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TH E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
Now a student at the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, the author of this article has learned some hard lessons. “ But I found out," he says, “how wonderful was the lore of God, even when ...
I Fled Him By BEN OWEN
and I was blamed with his death. My protestations of i n n o c e n c e of the charge fell weakly against the perjur ing testimony of the others who were banded against me. In the long weeks pending the trial, while I waited, a prisoner on a hospital bed, something wonderful had hap pened. I began to see the pattern of things. I needed no one to tell me the seriousness of my condition. I needed no one to tell me why it had come about. Like a kaleidoscope, the events of years formed themselves into brief, haunting pictures—years of self-will that had brought me to a narrow prison bed and a sentence ahead. I felt once more the spirit of bra vado that caused me, on the day of my graduation from Junior High School, to wear the red necktie with the in scription “We Want Beer” emblazoned upon it. Now, before I was out of my teens, there was embla^ned across the daily paper the headlines that told of the results of that self-will. I saw again the lad of fourteen that I was when I first felt the touch of Control—that which had been denied me in the educational process that had been mine where self-expression was developed rather than old-fashioned self-control. I had gone to a meeting in a large church in the city and there had heard the gospel of the Lord Jesus t C h r i s t presented. Recognizing my need, I went forward and accepted the Lord as my Saviour. What a difference my life might have shown had I heeded all His lead ing then! Young as I was, I knew the Lord was -calling me to preach His Word. But there was none to guide me. No attempt was made to win my life for service, no Sunday s c h o o l teacher attempted to enrojl me in her class, no young peoples’ worker invited
me to attend youth services. In such a large church I went unnoticed. And I took the line of least resistance. I drifted away, determining that the way of the Lord was not for me, and turned to the way of the world. Lfled Him. It was not surprising that trouble, even disaster, followed. Our home was broken by divorce and I was alone, “on my town,” still in my early teens with a background of unhappy homelife, divorce, and a drinking father. Flee ing the Lord and His will for me, I had found myself in serious trouble indeed. And yet, it'was the end of trouble, too. For I had reached the end of my self-will. Certainly I had wrecked things as far as I was con cerned. “O God,” I had whispered as I lay in the hospital. “ If You can make any thing out of the wreckage, I give in.” I didn’t see how He could ever make a minister of me, but when I said, “Yes, Lord,” I knew I was surrender ing my life to the preaching ministry. I had fled Him and His plans for my life until now. When I sought Him, He found me. I came back to .the courtroom surroundings as the attorney rested the case and the jury was charged. I knew now why I was untroubled. The peace I had was from God. Though I did not understand how He was to do it, I knew He had called me to the ministry and would lead me into it. I did not believe I was to die in the electric chair. There was an instant of^silence when the foreman of the jury gave the verdict, “Guilty.” I knew my three attorneys had not been able to make headway acainst the perjurv and mis- representai. ,n or material evidence of the others. But somehow I had not
^n r^H E LONG courtroom was dark with the January storm outside, 1 and it seemed to me the result ing gloom was in keeping with the occasion. I waited to hear the verdict in the trial for my life. It was nearing the end of the week of the second trial. The first jury had hung Itself. I glanced at this one, now, wondering what its decision would be. The prosecuting attorney was plead ing for the electric chair, as he had with the other jury. Through the maze of his harsh, accusing wgrds a sense o f unreality assailed me. I felt oddly aloof—almost unconcerned. True, there had been hours of keen mental suffer ing as I strove to grasp the full sig nificance of all that had happened to me, trying to remember just how much guilt had been mine. Hour after hour I had battled to pierce the fog of my memory, and recall the circumstances that had brought me here. It had been midnight, -on a dark street in the foreign sector of the city, and I had been drinking heavily—try ing to still the restlessness that was consuming me. Beyond that, I could remember but dimly: a girl, three men, a fight, the sound of shots—and then darkness. I came to in the prison ward of the hospital, near death from severe wounds, with a trial ahead of me—for one man had not survived the fracas,
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