Listen in to hear a story about how a new friendship back when Joni was 17 blossomed into a great one that has still lasted to this day. It has helped her faith grow stronger as a teenager until now.
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SHAUNA: I’m Shauna with Joni Eareckson Tada: Sharing Hope. Here’s Joni with a great word from Acts 4.
JONI: I'm thinking of Acts 4:29 where Peter and John were just getting started in sharing the Gospel. They hadn’t done this before, and it was all very new to them. But they pray in Acts 4, “Now, Lord enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.”
I love that prayer: Help us Jesus, enable us, empower us to speak about you with great boldness. When I think of people who have done just that, I think of my friend, Steve Estes. Steve, when I met him was just a sixteen-year-old ‘nobody;’ a paper boy, sitting across from me, his paralyzed neighbor who just got out of the hospital. Steve had heard from kids in high school that I had broken my neck, and I had big questions about God. This young man didn’t know anything about wheelchairs; plus, I was older than him, and I was a girl. He had never spent any time with me at all. But he came to the hospital to offer help. Right away, I noticed two things: he was carrying a big Bible, and he was nervous. But hey, what did I have to lose? I was depressed, I was tired of feeling sorry for myself, I was frightened about my future, and so I thought, ‘Let’s just hear what this guy has to say about God and his Word.’ That first encounter was the beginning of a long friendship during which so many of my questions about the sovereignty of God and heaven and hell and everything else in between were answered.
Many years later Steve would tell me, “Joni, when I sat across from you that first day, I was so scared. You were way out of my league. The crowd you ran with in high school I only saw from across the gymnasium. Plus, I had never met another teenager in a wheelchair. I knew what the Bible said about your questions and a dozen passages came to mind from years of studying in church. But sitting across from you in your wheelchair, I realized that I had never test-driven those truths on such a difficult course. Nothing worse than a D in Algebra had ever happened to me. But I kept thinking, ‘Man, if the Bible can’t work in this paralyzed girl’s life, then it never was for real.’ So, Joni, I cleared my throat and I jumped off the cliff. I remember telling you, ‘Joni, God put you in that chair. I don’t know why, but if you will trust him instead of fighting him, you’ll find out why, if not in this life, then in the next. He let you break your neck, and he has good reasons. And I want to help you find out what those reasons are!’”
Wow! What an amazingly bold thing for this kid to say to me. It was almost audacious, but it was what I needed to hear. I was thirsty for Steve’s tough, in-your-face, let’s dig deep kind of faith. Besides, his courage piqued my interest. His boldness kind of, well cowered me, and made me tremble. This guy acted like his faith was serious, that his life in Christ was for real. So, from that day on, I had my nose in the Bible, searching for God's wisdom. Thank the Lord for that young man, Steve Estes, and his courageous faith [by the way, he is now a pastor of a thriving church in Pennsylvania and is still boldly sharing the Word of God].
SHAUNA: Friend, in what ways do you lack boldness for Christ? If you need courage to share Jesus, just go to joniradio.org today. You’ll find a treasure trove of encouragement from Joni. And while you’re there, leave us a prayer request so we can intercede on your behalf and pray for you by name.
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