In my old college days at Henderson State University preaching the gospel “instant in season, out of season” (2 Timothy 4: 2) was pretty much the norm for me. Some of the antics of evangelism a buddy and I pulled were things such as standing on the dining room tables and preaching and passing out gospel tracts as the students filed in to have supper. Yes, there were some wild times then. There were a couple of girls with whom I debated in the library. One girl was an avowed atheist and the other an agnostic. One day I suggested that we go for a ride in Jehu’s Chariot. That was my two-door 1950 Chevy Coup that my uncle James gave me for transportation in college. He had retired it from being his old fishing car and it was just sitting up. When he learned that I needed wheels, he got it running and told me if I would come get it I could have it. The door locks were missing, so I used a trim screw near the door lock hole and bent a piece of coat hanger around it and bent it over to go down into the hole to keep the door from flying open. You could see the road through the floorboard, and in the winter I bundled up to make the commute from Poyen to Arkadelphia because the heater did not work. It got to where it would not start too good, so I knew every inclined parking spot on campus and in Arkadelphia so I could get a roll going to start it. It was in this luxury ride that I was offering the girls to take a spin. The dam at Degray Lake had a gravel road across the top of it, then it went up the hill and a road veered off to the right. We were having a good time making dust over the dam and up the hill, when at the last moment I decided to make the right turn at about 40 or 50 MPH. Needless to say, amidst shrieks and screams we ended up pointed upwards on a large mound of piled gravel in front of a large tree. I then turned to the girls and asked, “So, now you believe in God?”
Well, they did not change their lives in that moment, but the lesson is this: when the chips are down, we often call out to God for help, when in smooth times we have our own ideas. When we understand that God has good things for us and that he is available to walk with us in those good things, then we can see clearly to trust him. Bad things ultimately come because of sin, flesh, and the devil. Good things come from God. When this gets twisted, so does everything else. It just makes good sense to make a life commitment to God through the Lord Jesus Christ and know good things now and forever.