For many years, I could not stand to be around Christians. I hated to see those smiling faces. I just knew they couldn’t be happy all the time.
My childhood was unhappy. My mom and dad divorced when I was 6 years old. I remember them always fighting, and my mom crying at night after the police escorted my dad out of the house. My mom and we three children were left in a farmhouse with no heat and a bank repossession letter on the door, telling us to move.
The Christians I knew were counterfeit. They smiled but never helped, even after my dad left. Instead, my grandpa and grandma took us in. Mom got a decent job as a secretary in a factory, and my brother and I got jobs as kids to pay our own way. I delivered newspapers. When I was 12, I started washing dishes in a restaurant and cleaned a slaughterhouse.
Getting into the working world introduced me to different people, and I made new friends who were not good for me. The Bible says bad company corrupts good manners, and it’s true. I was a good boy who went bad — and fast. I finally had plenty of money, but that didn’t keep me from being miserable.
Still, I knew some people who didn’t have much materially but always had smiling faces and seemed genuinely happy. They seemed to like me and never judged me, and I was comfortable around them for some reason.
All these people wanted to do was to help me, and I began to think that they ay be right when they told me I just needed Christ. Before, there was no way I thought Jesus could be the answer because everything associated with God and Christianity had been so bad in my life. But these people planted the seed that got me thinking that Christ could be what I needed as my life sank further into the sin issues I was dealing with.
While battling sin and thinking about where my life was headed, one night it all finally came together. I knew I needed to come to Christ.
After a series of events, on June 14, 1977, at 11:30 p.m., I knelt on a sidewalk in Akron, Ohio, and asked Jesus to forgive me and take control of my life. I was 21 years old. On that night, 2 Corinthians 5:17 became real: “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away: Behold, all things are become new.”
Starting that night, God changed all my desires. I became one of those smiling face people.
I loved to go to church, something I never did before. I loved fellowship with believers and studying God’s Word. A year later, my pastor told me about the Word of Life Bible Institute, and I decided I wanted a deeper walk with the Lord. I wanted to get grounded, and God led me to join the Class of 1979.
I never preregistered for the Bible Institute. My pastor told me that if God was leading me, Word of Life wouldn’t send me home. My Bible study small group at home had a going-away party for me and handed me an envelope with enough cash to pay my way. I knew God’s hand was on me.
I drove 533 miles in a junk car with no heat to get to the Bible Institute, and I was so happy. I showed up the day before class — campfire night.
That year, I became grounded in God’s Word, and 34 years later, I still have my verses down. They stay with you, and you’ll always use them.
I met the love of my life when working in the dish pit at the Bible Institute: Beverly Garber, now Beverly Duma. We’ve been married 32 years and have five sons, three daughters, and seven grandchildren. Three of our kids — David, Bryan, and Sarah — are Bible Institute graduates, and two grandsons — Daniel and Michael — are attending right now.
As for Beverly and me, we are stewards of a family business in Ohio. That is our ministry. We are called to support the Lord’s work and meet the needs of our employees. I also serve as a Sunday school teacher and elder at Maranatha Bible Church.
You cannot know the will of God unless you know the Word of God. God’s will is in His Word.
It was God’s Word that has shaped my life to where it is now, and it is God’s Word that can change your life, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment