Anyone but Jesus - Barry McGuire (with testimony)

Music Legend Barry McGuire Shares Personal Struggles, Spiritual Breakthrough with Bi-polar Disorder
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His highly gifted son, for whom he wrote the famous song "Bullfrogs and Butterflies," is afflicted with the disorder.
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(Irvine, CA)—Barry McGuire is an American singer-songwriter best known for the hit song Eve of Destruction, and later as a singer and songwriter of Contemporary Christian Music. He became a born-again Christian in 1971 after a brief encounter with evangelist Arthur Blessitt. In the 1980s, McGuire left the music industry, and settled for a time in New Zealand with his New Zealand wife Mari (former secretary of McGuire's Agape Force associate, Winkie Pratney).
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Barry McGuireAnyone who knows Barry McGuire is always struck by his incredible personality and joyful persona but, on this occasion, he shared with me about one of the most difficult periods of his life—when he discovered that his son, Brennan, who was born in Anglesey, North Wales, had Bi-Polar Disorder.
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"At first, we didn't know it," said Barry. "We just thought that Brennan had behavior problems, but then, as he grew older, his mood swings would go from super volcanic angry to weeping tender when he would say, 'I'm so sorry.'
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"Then when he was twenty-one years old, he had his first psychotic break and he was diagnosed as having Bi-Polar Disorder. We understood then what was going on and then it was the march of trying to find out what kind of medication you know would stabilize his brain chemistry in a way that he could actually function on a semi-normal level.
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"But what it does is that it takes the fire out of them. He is an awesome concert pianist and writes the most phenomenal music you've ever heard in your life, but since he's been on his meds the fire's gone out of his piano and the passion is gone. And he misses that, and he longs for that, and yet he realizes that that is the price he would have to pay."
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McGuire then said, "So many artists are that way. For some people, it's OK and it doesn't bother them; their mania works for them and they don't go over the line. However, Brennan goes so far over the line he leaves this universe and he's no longer a part of our time and space continuum. So he has to be medicated or he's in a rubber room."
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[Asked if he ever got angry at God about his son's condition, McGuire conceded he did and shared an incident in which he got a call from his wife while he was performing in Ireland that his son was strapped to a gurney at a psychiatric hospital in the U.S.]
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"The very boy that I wrote Bullfrogs and Butterflies for is right now locked up," said McGuire, remembering the incident, "strapped down to a gurney and with his brain shut down on Thorazine drooling from his mouth.
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"I said, [to God] 'Where's Your healing power? It either works or it doesn't work. There's no two ways about it. You throw the switch and the light is on and you can then throw it off and it turns off.' That night I said, 'Forget it. I'm out of here. I'm gonna walk away for all of this.'"
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Barry said that this occurred about fourteen years ago, and after he calmed down, he told me, "Then I thought, 'well where would I go? Would I go back to live like I used to and dive back into that septic tank of filth and immorality and debauchery that God pulled me out of?' I thought, 'Man, I can't do that.'
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"Then I thought about my years in Christ and what God had done in my life and the transformation that has taken place within me. I realized what Peter said which in essence was 'Where would I go? You're the only One. There's no life outside of Christ.'
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"And I thought, I know that to be true through my own experience, so I began to think about when Jesus first started His ministry and He said, 'Follow Me.' And when He finished, He said, 'Abide in Me.' And that was my moment that I knew that if I was going to follow Him, I had also to abide in Him. And to 'abide' in Him means to live in Him and for Him to live in me.
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"So, on that night in Ireland I said, 'OK God, I'll never ask You for anything again. Do with me as You will.' And, so from that night that is when I totally surrendered my life to Christ and it was no longer my will, but Thy will be done.
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"From that day onwards, I let go. I have no agenda. I have no plan for the future. All I have is this moment with you here and this microphone, this conversation, and I don't know what God's gonna bring next. A seven-forty-seven could come right out of the sky. We don't know what the next moment [will bring]."