7. My Story: Romance, Money, and Much Mercy
Ithink by the age of thirteen, romance became the biggest thing in my life—right up there with sports and making money. The first girl I dated became my steady girlfriend. I think after dancing lessons we went to see Quo Vadis, and only eternity will tell what kind of influence that film had on my young life. Around that same time, dear Mrs. Clapp, who lived across from my high school, put my name on her “Holy Ghost Hit List,” not only praying that I would become a Christian but also a missionary. Wow, she did not even discuss this with me! I actually had other plans for my life. I was already in business and that’s where I was headed.
This amazing girl, Lynn, was a good influence on me. She went to a Baptist Church and I had no idea what that was. I remember her showing me the baptistry, which seemed really strange. I got to know and appreciate her parents, and they all were a good influence in my life. After we broke up there were so many different girls who blew my romantic circuits, and I moved, in a small way, into the world of pornography and lust. At the same time the gospel of John, sent by Mrs. Clapp and her son Danny, broke into my life, and in my semi-liberal Reformed Church I had a godly Sunday school teacher, Fred Gnade, who was to become a lifelong friend.
A Billy Graham Crusade on March 3, 1955, made all the difference. That night I was born from above and everything began to change. I was new to the family of God and soon discovered how much its values and lifestyle differ from the world’s principles. It seemed I was no longer allowed to kiss or dance, but I did not find any verses on that, so I kept doing both.
I was now seventeen and had my own car, a Henry J (wow, that really dates me!). As a senior in high school I fell head over heels for a girl who was younger and went to an Episcopalian Church. God was pursuing me big time as I was in the Word and starting to evangelize the high school where I had been elected president of student council.
Around that same time, I did a really stupid thing. Parked off the road, and sort of in the woods, my girlfriend and I started kissing. As I began having ideas about what might come next, the police banged on the window, and in my panic I backed the car into a ditch. That was the worst night in my teenage years; her dad came to rescue us and, maybe due to his having had a few drinks, accused me of things we did not do. As you might guess, that relationship was soon over.
Then it happened again, only this time it was in a church parking lot and it brought an end to wild romance in my life. I am sure it’s because people were praying. I decided on a “cold turkey fast,” with no dating and no kissing. This went on for almost two years. Then I met Drena, who became my wife.
Though I originally chose to go to Maryville College, partly because they had dancing after lunch every day, I never danced or dated there. Rather, it was there that much of the early growth in my Christian life took place. I was on fire for Jesus. Every extra hour I had I was out in evangelism or praying, reading the Word, or going to a Christian meeting. In an amazing way a Baptist pastor in a country church let me preach. Then the door opened for ministry in the Blount County Jail, which opened the door when I was only 18 to share at the Nashville State Penitentiary. Great books came into my life like Passion for Souls by Oswald Smith and Through Gates of Splendor by Elisabeth Elliot and many more. I was greatly impacted doing a correspondence course on how to lead people to Christ. When that same Baptist pastor took me to my first mission conference down the road in Chattanooga, I was never the same again. As I found out about more nations and how so many were unreached, the vision for reaching them (especially the Muslims) began to grow in my heart and mind. When I started to realize that finance was urgently needed, I starting selling everything I could and gave the money to world missions. I got a job waiting on tables in the college restaurant in order to be able to give more.
It was during this period we first went to Mexico in the summer of 1957. I was soon speaking basic Spanish and the impact of what I saw caused me to want to leave the liberal arts at Maryville College and go to Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. I especially wanted to live and evangelize in the big city. I’d had a taste of it near my home when I went distributing thousands of tracts in the subway in New York City and then I got involved in the famous Billy Graham campaign in the summer of ’57 just before we went to Mexico. I even preached in the streets there.
Arriving at a place like Moody was a big shock, especially seeing so many attractive girls. I must have been infatuated with several in the first week, but I kept my romance fast. Looking back, I wonder if I had tried to kiss one if they would have hit me with their big King James Bible. Of course Moody had a strict rulebook, so I never had to find out.
One day passion for evangelism led me to get a film from the Moody Institute of Science office up on the 7th or 8th floor—and that walk up the stairs changed my life. Drena was sitting at the desk in charge of that office. When I saw her, my romantic circuits blew and I broke my fast, moving in on the target. For me it was love at first sight, but as soon as I said something rather stupid, for her it was fright at first sight. But she did agree to meet. That’s when I told her, “Well, nothing probably is going to happen between me and you, but if anything did, like say marriage, you need to understand that I am going to be a missionary and you probably will be eaten by cannibals in New Guinea.” How she eventually agreed to marry me is a long story, including a difficult summer together in Mexico City, then leaving her behind when we all went back to Moody. This led to my best Mexican friend falling in love with her and phoning me up to ask if that was okay. Wow, this led me to serious fasting and prayer. After a phone call with Drena, she was soon on a long bus journey back to Chicago. Phew!
In all this I was deeply convicted of my lack of practical love and sensitivity. Drena was discovering herself and her deep emotional needs. Our engagement might have broken if it were not for a deep experience she had with Jesus in the quiet of her own room, as she understood something of the all-sufficiency of Christ. This also led to a healing experience of some physical symptoms that had bothered her for a long time.
We will never forget that big day, January 31, 1960, when we got married. We did not have anything fancy (Keep in mind that Drena’s stepfather Henry was not a Christian. The story of his conversion to Jesus many years later is something we will always thank God for). We had the marriage ceremony right after the Sunday morning service of Lake Drive Baptist Church. They did not have their own building, so this was in a school gymnasium. Walter Borchard was my best man. A bus came up from Chicago with our friends, mainly Moody students. Dale preached a powerful message at the reception mentioning that the main thing they could do for us was pray as we probably would sell all the gifts for world missions. How I wish we had not lost the old reel-to-reel tape with that message.
Back around 1970 I was going to write a book about marriage and had the title The Revolutionary Marriage and even had an outline. But the truth is that then I needed to learn more about making our own marriage work before writing about it. So now that that time has come in part, here are some of the lessons I learned along the way:
Base it on the Bible. This has been the practical foundation of our marriage, always wanting Christ at the center of everything. Living on the floor in the back of our Mexico City bookstore was bringing some challenges and I was to learn fast that marriage was really God’s PhD program in sanctification. We read “Revival in the Home,” one of the chapters in Calvary Road by Roy Hession and learned more about brokenness, humility, and the Spirit-filled, crucified life. Over all these years, again and again I knew I had just the right person to be my life partner, and by His grace we have been totally faithful to one another. From the Bible we saw no other alternative.
Think differently about love. We write, preach about, and try to practice 1 Corinthians 13 along with other scriptures as the foundation for our marriage. I especially tend toward insensitivity and God has had to break and deal with me. Impatience has also been a problem throughout my life. Thankfully, the miracle of grace that set me free from anger in the earliest days of my walk with God has been a major factor in our walk together and in my leadership of the movement. There were still occasional failures that had to be quickly repented of, and to this day I feel sad about the times I hurt my wife and later my children with a burst of anger or an unkind word. Arriving in England from Spain, where our first son Benjamin was born, was a big step for us. At that time I read Seven Deadly Sins by Billy Graham, and how I thank the Lord for that book. I used to read his radio sermons all the time as a young Christian. Other books by him, like Peace with God and The Secret of Happiness, were all keys in laying a spiritual foundation in my life.
God owns everything. Our desire to reach people with God’s Word both locally and around the world, combined with starting a whole new missionary movement, always brought financial pressure. These challenges gave me a zeal that God seemed to use, but that also seemed to confuse some people—including my own wife. I emphasized Luke 14:33: In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples. That challenge had already led us to sell most of our possessions. Others followed us in this but it sometimes led to being judgmental of those who seemed to be wasting money. We needed the balance that Philippians 4:19 would supply. We were starting to learn more about the mystery of how things that seem so good can have a dark side. Gray started to come into our more black-and-white world and has been on the increase ever since. Can you guess why the last verses of Romans 11 have been so important to us?
Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?”
Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay them?”
For from him and through him and for him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.
Prayers sometimes go unanswered (and sometimes they get answered). The biggest mystery as we moved down the marriage road was seeing so much unanswered prayer, even in areas that are hard to talk about. We started to battle large attacks of discouragement and disappointment. The years with three children living in India, the years in Kathmandu, Nepal, and then on the OM ship Logos gave us endless opportunities to learn and grow together. I felt Drena’s help and affirmation through it all and remember very few complaints even in the heat of the battle. Depression somehow came into Drena’s life in the mid-70s, which took us all by surprise. A woman confronted me during that time pointing out that I was probably part of the problem. God broke me and showed me changes that needed to take place in my own life, including the way I behaved as a husband and father. After a year, Drena came out of this dark period and it never came back. We are sad at the simplistic answers some Christians gave to these complex illnesses and, in my view, misguided teaching on healing (although I do believe God heals) has hurt more people and the body of Christ as a whole more than we will ever know.
Criticism will come. Handling criticism is an important part of leadership and I sometimes found it difficult and felt personally hurt. I never heard much criticism of our marriage or my wife, but we found it hard to handle what we did hear, often second-hand. A major part of leadership and your walk with God will be tested to the core when your marriage is criticized. In God’s mercy, I am sure some of the worst gossip and criticism we never do hear, especially if you’re in the fast lane trying to evangelize the whole world. I was greatly blessed by always having people like Dale Rhoton and Peter Maiden and others, who I know often came to my defense. It is much harder for leaders who do not have such faithful friends and coworkers. As I look back I realize I learned so much from my critics and from close friends who would walk in the light with me about something they saw in my life and ministry that needed change. God showed us from His Word and other books that it is not possible to do anything without criticism. We always tried to love our critics and ask God’s blessing on them. We were never surprised at the power of gossip. The truth is that we were/are happy and fulfilled most of the time, and right into these unique senior years when many things change—especially in the area of health. We are blessed to have so many people praying for us, and some of you who are reading this are in that category. We thank you with all our hearts and hope you will keep on praying.
Balance is key. Balance became one of the most important words in our lives. Balance between work and family. Balance between taking in and giving out. Balance between giving and receiving. Balance in terms of going the extra mile to reach more people and slowing down to have family fun together. In my old Bible I had a couple of lists that were working for balance.
Children and grandchildren always help bring about change in your life. We are thankful to God for our three children, five grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. We love them and try to be the best parents (and now grandparents) we can be. We have wonderful and amazing times together, including trips, holidays, and vacations.
And we are very aware of failure and realize the subtlety of what I now call unrealistic destructive idealism. When we set unrealistically high goals as we have, we will fail. Some non-Christians would not even think of some of these things as failures. This is why books like Philip Yancey’s What’s So Amazing About Grace? have been so important to us. And what about the breath of fresh air from the Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning? In those early days especially, legalism had entered our movement and also our home and damage was done. We now have to practice 1 Peter 5:7 and cast it upon Him, accepting His forgiveness. Without radical forgiveness, radical discipleship will never work.