Witnessing with Ray

December 1971

I met Ray at Wednesday Bible Study. He was a rather large fun loving guy who lived and breathed Jesus. I met him talking after my second week Bible Study. He discovered that I was hitchhiking everywhere so he offered me a ride on the back of an Indian motorcycle he was borrowing from some Christian Navy guy. I told him the Coast Guard station was next to the Navy station so we drove 30 miles in pouring rain on freeways before we realized that we were going to the wrong Navy station and had to turn back the complete opposite way.

I was a guy, Ray was a guy, the motorcycle had no back bars, so rather than be safe with my life and holding on to Ray (Ray liked to drive really fast), I grasped on to the back of the seat for dear life in the middle of a torrential downpour for 75 plus miles. It took about an hour and a half before I got to the ship. I was cold and wet, but I lived.

Ray borrowed the motorcycle from a Navy man as I mentioned, so that he could work on it, tuning it up and helping it to work better, but within 2 weeks, Ray had driven it to the ground. It was ruined. The Navy guy was not too happy with Ray when he found out.

Ray and I became immediate best friends doing just about everything together including witnessing. Now for those of you who do not know what witnessing is, I was told that Christians should tell others about Jesus so that they too can have opportunity to become Christian.

Ray and I had been out doing stuff one day when we decided to stop at a Jack-in-the-Box fast food restaurant. Ray and I ordered hamburgers, fries and shakes and then sat down at a bench to wait for our order. Ray began a conversation with a young man holding a beer in his hand. As Ray talked about Christ, the man with the beer was interested in everything Ray said.

I, however, was thinking that Ray should get to the point and tell this guy that his beer was evil. So when our order came up and Ray got up to get it, I told the man with the beer, "The Bible says that you shouldn't drink beer." His whole face changed. Instant conviction of God did not come over him as I thought it would. Instead, he turned to me with a scowl, "Where does it say that?"

I fumbled in my bible (the King James one I carried with me everywhere I went) and prayed and hoped that God would direct me miraculously to the verse that says, "You shall not drink beer. You shall not sip beer, for if you do the Lord will smite you with hot irons." Actually I was hoping to get anything simple like, "Thou shalt not drink beer." I fumbled and searched and was embarrassed. I couldn't find it because it wasn't there. There is no place in the bible that even mentions beer and the only place it speaks against drinking is when the bible warns about drinking too much wine. But I was new to this whole thing and thought I'd help the bible along by filling in with what I thought was needed.

Ray came back with the food and by quoting a few verses of scripture and keeping things simple the man with the beer once again focused on everything Ray said, asking good questions and then praying to receive Christ.

I learned 2 big lessons that day. First, God doesn't need extra help. The bible is enough. Stay with the bible and God will do the rest. Second, Ray told me afterward, "If you want a dog to drop his bone, don't try to take it out of his mouth, give him steak."