Both of my parents smoked until I was 17.   They both quit at the same time and were successful in breaking their addictions to nicotine.   However, it was 5 years too late for me.   At age 12 I stole cigarettes from the packs lying around the house and started my own habit.   I remember the first time I inhaled,  I got dizzy and thought I was going to be sick but continued until I was 30 when I was smoking two packs a day.   I was a "greaser" or a "hood" in my teen years.   It was cool to have your cigarettes rolled up in your T shirt sleeve or in your socks, if you were sneaking them into the movie theatre or other places where you weren't supposed to smoke. 

As I got older I, on several occasions, decided to quit smoking.   This always involved at least one other person and included a bet.   I've lost lots of dollars, cigarette lighters and who knows what else in this process as I could never lick the habit.   I could go 2 or 3 weeks or even a month but would eventually succumb to the addiction.   We didn't call it addiction back then.   It was a habit.   Most people now probably know the difference. 

I was born again on December 13, 1970 but I continued smoking until sometime during 1972.   I'm usually pretty good at remembering dates when significant things happen in my life but this one didn't register.   Probably because of the circumstances.  

One afternoon I lit up a cigarette and I had a mental image of Jesus striking a match on his sandal and lighting a cigarette.   He tilted his head back and blew smoke rings.    I kind of shook my head, as if I could shake out the vision, as it didn't look right.   I blew it off.  The next morning, when I was dropping my sons off at the sitters, I lit up the last cigarette in my pack and saw the same vision.   This made me angry.   I wadded the empty pack and threw it in the trash can and, whether out loud or just in my mind I don't remember, said "God, If you want me to quit smoking you're going to have to do it because I don't want to.  I enjoy it.  It relaxes me".   I went to work.   This was 7:30AM. 

That night, when I got home from work and slid into my easy chair, about 9PM as I recall, it hit me like a bomb... I hadn't reached for or even thought of a cigarette.   The addiction was totally gone and, although occasionally the smell of a cigarette smelled good, I have never had the desire or temptation to smoke again.  I understand deliverance.  Why did He deliver me?   I'm not sure.  It may be that I had been asked, by my pastor, to teach a Sunday school class of 11 and 12 year old boys.   Maybe I was on the verge of cancer.  I will ask Him when I get to heaven.  

I do know this - a couple of years ago my son Vince told me he was in a grocery store checking out.   The clerk thanked him calling him by his last name.   A man behind him asked him if he knew me.   He said, 'Yes, he's my dad".   The man proceeded to tell Vince that he is the pastor of a church and has been in the ministry due to some things I taught him in Sunday school.   Wow!  Unfortunately Vince did not get his name so if you are reading this, please contact me.

Sometimes I am slow on the uptake and it wasn't until this past March (2004) that I really understood what happened back in 1972.  I was going through an annual physical at the VA clinic.   My doctor is a Christian.   She asked me if I smoked.   I told her not since 1972.  I told her how it happened.   She said it gave her goose bumps.  She said, "Although you were angry, you submitted to His authority and gave Him permission to remove the addiction". (Loosely quoted).  I had never thought of that.   Although it was against my will, I was submitting.  Then He delivered me. 

I remember one night at the rehab house, where I was employed, an incident happened that created controversy.   One of the residents had left the program and was drinking heavily.   I was teaching a class when I heard this.   I asked one of the residents to stand in for this brother and asked all the others to gather around him and lay hands on him.   I told them we were going to pray that God would bring this brother back into the program.  One of the men got angry and said he wasn't going to participate.  He said God doesn't do things against a person's will.  I thought of my own experience.  I had talked to this brother many times and believed he was in the same kind of predicament I had been in years ago. We prayed that God would do whatever was necessary to bring this brother back in so he could continue to work on his recovery.  Within two weeks he showed up and reentered the program.  

If you want to know how persistent God is, read the full account of Jonah and the whale (Jonah 1:1 - 4:9).