How Now Shall We Live? by Charles Colson & Nancy Pearcey
Author:Charles Colson & Nancy Pearcey
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Non-Fiction, Spirituality, Classics, Philosophy, Religion
ISBN: 9780842355889
Publisher: Marshall Pickering
Published: 1999-09-01T00:00:00+00:00
DANNY BEGAN WEARING a cross. He walked the cellblocks with a spiritual strut, a pugnacious witness to the truth he had found. He pumped along with a new confidence, asking everyone he met to come to chapel. Some prisoners even took a step back when he passed, as if he would slam them against a wall if they didn't become Christians.
Inside, Danny resolved that he wouldn't take any abuse for his new convictions. They could call him a Jesus freak, but no one was going to get in his face. He prayed that no one would touch him. He could control himself if they left him alone.
The only fights that broke out were the ones inside him-a war between his new convictions and his old habits.
One day when he was playing Ping-Pong, Danny flipped his usual cigarette into his mouth and flicked his lighter. Suddenly, something said, "Stop." The filter no longer tasted clean. He slipped the cigarette back in the pack and wondered what was going on.
Chaplain Hansen always said to look to the Bible for answers, so Danny actually did a concordance search that night. He found only one passage that said anything at all about smoking; it was in Isaiah and had to do with "smoking flax." Yet he didn't doubt that he had heard a voice say "stop."
Eventually, he discovered 1 Corinthians and gained an understanding that his body was God's house. He shouldn't deliberately damage it. So he prayed for the willpower to stop smoking. The first day he had to pray twenty times ... as he sat in the mess hall having coffee ... as he worked in the fields ... as he played cards at a table in the yard-all the places and times that prompted him to light up again.
The next day he prayed nineteen times. The smoking battle kept him on his knees for weeks.
Danny soon heard that same voice countering most of his lifelong habits. It was a patient voice and said stop to only one thing at a time, but the list was long, beginning with smoking and drinking, then going on to using dope and swearing. He discovered that when he began to clean up his language, he lost half his vocabulary. He also discovered that his first victories produced an overconfidence born of spiritual pride.
One day while playing cards, he said to another Christian inmate, "What are you putting that cigarette in your mouth for, brother? Don't you know that God will deliver you from that if you ask?"
"Well, 1 believe it, Danny, but I'm not there yet," his friend said.
Not too long afterward Danny cruised by the showers, where guys smoked dope during the day, back in a hidden area. He could smell the sweet, heavy scent. An inner yearning taunted him, What would it be like to take just a few more tokes? He couldn't resist finding out.
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