Not me! I didn't want anything to do with Christianity. That was religion — and religion was for people who couldn't stand on their own two feet.

I was a student, attending Wayne State University in Detroit when everything began to change. It started with a friend from high school days. Russ and I were both unbelievers in high school, but the summer before we started college Russ accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior. And that's all he would talk about.

We were commuting students, and because I had a car and he didn't, he rode to campus with me. And he talked about Jesus. He wouldn't let up.

I told him, "Look if you need this, fine, but I don't." And then I'd hit him with the argument that I'd heard so often at home. "Religion is a weak man's crutch."

One morning, as Russ was at it again and my anger was mounting, I rounded a corner so fast we almost hit the curb. "Hey, watch it," Russ yelled.

I came back with, "What do you have to worry about, you're a Christian."

Just as fast, Russ replied, "Yes, but you're not!"

I couldn't shake those words. They stayed in my mind, playing over and over again.

Slowly I became less antagonistic, and one Sunday I went to church with Russ. Then one evening the young adults Sunday school teacher showed me what the Scriptures say about salvation. I wanted that, and so I said yes to Christ.

From that point on everything looked different to me. I knew God owned me. I belonged to the Savior. And I began telling my family my good news — except to them it was "bad news." My mother cried for two nights. "We tried so hard to raise you properly," she said, "and look what you have done." To my family, I had become a "religious fanatic."

One evening, evangelistic callers from my church came to see my parents at my request. When he learned who they were, my dad slammed the door in their faces and said to me, "If I want God I'll find God. I don't need those people coming here to talk to me."

For the next two years my church and I prayed for my family despite their continuing criticism. Then one day, while trying to study in the university library, I started crying and couldn't stop. The overwhelming pressure of hearing that there was something wrong with me was becoming too much. I was beaten. My family had won.

I shut my books and decided to visit the university psychiatrist, ducking into the men's room to wash the tears from my face. In utter despair I cried out, "God, if You are really there and what I know of Christ is true, then You have to do something, because I'm going to go see if maybe I am wrong and I am losing my mind."

It had never happened before; it has never happened since. At that moment, as I cried out those words to God, I felt such a sharp slap across my face that I spun clear around. But I knew! God was there. He was real, and He cared. I left that restroom absolutely certain of my standing with God.

Not long afterward, due to a sudden illness, my mother had emergency surgery. In Detroit (a city of over two million) the surgeon who "happened to be" on call that night was one of the men who assisted with my college-age group at church. We had talked about my family, and he had prayed for them and for me. He told me later that he always prayed before surgery and did so that night, even though when he prayed he didn't know that the patient was my mother.

In a post-operative visit, the surgeon closed his office door and said to my mother, "What your son has been telling you about the Savior is true. I am also a Christian." There in his office, that surgeon led my mother to Christ. My dad, so overwhelmed with the successful surgery and what my mother told him, soon made that same decision.

My mother became a wonderful Sunday school teacher. My dad joined the very evangelistic callers who had once had our door slammed on them. Before long he was chairing the group, lining up home visits to help others place their faith in Christ. My brother and sister also became Christians and married believers. Today their children have effective church ministries of their own.

One evening many years later at church, my dad was ushering, and the pastor asked him to pray for the special offering they were about to take. Following the collection, Dad stepped out into the narthex, handed his plate to another usher — and died.

When word came — first to my mother and then to the speaker who had already begun his talk — the speaker stopped and said to the congregation, "I want you to realize something. Two minutes ago that man was talking to God in prayer. Now, he is talking to the Father face to face." It was an evangelistic moment, and that night people were saved. Dad was an evangelist even at his death.

How has God led me since? My years have taken me into the pastorate, to Michigan State University as a chaplain, to the editorship of Decision magazine and now to a teaching, writing and speaking ministry. I haven't seen Russ in many years, but through his faithfulness, his determination not to let go, I was brought to the Savior.

Then, not only did my family come to faith, but in the years since — through the ministries God has given to me — I have seen many others come to the Savior: men and women serving as pastors, missionaries, even denominational leaders who are now winning others to the faith.

All because one young man wouldn't quit until I, too, became a Christian.