I was a teenager when I came to faith in Christ, and I think it's special how God reached me. It's certainly special to me! I was a "churched" youngster. My parents sent me to Sunday School as a child, and we attended church with periods of faithfulness, then dry stretches of non-attendance. But I had an amiable relationship with God, I thought. I certainly had a belief in His existence, though He had little to do with my daily life. I don't believe I would have enjoyed it much if He HAD interfered too very much in my affairs.
I had a flair for music, a singer, but unfortunately chose the clarinet to play in the school band. My brother has been quoted as saying that no one, but NO ONE, except Benny Goodman, should ever attempt to play the clarinet. I'm sure his strong feelings come from my early attempts at getting sound from that stubborn instrument and its finicky bamboo reed. I finally gave it up and my parents bought me a guitar. I was 16 and eventually taught myself notes, then chords, then even picking. In 2 years I was adequate, and one of my high school teachers asked me to her apt. one evening for dinner, and to bring my guitar, as she played a bit as well.
I'm digressing a bit -- let me just say that she was a Christian and wanted to start a Bible Study in her home for students and faculty of my high school, and wanted me to be a part of it. You see, she thought I was a believer already, though I wasn't. The very first study it was all faculty and me -- and I received Christ as my personal Savior that very night. It was truly, for me, a trip from darkness to light.
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| Photo Copyright Associated Press |
About that same time, as God was speaking to my heart, enlightening the muddle of my mind to see His Truth, He was doing the same thing in a mind far superior to my own. He was at work in the heart and mind of a man named Charles Wendell Colson. Because we came to Faith around the same time, I've felt a kind of kinship with him over the years.
Charles Colson was President Nixon's "hatchet man", a term he coined to describe himself. I was just beginning to grasp politics, just starting to watch the evening news and trying to piece things together. The news was full of the Watergate Hearings, and the name Chuck Colson was like Satan, the man who said he'd walk over his own grandmother for Nixon. He was ambitious, was a liar, a crook, and had a heart of stone. So everyone I knew said.
What we did not immediately know was that God had taken hold of that "heart of stone" and was turning it to flesh. Sometimes we have to reach bottom to look up to God, and Colson had reached the bottom. A Christian friend had given him C.S. Lewis' book Mere Christianity to read, and it had a profound effect on Chuck. It turned him to belief and faith in God. It melted his heart and brought him to his knees. He was never the same again. Against legal advice, he pleaded guilty to the charges against him and went to prison for obstruction of justice. It was, he said, "a price I had to pay to complete the shedding of my old life and to be free to live the new."
His conversion was met with skepticism and mocking by the press and comediennes. These were, over time, largely silenced, when as a result of his prison term, Chuck Colson became involved in prison reform, founding The Prison Fellowship Ministries. He devoted the rest of his life to working on behalf of those behind bars around the world.
His Washington Post obituary notes: "The ministry he founded in 1976 grew into a worldwide movement with branches in more that 110 different countries....In addition to befriending prisoners and converting them to Christianity, Mr. Colson established a rehabilitation program that aimed to cut the recidivism rate..." (Washington Post, April 21, Michael Dobbs)
He also showed concern for the families of prisoners through his Angel Tree program, which makes sure that the children of prisoners have gifts for Christmas, even though one or both parents may be in prison, through donations of people like you and me.
I was very moved after I read Chuck's autobiography, Born Again, many years ago. He was a man who, unfortunately like many celebrities who become Christians, have every move, every stumble, broadcasted and examined by a skeptical public, and are so open to ridicule. How many of us, in our early days of faith could stand that kind of scrutiny?
The world lost a true giant of the Christian Faith when Chuck passed on to Glory and his reward. He was a man of real integrity. It's hard for me as I see some of the real powerhouses of God age and move on, and I wonder who of us will take their place. We are so into ourselves, and so lack the service and sacrifice of some of our elders, some of the "greats" of our past. It was hard for me to see Dr. James Kennedy pass on. I pray for Charles Stanley as now he sits down to deliver his messages, though I love and admire his son, Andy, and his ministry. But time marches on and I wouldn't deny these men the rest and reward they so richly deserve.
Charles Colson was a dedicated Christian man that I greatly admired. He was articulate, he was immersed in Scripture, and knew how to apply it to our daily lives. I loved his books, I loved to listen to his radio program, "Breakpoint", as he shared brief bits of Biblical wisdom, and how Scripture applied to our society today. He was a man who really "stayed the course."
It's not a course I would want. Prisons and prisoners scare me, and I'm wondering if I'm disobedient for not EVER visiting prisoners in prison!
"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thristy and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' Matthew 25:37 - 40
He was a man, I believe, who will hear as he stands before his Maker, Savior, and King:
"Well done, thou good and faithful servant."
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| Photo Pat Burdette |
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