PUSHING A ROPE

Have you ever wondered why certain religious individuals won't take 'no' for an answer? Many believe that it's up to them to 'save' people. To them, rejection of their message only indicates that the message didn't get through.

I was one of those 'pushy' people back in 1973. I believed it was up to me to convert people. Now I know better. Scripture actually says that the Holy Spirit is the one who opens the minds of those who hear the gospel.

In my How I Was Razed memoir, I wrote about how my wrong-headed desire to share my faith upset the caretaker at my high school.

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I offended the cleaning staff too. Since few students wanted my tracts and I often received taunts from my peers, I assumed that pasting the messages onto the door of my locker would be a more effective way to let people know about Christ. When I came to school the next morning, somebody had removed all the tracts. I replaced them but those vanished too. "What do you think you're doing? Don't you know that's not allowed?" the cleaning woman demanded as I pasted more tracts on my locker's door the third day.

"Isn't it? I didn't know that."

"You're not allowed to paste anything on your locker. It doesn't matter what it is. That's the rule."

"I thought it was just some mean kids who were taking them off."

"No. We have to remove them and it's a lot of work too. Imagine how ugly the place would look if we let you kids paste whatever you felt like on your lockers."

"I'm sorry about that. I didn't realize."

As I shuffled toward my next class, I hung my head. My evangelical zeal resulted in wasted tracts and extra work for the cleaning staff.

The rule extended to lamp posts by the school as well. Someone had removed the tract I pasted on it when I looked for it the next day.

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How I Was Razed is the testimony of the way I was mislead by a cult church, how I turned my back on God after I felt he perennially failed to heal my eyes, and how he graciously brought me to my senses.

My previous books are now available for purchase online by clicking here. You may click here to e-mail me directly as well.