Speak Boldly

Hi, I’m Joni and you’re listening to Joni and Friends. 

It was in the late sixties and I had just gotten out of the hospital. I was depressed, anxious, wondering and worrying what life in a wheelchair would be like. A visitor came to my house one day shortly after I got out of the hospital. His name was Steve Estes. He was a sixteen-year-old paper boy. He knocked on our back door, and he pulled up a chair across from me, his paralyzed neighbor. He lived up the road from us. I knew that Steve Estes was also a sophomore back at the same high school from which I had just graduated. He had heard from kids in school that I had big questions about God since I had broken my neck, and this sixteen-year-old paper boy came to visit and to offer help. So there we were. And I noticed he was very nervous. 

Many, many years later my friend Steve Estes would tell me, “Joni, when I sat across from you that first day, I was so scared. I mean, you were way out of my league. The crowd you ran with in high school I saw only from across the gymnasium. Plus, I had never met another teenager in a wheelchair. I knew what the Bible said about your questions, Joni, and a dozen passages came to mind from years of studying in church. But sitting across from you in your wheelchair, I realized 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.  

Boy, he sure did. It was a long time ago, but to this day I remember Steve sitting there telling me, “Joni, God put you in that chair. I don’t know why, but if you will trust him instead of fighting him, you will 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’m here ’cause I want to help you find out what those reasons are!” 

That was a very, very audacious bold thing for a sixteen-year-old kid to say to me, but his incredible courage piqued my interest. I mean, he spoke with such authority, like he really knew the answers. And you have to understand, that really struck me. ‘Cause I was looking for answers and this young man – this guy you really loved – I mean, he really seemed to know the Bible. He seemed to have answers! And from that day on, I had my nose in the Bible searching for God’s wisdom.  

Acts 4:29 says, “Lord…enable your servants to speak your Word with great boldness.” Well, that verse certainly describes my friend Steve Estes absolutely perfectly, because I still remember that long-ago and far-away day when he jumped off the cliff and spoke God’s truth to me in love but with boldness. And that has made all the difference in the world in my life. Friend, in what ways do you lack boldness for Christ? Ask God to give you fresh courage to share his Word with authority, especially with those in need. After all, Jesus is the Word of Life – he spoke boldly, and we’d be wise to follow his example.  

By the way, I would love to hear what you are praying about. Or a favorite Bible verse that you are memorizing. Tell me about it. Just go to joniradio.org. If the Lord has answered some prayer of yours today, guess what? Stop right after we’re done here and tell him thanks! 

© Joni and Friends