By Steve Badger
Dusk slowly turned the colors in my living room to shades of black and gray. The large old rental house was empty and depressingly silent. My wife and children had been out of town shopping all day and were not likely to return until late. My gloom intensified with the darkness.
My deepening depression was not merely loneliness but an accumulation of problems—scars of a recently changed sinful life-style. It was aggravated by guilt because of my inability to overcome my feelings.
I lay on our sofa, staring in the darkness at the 10-foot ceiling and praying for relief. Hot tears rolled out of my eyes, across my temples, and into my ears. My stomach ached; my body hurt. The effects of my mental depression were acutely physical.
God did not seem interested in my feelings of despair. Instead of comfort I felt His Spirit leading me to get up off my back and visit a non-Christian friend, Steve Quave. We were then in graduate school together.
Quave and I had been friends through most of graduate school. We had shared a sinful life-style, and he had watched—much closer than I had realized—as Jesus had turned my life right-side-up and started restoring my 7-year-old marriage.
God was urging me to visit Quave, but I lay paralyzed with self-pity. I was angry because I felt no comfort from the Lord for my heaviness. All I could hear from Him was, “Get up and go visit Quave. Tell him of My love, power, and forgiveness. Tell him I love him.”
Gradually my attitude changed from stubborn refusal to begrudging obedience.
I silently argued with God. “If I go, I’ll tell him how I feel. I’m going to tell him just how down I’ve been. Don’t expect me to cover up.” The thought of having to argue with this Catholic-turned-agnostic scientist about “religion” aggravated my reluctance.
Couldn’t God see I was in no condition to witness? Especially to Quave, who was even more imposing intellectually than he was physically. He had a strong, heavyset body and a quick, widely-read mind with an amazing memory and a knack for ferreting out faulty logic. I was in no shape to argue with him. It was just not the right time for me to witness to Quave. Couldn’t God see that?
With a heart full of blues and a head full of wrong attitudes, I finally obeyed God and drove across town expecting to find his tiny apartment empty. Then I could complain even more to God about my frustrating life.
Quave was home and pleasantly surprised to see me. I had not been around him much since I had become a Christian, other than at school. For the first few minutes we chitchatted. Then Quave asked, “How are you doing?” meaning now that I was a Christian.
I fulfilled my threat. “Today . . . has been . . . the most depressing . . . day of my life.” I spoke with conviction.
His startled eyebrows raised. “I thought Christians didn’t get depressed,” he said. “I thought if you became a Christian, life was a bed of roses.” He hadn’t said this as an arrogant, easy cliche. He meant it.
“It hasn’t been like that for me,” I replied. “And I don’t think that’s what being a Christian is all about, anyway. “
Instead of preventing a significant witness, this exchange provoked an animated, amicable discussion about what Christianity really is. He told me about his childhood in parochial schools, several concepts the priests and nuns had taught him, and what he thought Christianity was.
I had told him before how Jesus had changed my life, so now I gave him more details about what it meant for me to place my trust in God. I explained I was still trusting in Him during this time of general dissatisfaction with life.
As I left him that night, I felt sure Quave was no closer to finding God’s salvation. My parting challenge was gentle, but direct: “Quave, read that modern English New Testament I gave you. As you read, pray this prayer: ‘God—if there is a God— please reveal yourself to me as I read the Bible.’”
He looked reflective but gave no indication he would take my suggestion.
I had no sense of accomplishment as I left, but my spirits had been lifted by visiting my friend. As time passed, I grew in my faith and experienced depression less frequently, with less intensity, and for shorter periods of time.
Several months after that visit Quave was born again. I was skeptical at first, but it was true. Christians and non-Christians alike were impressed with the way God saved this brilliant young man. His testimony glorified God and encouraged us.
A few years later and in another city, our close friendship was rekindled as we attended the same Assemblies of God church. More than once we thought how hilarious it would have been to us, back when we were deep in sin and far from God, if someone had told us that one day we would both be “fanatic Christians,” worshipping together in a Pentecostal church and raising our hands and voices in praise to our Savior and God.
A few years later God answered one of Quave’s most important prayers by providing him with a Christian wife. Within a few years they had children, two boys.
One night we rode home together after church and reminisced about how God had worked in our lives to save us. I asked him what he had thought the night I had visited him during my bout of wretched depression. I could not believe my ears! He did not remember my depression or his “bed of roses” comment!
Instead Quave remembered he had been alone and lonely, and I had visited him. He had been feeling unloved and wishing someone would come see him, and I had knocked on his door! God had used Quave’s feelings to make him receptive to me and my witness. And God used me in spite of me.
My vision blurred as I recounted my unhappiness of that night. He again failed to recall it. Then his eyes filled with tears as he thanked me for loving him enough to come over and talk with him. I felt so undeserving of his appreciation as we thanked God together in prayer.
My friend then shared something with me that I had not known: that night was the beginning of his months-long odyssey culminating in new life in Christ. That night had been pivotal in his life. And I had almost missed it!
One night in early 1982 when I was out of town on business, I had an emergency phone call from my wife: Quave had been killed instantly in an auto accident.
I returned to my room with a Christian friend to kneel together and cry and pray. Part of my prayer was simply, “God, thanks for getting me out of my self-pity that night to tell Quave of Your Love. Thank You, Jesus.”
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Copyright (C) 1985 Steve Badger
Document last revised: February 7, 1997
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