These anecdotes of the life of this mighty Son of God, collected from various sources have been spread out on these pages for the reader to learn and understand how meticulously God had been shaping Bro.Lawrie for the high office He has chosen him for. These are but a small fraction of that inexhaustible life experiences and have presented objectively.
SURNAMED "PAULASEER" BY GOD:
At the Christening service, Bro.Lawrie's mother said his name should be Paulaseer. That this was to be the name she insisted, although there was no one in the family with such a name and no one knew the meaning of it either. On her request it was finally accepted and he was thus named.
Later in life the Lord spoke to him and quoted Isaiah 45:4 - "I have even called thee by thy name. I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me", and explained to him that his name was Paul, a seer - Paul, a Prophet. This Chapter refers pointedly to Bro.Lawrie, Verse-1 saying: "He is speaking to His anointed". It is evident that Cyrus was not the anointed; and also the meaning of Cyrus is "My Son". Isaiah 41:2 refers to Bro.Lawrie as being "the righteous man from the East, called him to his foot, gave the nations before him", and He told him that the 54th Chapter of Isaiah was "his ministry". Anyone with a knowledge of Bro.Lawrie's life at once recognized the aptness of this statement.
THE NEW NAME:
Whenever God spoke to Brother Lawrie audibly, he used the name, Paul. In the summer of 1967, while he was staying at the home of a friend in America, he awoke to hear someone calling him "Lawrie". He got up and asked his host what he wanted, as he thought he called him. His host assured him, that no one called him. A little later the same thing happened, and he again went and asked who called him, and was told again that no one called him. He then realized that it was the Lord and He was now calling him "Lawrie" instead of "Paul" which he used to. This has great significance for those who understand what the "new name" of Jesus is.
INVITATION TO DINNER:
At one time when he was very hungry, the Lord told him to sit on a particular stone and wait, which he did. Pretty soon a woman came and asked, "Are you the Apostle Paul?" When Bro.Lawrie answered in the affirmative, she said: "The Lord spoke to me in a dream and told me to come to this stone and ask Apostle Paul to come for dinner".
WAGER GOD ACCEPTED:
On one occasion in a Californian city where he was preaching out on the streets, a Muslim challenged Bro.Lawrie's statement that the Lord always supplied all his needs. The man said, "I will hold out my hand. If your Jesus drops 100 dollars into my hand, I will accept him as my God". At this the audience laughed. Bro.Lawrie prayed, Oh! Lord, don't let me down now". Just then a man came running from the opposite side of the street and dropped 100 dollars into the man's outstretched hand. The Muslim fell on his knees and accepted Jesus as His Saviour! It appears that the man who gave the 100 dollars had a dream the night before, in which he saw Bro.Lawrie; and the Lord told him to take 100 dollars and give it to him at that spot. Hence he had been waiting for an hour at that place, but on the other side of the road.
GIRDLE THE GLOBE WITH 50 CENTS:
In his first of the three world missionary journeys, he started with only 50 cents in his pocket. After visiting Scotland, England and Holland, God told him to go to America although he had no money at that time. They refused to book a passage ticket without his paying the money. He assured them that there would be money by the next day. They reluctantly booked the ticket. The very next morning Bro.Lawrie received a letter from a person in Persian Gulf who said he had been saved in one of his campaigns, and had enclosed enough money to pay for the ticket, much to the surprise of all those who doubted that he would have money as he had said.
ANGELS HIS GUARDIANS:
On one occasion a very strong and belligerent devil-possessed man came to the dais with the intent to beat Bro.Lawrie. When he came close, he saw an angel standing beside Bro.Lawrie. When Bro.Lawrie noted that the man was staring steadfastly at something on his right, he also looked there and saw the angel. Suddenly the man started screaming in pain and cried, "Please, please stop beating me. I will not harm your servant".
COLOUR BLIND:
Upon arriving at New York without any money at all that cold day, he passed a Church, the Glad Tidings Tabernacle, where there was nice singing. He went in but was thrown out because of his colour. Dejected he went to a park and sat on a bench, cold and shivering. In abject disappointment he started to reprove the Lord for permitting a world where the white people bear ill-will towards those of another colour.
Just then a man dressed in an ordinary business suit came and sat on the bench with him. Bro.Lawrie turned his back as he did not want to speak to any white man again. The man opened up saying, "You seem to be very angry". "Yes, I am very angry". "When I was on earth I was not a white man". So saying the man walked away in a fast pace. "Oh! Jesus, I didn't know that" said Bro.Lawrie and pursued Him. And then Jesus changed his suit to a robe, and Bro.Lawrie was now running at top speed but couldn't catch up with Him. Then Jesus turned and laughingly said again, "When I was on earth I was not a white man".
KNOW THY GOD:
Again on this same missionary trip, he was going in a cab. A stranger in ordinary suit stopped the cab and got in. He immediately asked Bro.Lawrie, "What is the name of your God?" Brother Lawrie fumbled for the proper answer saying, "Jehovah, Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost" and so forth. The stranger said, "Aren't you ashamed not to know your God's name?" And then in about 10 minutes, He opened the Bible and expounded the whole thing and said, "People have been fooled; Jesus Christ is His name". As Bro.Lawrie was looking at the Bible, the man stopped the cab and got out. Remembering that he had not thanked the man, he looked out; but there was no one there. He had completely disappeared. There was no building or anything where he could have gone. It was just open field on both sides. Yet he was nowhere to be seen. The cab-driver was so mystified that he looked under the car and he even raised the hood of the car and looked in. Later Bro.Lawrie realized who He was.
JESUS NEVER FAILS:
Time and again God came to the rescue of Bro.Lawrie from the strange predicaments he had been placed during the tenure of his ministry. Once he was called to attend an All India Pentecostal Convention and Conference at Lucknow, North India. Many of the pastors who attended the Conference got jealous of Bro.Lawrie for the great impression he was creating among the delegates and for the grace of God which he had in abundance. Some of them, especially those from South India, started to assassinate Bro.Lawrie's character as a drunkard and a thief. One man went to the extent of informing the police to keep a watch on Bro.Lawrie's activities. From then on Bro.Lawrie was not given much opportunity to preach or to take part in other activities. So he walked out of Conference along with another preacher from Ceylon.
Both had no money on them, and that being a far-off place, they had no hope of getting any financial help. After a while that friend too left Bro.Lawrie telling him he was going to join the Assemblies of God or some other group to get assistance. Bro.Lawrie, as usual, waited on God for His move, standing at a crossroad, praying, when a car stopped in front of him. A foreigner at the wheel greeted him, "Praise the Lord". It was Bro.Mark Buntain. After a few pleasantries he thrust some money into Bro.Lawrie's pocket saying that God wanted him to give that money. It was a great surprise to know that Bro.Mark Buntain was on his way to Calcutta and had no intention to go by that road at all. By such acts, God strengthened the faith of Bro.Lawrie.
PROTECTING POWER OF GOD:
In his life Bro.Lawrie had been in danger of death ever so many times, and the forces of evil tried to destroy him by various methods. Studying his life, one can only conclude that the powers of the dark and the powers of the Almighty God contended with each other unceasingly, the former trying to snuff the life out and the other protecting it and infusing more strength.
There is on record three different occasions when Bro.Lawrie was saved from the snakes which are very poisonous in this country. The first instance on record is when, as a boy, young Paulaseer was bitten by a snake at Mandapam. Paulaseer was going to Ceylon with his parents and they were forced to stay at this place, Mandapam for a night to comply with the embarkation regulations. As he was washing up at the water point outside the building, a snake bit Paulaseer in his leg. As the poison scoured up his leg, he ran to his father and reported to him of the snake bite and that he was feeling giddy. His father encouraged Paulaseer to trust in God and gathered everyone around and prayed, stretching out his hand. Within 15 minutes Paulaseer could feel comfortable, and subsequently the poison had no effect at all.
The second time was when he went out preaching at a place called Naranamozhi in Kerala. After a great evening of preaching and praising, Bro.Lawrie and a pastor Rev.K.J.Thomas, a strong man, were coming down the mountain side late in the night by a foot track. When they came to a place where the tracks branched, Bro.Lawrie, who was in the lead, was about to take the wrong track when Pastor Thomas from behind pushed him on to the proper track. In so doing the Pastor stepped on a cobra and was bitten. Had he not pushed, Bro.Lawrie would have been bitten by the reptile. The Pastor died that night of that snake bite.
At another time at Shencottah, Bro.Lawrie was a guest of a missionary of the Assembly of God there. As they were talking, someone came and reported that the waterflow through a conduit pipe had been blocked. They went out to see what could be done. Bro.Lawrie took a long stick and prodded inside the pipe and felt something soft clogging the passage. As he could not pry this out, he put his hand in to pull it out. It was something like rubber to feel. He repeatedly tried to get a hold of this object to pull it out, but failed. The gardener watching this put his hand in and dragged the object out, which turned out to be a cobra-a six footer-and it bit the hand of the man who held it. They killed the cobra but the man died within a few hours. Why the cobra did not bite Bro.Lawrie, when he was prodding the reptile with his hand trying to catch it, is a question God only can answer.
BIBLE SPEAKS GOD'S TRUTH:
Bro.Lawrie always venerated the Bible. It always speaks to him in many ways at everytime of his life. "I believe that the Bible is not an ordinary book but a living book, and it speaks if you read it in a real spirit, and are washed in the blood of Jesus. Don't take lightly of the Bible Verse", is the advice he gives to everyone. To quote a few incidents how the Bible spoke to him:
One day Bro.Lawrie was trying to join the Assemblies of God and was making arrangements to go to them, when the Bible fell off the rack. The Verse that caught his eyes as he picked the Bible up was, "Woe unto them that go to Egypt for help trusting their chariots..." -Isaiah 31:1. He took this as a bit of coincidence and went ahead with his plans. When he got into the train and as the train jerked forward, the shutter of the window fell on his hand with such a force that he cried out, "Lord, I won't join any denomination" and went back home.
During his first tour of Europe he wanted to cross over to America. He was trying to find out the will of God whether to fly or to go by ship, when a friend dropped his Bible to the floor. When Bro.Lawrie picked it up, his eyes fell on this Verse, "Ye shall not go in haste nor go by flight" -Isaiah 52:12, and he bought the ticket for the passage by ship as directed by the Bible Verse.
LIFE THAT PLEASES GOD:
With the exception of the Bible, probably the book which influenced his life the most during his earlier life was the book "THE LIFE THAT PLEASES GOD" by the late Harry W. Beach, U.S.A. This book was formerly published by Fred L. Page Publications, Montrose, Pa., U.S.A. Before his death, Bro.Page offered to Bro.Lawrie complete rights of the book and he has consequently had the first volume of it printed, and has distributed it free of charge to all who asked for it. In an intensive search for just what kind of a life really pleases God, the author reviews the lives of the most famous godly men of the Bible in a most absorbing study and finally comes out with the answer to the question, "What is the life that pleases God?" The answer: "The Life that glorifies God through VOLUNTARY DEPENDENCE upon Him". This great truth has not been grasped by the average Christian, but to Bro.Lawrie it opened some great secrets about God which he incorporated into his own life and service to God.
GLORY IN TRIBULATION:
Also another little known book that Bro.Lawrie likes was the "Life Testimony of Madam Guyon", a French woman of the 16th century who was a Catholic and of a wealthy family. This woman was persecuted cruelly by the clergy and reduced to humble and degrading circumstances, but she gloried in her tribulations and hardships. She was a beautiful woman but when she had an attack of smallpox, her face was terribly disfigured, and she was happy about it because she realized that she had pride in her beauty. The whole story is that of complete submission to God, and along with Paul, she gloried in her infirmities and trials. This book was helpful to Bro.Lawrie as he was also going through a life of hard trials, persecution and hardships through which God was training him for the great destiny and position which he is soon to assume as the judge and ruler of the world forever.
WAGES OF DISOBEDIENCE - PUNISHMENT:
The Lord requires of us implicit obedience. At one time the Lord told Bro.Lawrie not to leave the Ashram till the 1st of January. In a bid to be clever with God, he suggested he could go on December 31st instead and made preparations. The Lord got annoyed by this disobedience and punished him by almost a great disaster. It so happened that his son wanted petrol and he drained it from the Jeep; and a servant boy brought a paraffin lamp near the jeep which caught fire.
Like Jonah of old, Bro.Lawrie disobeyed the Word in accepting to speak in the C.S.I. Church at Bangalore on Christmas Day. He was flying in a plane from Madras. Soon after taking off, the plane developed engine trouble. The Pilot warned the passengers of crash-landing in case he could not take them back to Madras.
A few seats away was Sis.Goebels, a German Missionary lady from Switzerland. She enquired Bro.Lawrie where he was going and on what business. Bro.Lawrie told her of his engagements as the main speaker in a C.S.I. Church at Bangalore. Immediately the lady flared up and shouted, "How can you do that? You are not supposed to do that according to the Word. The plane is in trouble because of it". Picked in the heart, Bro.Lawrie knelt and prayed for forgiveness, promising not to do it again. Just after a few moments the intercom conveyed the message of the pilot that the trouble was under control but yet they were heading back to Madras for checking and refuelling. On reaching Madras, there was a radio message from Bangalore awaiting Bro.Lawrie enquiring whether he would be available for speaking or not. He declined because God was against it.
FISH AIR-DROPPED:
One day when Bro.Lawrie and his wife were away on one of their missionary jaunts, the children pestered, their guardian for fish. She had no money, and so she told them, "You go and pray for fish. I don't have money to buy". The children huddled together and prayed, "Lord give us fish. Daddy has left us and gone". Soon after, when they came to the door-step, a pretty large fish dropped near their feet! A kite had dropped it there! This way the children of Bro.Lawrie too had been trained by God in faith life. They are a great asset in the ministry of Bro.Lawrie. They assist him in singing, interpreting, helping in administration and in many other ways.
PICK POCKET THE PICK POCKET:
Something more than a miracle happened to Bro.Lawrie once. He had taken his youngest son to Moore Market, Madras for an outing to the youngster. They had ice-cream from a bar. After paying out from the purse, they walked over the stalls in the Market to buy a watch strap. When Bro.Lawrie put his fingers into his pocket to pull out his wallet to pay, he found it missing. Just a few minutes before he had it while paying the ice-cream vendor. Then Bro.Lawrie remembered that as they were walking towards the watch strap stall, someone out of the crowd jabbed him in the ribs. It pained him then but he took it as an inadvertent elbow thrust in the jostling crowd. It struck him now that it was part of a pick-pocket's plan to relieve him of the purse.
Apart from what he had in the purse, Bro.Lawrie had no money on him. He told his son the predicament they were in, and that they would have to walk back home. The little lad so disappointed, blurted out, "Daddy, you told us that God hears the prayer. Why can't you pray that He send an Angel to pick-pocket that pickpocket?" Immediately Bro.Lawrie prayed for the purse and walked away with his son in tow, with the small cash he was kindly given by the watch-strap dealer.
Reaching home Sis.Lawrie asked her son how he enjoyed the outing. As he was narrating what had happened, Bro.Lawrie went into his room, and there he found the purse - the very same red purse, which he had lost to a pick-pocket - on the table! How could this purse come home and be on the table - a distance of 15 miles from the place it was last seen, is a mystery.
GOSPEL WORK WITH A DIFFERENCE:
Strange are the ways of God. That is how Bro.Lawrie too felt when he told him to take 50 gospels and catch the train bound for a certain destination. When Bro.Lawrie made a feeble protest that he was not a book seller and not used to such kind of gospel work, He told him to pick up the 50 gospels and go. So he boarded the train, carrying the gospel and did not even know where he was being sent. When the train halted at a station, a wedding party of about 50 people got into the compartment. A middle, aged woman came and sat near Bro.Lawrie. As the train moved, this woman started to shiver with frenzy and screamed that she was possessed of a goddess which would be leaving her that day. Bro.Lawrie questioned her what the matter was with her. She again said, "I have a goddess in me and that goddess is telling me that she will be leaving me today". When she was kicking up a tantrum, Bro.Lawrie shouted, "In the name of Jesus, I command you, get out of this body". Immediately she fell down unconscious. Everyone crowded around the woman in amazement. After a few minutes she got up completely sane. Fear fell on all the passengers, who bought the gospels he was carrying, and thanked him and promised to follow Jesus in their everyday lives.
MOCKER BEFOOLED:
God had never allowed His servants to be insulted or befooled either. From Vellore he wanted to go Madras by train, but had no money to buy the ticket. It was very important that he should go that day. As usual, with faith he got to the railway station. There he met a pastor who was also going to Madras. The pastor knowing Bro.Lawrie's predicament started cracking jokes at him saying, "If God should be with you, He would have provided you with a ticket, knowing your urgency to reach Madras!" All the time Bro.Lawrie was praying. The train would be steaming off in about five minutes and there seemed to be no one who would come forward to help him out. The Pastor mockingly offered to give his ticket to Bro.Lawrie. Then they saw some one running towards them shouting, "Anyone going to Madras? Here's a ticket". Bro.Lawrie asked for it and when he took it, it was a first class ticket! The man who gave the ticket told Bro.Lawrie not to bother to pay him. This way right in front of the man who tried to belittle His servant, God honoured him by providing him a ticket for a higher class, whereas the pastor who jeered travelled by the lowest class.
THE POWER OF DISCERNMENT:
At one stage of his early ministry, Bro.Lawrie was gifted with a great power of discernment where he could see vividly actual acts of various persons as if watching a movie in colour, very similar to modern colour television.
This gift manifested strongly at meetings he held, and he gained a great name for this for a while. Then the gift was suddenly taken from him, and for many years he was deeply concerned that he had lost this power. He wondered if there was something in his life which displeased God. Some of this followers even accused him that there must be some sin in his life to bring about the loss of this power. This caused him to worry over the years until at last God came down into him at Chicago at the time of the Moon-landing. Then he realized that God had removed the power of discernment and had given him a much greater ministry.
THEY GAVE HIM POISON:
While preaching in the Village of Nazareth, Bro.Lawrie spoke of the Holy Spirit, a subject in which the Churches have serious difference of opinion with him. His vehement preaching on this subject so infuriated one of the pastors that he planned to kill him, and he instigated a local woman to poison him. So, one day, as Bro.Lawrie was passing by her house, this woman called him in and offered him a glass of milk. Soon after he drank the milk, he felt giddy; and by the time he reached home, he was retching violently and vomited so much that he suspected having contracted the deadly disease, cholera. All the time he was praising, when suddenly the voice of God spoke and said, "You have been poisoned by such and such woman but I have protected you. You will be healed". Immediately he vomited something like a black pouch, and on scrutiny they found all the poison in it.
GOD CARES:
Somehow or other Bro.Lawrie's father could not be won over to his son's conviction and belief's and they were always pulling apart. When Bro.Lawrie and his brother were conducting a campaign at Vaigai Dam, about 150 miles away from the Ashram, Bro.Lawrie heard the Lord saying that his father expired in a hospital and that they must wind up the campaign and rush home. On the way they came to the Ashram to collect money for the funeral ceremony. That being a Sunday, there was no chance of realizing any money. While they were still in a dilemma, the telephone rang. The message was that Bro.Lawrie's father died the previous night - a thing they had been told by God earlier! As Bro.Lawrie has strict orders from God not to borrow money, their going to Nazareth was bleak, but the circumstances were such that they must go. Just then a gentleman walked into the Ashram to repay a loan he had taken from Bro.Lawrie three years back! That is how God meticulously cares for this great man. They could go to Nazareth and give their father a respectable funeral.
HE CARES FOR LITTLE COMFORTS TOO:
The Lawries were conducting a meeting at a place called Chingamputur, Kanyakumari District. Temporarily they were putting up in a house where they could retire late in the night after the meetings. They could not get proper sleet at this place because of a rat which frisked here and there and disturbed the night. They tried to get this pest away but everytime it returned, five minutes after they went to the bed. The only thing that was left to them was to tell God, "Lord, remove this nuisance from here, as we can't sleep". Before they could finish the sentence, they saw a cat pouncing on the rat and carrying it away. From where the cat materialised is again a mystery. It just came off from the corner.