When Others Suffer Unrighteousness

I have never submitted to other people because of coward­ice or fear. On the contrary, I have always been fascinated by people who have stood up for something, those who have been willing to stand in the gap. That has also provided me with many interesting experiences in which I knew God was with me.

When I was 17, I went to a going-away party at the com­pany I was working for. On the way home, I passed a taxi stop with a long line of people waiting. Two youths were there, and they were jostling an old lady waiting in line.

“You two can go and stand at the back of the line,” she said.

But they were impudent and pushed in front of her. The other people waiting became uneasy.

When I saw one of them hit a woman, I became indignant. I went and stood in front of the whole line and said to the two of them:

“Do you hit women?”

“Yeah, even my grandmother,” one of them answered cheekily.

He shouldn’t have said that. He got a real thrashing that night. Later, two police constables came over to thank me. “We’ve been watching them. They annoy people and make a nuisance of themselves wherever they go. Thank you very much!”