Holy Spirit. Said, yes there is something you can do. So he turned around and went back into the court house and went straight up to judge Holcomb's office. He asked the secretary if he could see the judge and she said yes and led him into the judge’s office.
My dad explained to the judge that judge Sherrril had already signed for my early release but I would not get my release unless he would also sign off for an early release. Did I mention judge Holcomb hated me.
My dad said judge Holcomb picked up a pen and said I am going to give Michael a break and he signed an order for me to be released. This was all taking place while I was sitting down in the basement singing Amazing Grace.
I should probably mention that every night at the workhouse preachers would come from different churches and hold services. The night before the hearing I was in service and the preacher whose name was Robert O’Neal, asked me to come up and lead the singing of “Amazing Grace”.
Oh what a wonderful song. God's Amazing Grace. How sweet the sound. That saved a wretch like me.
(Back to my story)
Meanwhile, I am on my way back to the workhouse. When I got back to the cell block I immediately went and got on the phone to call home to let them know I would probably not be getting out but that I was ok with it. I was happy where I was.
While I am on the phone I heard a guard say, Brumlow get your stuff you’re out of here.
I was free.
When I walked through the gate there was my dad waiting for me. With a smile on his face.

“Amazing Grace how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now I’m found, was blind but now I see”.

(This verse I learned in jail)
“The Lord has been so good to me, His word my hope secures.
He will my shield and portion be, as long as life endures”.

Later I learned this verse which says it all for me.
“My chains are gone I’ve been set free,
My God, my Savior has ransomed me.
And like a flood His mercy rains,
Unending love, Amazing Grace”.

Ask me what my favorite song is.

God is amazing if you will allow Him to work in your life. He will do things you would have thought were impossible.
When you are at the very lowest in your life feeling there is no hope. If you will turn it all over to Jesus He will show you what the power of God can do in faith and believing that He is able.
If God be for you, who can be against you.

God’s Amazing Grace is for whosoever will.

God is still working in my life and I give Him all the glory and praise.
God did not bring me this far to only drop me now.

That is not to say I haven’t had trials or failures in my life.
I have but He was there all the time.
Even when I fail Him He has never failed me.
There are times when I get discouraged, fall flat on my face or even want to give up. God picks me up, reminds me of who I am and where He has brought me.
He reassures me I am His own and that He will never leave me nor forsake me.
When I am disobedient he chastens me. I have to repent, regain my perspective and remember that I am bought with a price and that it is all for His glory and not mine. Even when I fail him He gets the glory for bringing me back in line and for restoring my faith.
I have overcome weaknesses in life but only by the grace of God and His patience. When I stumble He catches me and when I lose sight of His purpose He redirects me. He never lets me forget who I belong to and that without Him I would have no purpose for living. He reaffirms to me His love and for all my shortcomings His grace is sufficient.
He is my reason for living. God’s will be done in my life.
Praise be to the Heavenly Father for His unending mercy. To His son Jesus Yeshua my Lord and savior for His love and forgiveness. To the blessed Holy Spirit for His comfort, guidance and conviction.

I Corinthians 1:18 For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
19 For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
20 Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
22 For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:
23 But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;
24 But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
26 For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:
27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
28 And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:
29 That no flesh should glory in his presence.
30 But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:
31 That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.

Galatians 2:20
Galatians 5:13-26
Proverbs 11:30
Revelation 2:4-5
Revelation 3:15-22
II Timothy 1:7
II Timothy 2:15
Ephesians 6:10-20
John 3:16
Romans 1:16
Romans 3:23
Romans 6:23
Romans 5:8-9
Romans 10:9-10
Romans 8:1
Romans 8:38-39.
Romans 10:13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?
15 And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!
16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report?
17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.