ZOLA LEVITT

Zola Levitt is a Hebrew Christian, lecturer, radio talk show host ("Heart of the Matter," KPBC Dallas,) host of Zola Levitt Live on National Christian Television and an author with over forty books in print. He appears in several Christian documentary films and periodically serves as a tour guide in Israel.

Levitt's books and other study materials are available through your local Christian bookstore. You may also use the order form in the back of this book to order directly from the author.

Contents

1    "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World"

2    "The Way I Want to Love"

3    "If You're There. Show Me"

4    The Abundant Life

5    "He Is There"

1

"The Most Beautiful Girl in the World"

I was at an opera audition when I first saw "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World."

The day was February 20, 1971. I was covering the audition as part of my work as cultural editor of the Indiana University News Bureau. I reported on cultural events on campus and the news bureau released the stories to area newspapers.

The audition was the local level Metropolitan Opera audition, and Yvonne, "The Most Beautiful—," was attending as a retired winner. She had won the audition the two previous years.

I had glimpsed her momentarily just after I entered. As she passed along the lobby, my inner alarm went off. Later, seated in the balcony, I noticed her sitting a few rows behind me. She was in the second seat off the aisle and I thought, It's possible—it's just possible. I tried to concentrate on the singing but the inner alarm was drowning it out. I had to make my move.

I turned to a friend sitting beside me and whispered, "The brunette, off the aisle three rows back on the right—." My friend, a singer who knew most of the other singers around the school of music, casually looked around. "Pat Golden," she said.

The music from the stage suddenly subdued as the soloist demonstrated subtle shadings of pianissimo. It stopped our whispers at a crucial point.

Then the singer went for a dramatic high G. You could have fired off a shotgun in the balcony without disturbing anyone.

I hissed, "Married?"

The singer left off the G, and echoing silence filled the hall momentarily. I waited an eternity, ready to shout "Encore!" to start the music again. Finally there was great applause and my friend quickly snapped, "Single!"

I was on my feet at once, and before the applause died down I was leaning over Pat Golden. She looked up at me quizically.

"Pat Golden!" I exclaimed with a big smile. I acted as though I had known her for years.

"Yes," she said.

"I'm Zola Levitt. I think we should talk."

The person in the aisle seat was a bit uncomfortable in the middle of this, and the next aria was about to start. "We'd better step out a minute," I told Miss Golden, glancing at the people around her who were wondering if they were going to have to listen to us through the next performance.

I didn't really think it would work but The Most Beautiful Girl in the World, watching me carefully, got up and accompanied me out to the hallway.

"What do you want to talk about?" she asked when we got out there.

I had an intuition. "Is your name really Pat?" I asked her.

"Well, my first name is really Yvonne," she said. "But everybody calls me Pat. Patricia is my middle name."

"Well, I'm going to call you Yvonne," I said. "It fits you, and it's your real name. Yvonne is a name for someone beautiful."

I don't know where that idea came from, but she was duly impressed with it.

We chatted until the auditions were finished, and then I escorted her to the little gathering where I was to interview the head judge, a Metropolitan Opera star. I thought Yvonne would be wildly impressed when she saw me talk with the diva, but she sat quietly, observing everything.

After the interview I asked her if she would have some coffee with me and she agreed. We went to a little place across from the auditorium.

I looked at her across the booth, trying to control my voice while looking straight at such beauty, and asked her to tell me about herself.

She said, "I try to do what Jesus wants me to do."

I was terribly disappointed. What a waste, I thought to myself. "God is dead," I informed her.

"I don't believe that," she said. "In fact, I know He's alive."

"Now I understand why you call yourself Pat. You want to melt into the crowd. You want to be plain and ignorant like a religious person. You want to live a narrow, ordinary life because you think that will please your God." I knew it would sound bitter, but I didn't like religious people and I thought I should lay it on the line.

I had been raised Jewish, and I gave little credence to my own religion and still less to any other. To me, Christians (I thought the term meant "non-Jews") seemed namby-pamby, embracers of a half-pagan, hyper-conservative way of life.

My father came from the old country as an orthodox Jew. In the United States he became liberalized, but he never budged from one basic principle—the Jews had religion and others had none. We were the chosen people. If the Gentiles wished to formulate some copy of religious belief, and if it pleased them and quieted their murderous instincts, this was all to the good. But their religion wasn't real. They pursued it only because of their intense historic jealousy of our people.

I was not persecuted in my youth as my father was, and so I didn't share this view at all. We celebrated Passover every year in our home and I enjoyed it, but I did not really believe in a "chosen people" concept. I solved the whole conflict by assuming that God did not exist at all.

Throughout the conversation I continued to berate religion in general and people who opt for common names in particular.

After all, if I could get through life being called Zola, anybody ought to be able to make it with what they have.

I began to notice that Yvonne wasn't getting upset with me. In fact, she just quietly sympathized with my perverted views, nodding sympathetically when I was being the most vehement.

I was fascinated.

I decided I had to know more about this serene girl. I asked her what her plans were for the rest of the day, and she said she could spend a little more time with me. She invited me to her place to talk some more.

At her apartment I tried to lecture on this great new world where people were free. "You no longer have to have a God," I told her. "You don't have to live some legal kind of lifestyle to please your neighbor anymore. The idea today is to do your own thing and let the next person do his. If it feels good, do it!"

She seemed very skeptical. She said she wasn't so sure that the world was in such great shape. "People are still fighting wars, and committing all sorts of crimes," she pointed out.

"Well sure," I retorted. "But what help are the religious people? While the thinking people are working their heads off to find solutions to society's problems, the Christians have their heads buried in the sand waiting for a deceased God to come home and take care of them. If Jesus is around,why doesn't He do something?"

"He is doing something," said Yvonne in that frustrating complacent tone.

"Oh, big deal!" I snapped. "He's doing something all right. He's mounted a vast army of dumb provincial people who wave flags and sing hymns and scream for capital punishment. 'Thou shalt not kill,' says your good Book, but I sure don't run into a whole lot of holy rollers at the campus demonstrations. Where was Jesus and your crowd when they shot down the kids at Kent State? What are you doing about the war?"

"I'm praying about the war and about all the other messes I know about," she told me.

I sneered at her. It wasn't exactly the recommended way to the lady's heart, but I had the feeling that if I voiced myself vehemently enough she might start listening. In a way I was trying to "convert" her.

I pressed on about politics and injustice and all the things I thought were requisite to reeducating an inert Christian mind. But she seemed to stop reacting. She was watching me carefully, and she seemed to be evaluating more about me than just what I was saying.

I described religion in general as reactionary, a kind of bondage, a non-progressive narcotic of the masses. I really threw the book at her.

She listened politely and declined to argue.

Since she wasn't giving me any feedback, I grew all the more vehement. Yet, it was all a bit frustrating. Here I was making hash out of a person's ideals and she was just sitting there with a look on her face that amounted to sympathy. It was really getting to me.

I didn't quite know how to proceed. The type of girl I was used to would be saying, "Right on, man" by this time, and a warm relationship would be in the offing. But Yvonne was serenely unconcerned with all my rancor.

When she got up to change a record, I slipped up behind her. As she turned, I grabbed her and kissed her.

And blast it, she was quite the same about that—unmoved, sympathetic, seemingly bemused by her own private thoughts.

I lost a lot of ground with that particular maneuver. I had thought she would jump out of a window to protect her religious virtue, but her actions seemed to say, "Yes, I know about kissing, but aren't you getting a bit carried away?"

There was just no way to reach her.

I tried to recover my initiative by talking about sex. "Now there's a place where religious people are hopelessly behind the times," I told her. "There's a 'New Morality' today, and I don't want to hurt your feelings but I think you're missing out on a lot of life."

"Well, I don't think so," she said. "I think people have the same natures today that they always have had. I think being liberal about sex has its dangers. The Bible is very open and very clear about sex, and I've always felt good following its advice."

"Oh yea," I chided, "what does it say?"

"Why don't you read it?" she challenged.

When I left, I made a date for the next afternoon at the school of music. I intended to play my songs for her on the piano. Surely that would get her excited.

If I had only known what she was thinking all through that evening! As the relationship went on, she shared with me a few of her thoughts from that first encounter. Her main concern was my anger and my crying need for love. She had thoughts like:

How can I help him? How can I get him to Christ? What anger! I wonder if I could convert all that energy into love.

Yet, that day as I drove home, I knew two things for sure. First, I just didn't understand people like Yvonne. Second, I was falling in love with her.

2

"The Way I Want to Love"

The next afternoon I tried to thrill her with my music.

My songs were mostly love songs of the Bacharach variety, mainly designed to make listeners think I was very profound about love. The lyrics told of nothing spiritual, at least consciously, but the joke was on me. My most successful song, called "Puppets," seemed to indicate the hunger of my empty heart:

Puppets, pretty puppets,

Little strings from above make them go.

Music, lovely music,

Makes them laugh, makes them dance, makes the show.

Who plays the music here And who's the puppeteer?

Ah, we are Only puppets.

Little strings from above Make us love.

I was a very mixed-up guy about love. My song "The Way I Want to Love," betrayed a crying need:

All the actors in the movies Love the way I want to love.

In the books and magazines they Seem to know just how to love.

They make it seem a simple thing to do.

They kiss and say, "Oh darling,

I love you."

O yes but—

Did you ever fall in love and

Lose your lover? I have too.

Love cannot be bought with gold so

You must buy her love with love.

Hold her close but not too close for

Love that's real is hard to hold.

The discerning Yvonne saw through what I thought was a "dazzling display of skill" to a man with desperate privations. But, of course, she had seen that the night before.

I couldn't wait to get away from that piano, though I was a bit intrigued that my "I'm a terribly creative guy" bit wouldn't work on Yvonne. Somewhere inside of me I was delighted that she wasn't going to fall for any cheap stuff, and I relished the challenge.

I let her have the afternoon off but called on her again that night. In fact, I called on her every night that week. As we went on, I let her tell her side of things. "There really is a God and He really has a Son," she said. "And He is supremely effective and easy to reach. He died for you, and that just tells how interested in you He really is."

I honestly thought it was claptrap, but I couldn't help being impressed with her sincerity about it. My feeling, though, was that she would eventually come to the end of her sermon and then I could close in. Love would prevail. After all, this was a normal healthy woman, and she did respond to attention. I played a waiting game, confident that when all was said and done I was going to get the girl.

I even warned her. I told her, "You're flesh and blood, whatever you believe about religion, and I mean to undermine this archaic faith of yours. I'll show you that life can be worth living right here and now, without worshiping ghosts out of the past." And I made mighty efforts to get physically close to her as much as possible.

That really backfired.

I remember it was a Friday night, the one following the Saturday when I'd met her at the audition. I was saying good night at her door. Her roommate was in the next room so we were being very quiet. I kissed her as sweetly as I could and informed her that we would be seeing each other the next night as usual.

She looked at me very seriously, and her eyes were wet. She said almost in a whisper, "I don't want you to come back. Don't ever come back again."

I just stood stock-still for a moment. Then I took her hand and drew her out into the hallway and closed the apartment door. I was looking into a very determined face.

"What are you saying, Yvonne?"

"This isn't love, what you're doing. You're not behaving like a man. This is a chase. And I don't want it." She was on the verge of breaking down, but she spoke distinctly and there was no mistake about the message.

"Yvonne, honey, it's the best I can do. I'm sorry, I really am…II

"It's not the best you can do," she said.

I resisted a welling desire to tell her off. I wanted to say, "Big forgiving, Christian. Just because a man doesn't follow your doctrine, you take it as a personal insult. You lord it over an unbeliever as if that faith of yours makes you some kind of aristocrat."

But I held it in. She wasn't picking a fight. In fact, she was quitting a fight. I had made a contest out of what was supposed to be a love relationship, and my adversary had gotten fed up with it. I had it coming.

I stood silent until she went on, and then I got the whole story. "Your whole idea of love is just different from mine," she began. "I just don't understand you. You have so many good feelings inside you, but you chase me like a seducer. A man is supposed to be sensitive and tender, and to want what is best for his woman. I was willing to see you and listen to you and put up with all of your worldly ideas as long as there was a fair exchange. But you've stopped listening to me altogether. Now I'm just something you're determined to get."

I was experiencing a conflict during that lecture. That she was right was very clear, but I didn't like being told off. On the other hand, she was crying and that had me confused. I finally opted for a weak middle ground: "OK, Yvonne. We're from different worlds. Your faith is a fine thing—for you. I respect it; I even think it has some merit the way you tell it. But it's a little too much for you to ask me to change my way of life. There are other fish in the sea. If you're willing to go on, we'll just drop the subject of God and make the best of whatever else we have. If not, well, I'll just go."

She turned to the door and that was the end of that. She wasn't making any deals.

I had not realized that religious people would really give up something they wanted for the sake of their faith. I went home shaken, admitting to myself that she certainly placed a high value on that stuff she believed.

But I wasn't going to cry over spilt milk. The next night I made a date with a dependable old girl friend and went to see Cosi Fan Tutte, a dependable old opera.

But even the opera convicted me. Canny Mozart staged a yarn about how women in love act, and how sincere they are underneath it all. I was squirming in my seat.

When I got up the next morning I knew what I had to do. I went to Yvonne's place, unannounced. When she opened the door I just strolled in cheerfully, saying, "I'd like to make you another offer." She wasn't precisely disappointed to see me, I noticed. (Her roommate revealed some time later that Yvonne had spent the weekend in a marathon crying fest.)

I told her I would sincerely hear out her side of things. If necessary I would become a noted expert on modern Christianity. And I would put the physical stuff on hold. She had only to agree to keep seeing me.

She said that would be fine, but she'd also like me to read the Bible, in order to have information from the official source. She recommended the book of John. I told her I didn't have a Bible, so she took me to the home of the Campus Crusade for Christ director for our university and I bought one. The guy acted very natural, as though people were always coming by and purchasing Bibles. We had gone by night, like Nicodemus, and I was glad. I wouldn't have wanted any of my friends to see me.

Yvonne took me along to the CCC meetings on campus but I was suspicious of those people. I felt out of place, to say the least. I was the only one who wore a beard, the only Jew, and the only one who was present because of romantic reasons.

But the CCC people were most friendly, and even though I felt I was being sold something, I rather liked them. They seemed like an innocent, peaceful clique of people who refused to see that the world was a depressing place in which to live. As I got to know them I was more and more mystified. They hardly ever dated and they lived what I called "goody two-shoes" lives, but they didn't seem worried about it. They believed Jesus was alive and listening and that they not only had it made here on earth, but were also on their way to a better place. I likened them to retarded adult groups I had once worked with; they, too, were oblivious to everything around them but were, by and large, very happy.

But I eventually came to realize that their knowledge of things was not quite so lacking. Their view was transcendental rather than ignorant. About the things that they considered important, their knowledge was overwhelming. They knew their God and His Word. I gave them the benefit of the doubt and continued to attend their meetings with Yvonne.

Nobody witnessed to me, in the sense of trying to pull me into the fold. They just did their thing in my presence and let me draw my own conclusions.

With Yvonne, I spent my evenings sitting on my hands and listening to the Gospel. And I was beginning to waver in my thoughts.

It wasn't that I was convinced by what she was saying; I was amazed by what it did for her. She never got depressed and never lost patience, although she was living a very tough life. She worked in a dull office job for a professor with a miserable disposition. Here she was, a truly gifted opera coloratura stuck in poverty and meaninglessness most of the time, and it just didn't seem to bother her. Her concept was that God was using her as He saw fit, and she considered her life to be useful and vital.

Night after night I would listen to Yvonne's explanation of Christianity. She was more effective in my case than one hundred evangelists because I knew her and loved her. I was careful to keep my inquiries honest—not to reach for faith just because the girl I loved had it. But I found myself actually eager to hear more as we went on.

I got answers to my hardest questions. Why, if there was a God, did we have war? "Because men do not believe in God. God does not want war, but men have free will. If they didn't have free will they would be just puppets. If they use their free will to kill each other it's their fault, not God's."

"How about Christians who kill people?" I asked. I cited the Inquisition and the other persecutions carried out in the name of Christ.

"Men kill in any name they like," Yvonne said. "Even Jesus' name. Some of them are not true believers at all. Others of them have just fallen back into sin. All men sin, Christians and non-Christians alike."

That was a new one on me. I thought Christians considered themselves sinless, but Yvonne showed me Scriptures that assured me that believers suffered no such delusions.

On sex, Yvonne and the Bible were eloquent. "Have you really enjoyed 'tracking it down'?" she asked me. "Do you really want to fit the 'Playboy' image? God wants you to have all you want in marriage. Wouldn't that really be better?"

She sure had something there!

I told her plainly one night, "Yvonne, I've sinned."

She said, "I know."

I said, "I've made a mess."

She said, "He's waiting to forgive you."

I fell into playing a game of trying to shock her with stories about myself. It was a sort of effort to undermine her principle of forgiveness; sooner or later she would have to declare me unworthy of good Christian company, and then I could land on her for being unforgiving. But she never did that. She just listened, with compassion, to all of my mixed-up thoughts, and she maintained a sympathetic composure while I hung out my dirty laundry.

One night she revealed that she had been praying for me. I didn't like that. I thought that if God were dead there would be no answers and she would be disappointed, and if He were alive I didn't think I wanted Him messing around in my life. I thought His thing was changing people into conservatives for His own purposes, and I didn't want to have a lobotomy.

Anyway, I told her, talking with God about somebody else was like fraternizing with that person's accountant. It just didn't seem kosher.

"I've talked to God all my life," she said, "and, believe me, He doesn't mean anybody any harm. If you like, I'll speak to Him right now, right in front of you." It was quite an offer, coming from her, and I was honored to accept.

That was a life-changing moment for me. Watching Yvonne pray, I could see plainly that she believed He was listening. After all, I interviewed people for a living. I knew when they were faking. I had interviewed many politicians and professors, so I knew a faker when I saw one.

But Yvonne was no faker.

"Dear Lord," she began, and I could actually feel a Presence. Clearly, Yvonne thought she was really talking to somebody. She was a realist in everything else, and she certainly couldn't be conned into anything. And she clearly thought somebody was there.

She talked with God about me, right in front of me, using language that indicated that He knew me well. She frankly conceded that she and God were in cahoots about me. She asked for His continuing help with my life.

It was a really moving experience and I wasn't able to speak right away when she finished.

Ever since that moment I have started my own prayers with "Dear Lord."

In my own mind I was turning. I kept saying to myself, "She might be right. There might be a God after all. Maybe it's all true. She's no dummy." But then another voice would go off in my head, saying, "Have you lost your mind?"

The struggle was between what I thought I knew and what I was being told. I "knew" religious people were phonies; the history of the Church was bloodstained—especially toward my people, the Jews; and the Bible was an unreadable collection of fables. But I was being told, and shown in Yvonne's life, that there was a God and that He was effective.

In the late evenings, after leaving Yvonne off, I was looking into the Book of John as she had requested. And I was getting quite a few surprises. The material was fascinating and challenging, and the character of the Lord gripped me. I realized immediately, as a writer, that the material was authentic; it had all the characteristics of eyewitness reportage, which I did every day in my work.

When I came to the challenges made by Jesus to those who doubted Him, I felt guilty. I had doubted Him, and even ignored Him all my life, but I didn't have anything to say to "Which of you convicts Me of sin?"[1] I didn't know if Jesus had any sins, and I didn't care if He did. But I was unable to show that He was irrational or self-promoting or insincere.

I had always identified with the great characters of literature, and thrilled to their exploits. Dr. Zhivago, Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment, Faust, and a host of others had really crept into my brain like so many admirable friends.

But nobody reached the depths in me that Jesus did.

Here was a Man willing to speak to the ultimate human questions of morality, life and death, and to back up His convictions with His own life, freely sacrificed. Socrates did that but he was aged already. Jack Kennedy and Martin Luther King died martyrs' deaths, in my mind, but unwillingly, at the hands of cowardly assassins.

But Jesus laid down His life for His friends.

I knew I would never do that, so Jesus had something to offer me. My heroes of literature could only be followed so far; none of them had addressed themselves to the issues of life and death, real love, materialism, and all the confusions of the human heart. None of them could ever have uttered that astonishing statement, "I am the way, and the truth, and the Hfe.Mt

If Jesus was a phony, then He was an hysteric. Only a megalomaniac could say such a thing. And yet His philosophies were clear, simple, valid statements of the human condition. Everything He said rang true in my heart.

I began to get mad at myself. I thought my wavering made me look indecisive in front of Yvonne. I had regaled her with a worldly philosophy that I had arrived at after much painful experience in this life, and I didn't want to look like my mind could be changed so easily. I challenged her furiously, telling her that Christianity was a blot on world history and that her people, the Christian conservatives, were a vanguard of the stupid. I told her that bigotry was the natural result of people considering themselves elite. I showed her that Christianity flourished where people were ignorant and provincial. I illustrated by the Crusades and the Inquisition what the world would come to if the Christians ever took over.

She said that I was wrong to blame the excesses of men on God. God's view of such things was clear in the Bible. If men killed, that was their nature. The only hope was to truly turn to God who promised peace.

She answered my most vehement arguments so briefly and quietly that I was reminded of Christ standing before Pilate.

And I knew in my heart that I was more concerned about Zola Levitt than bigotry or Church history or what sort of people Christians were. I kept coming back to Yvonne because she, too, was concerned about me.

She seemed superior to any woman I'd ever known because she was not impressed with my position or knowledge. And she didn't think I was good-looking and she didn't care just where we went on a date. But she cared about the real me. She was most comfortable just talking at home, I noticed. The world didn't impress her very much. But she sensed my struggle and she was compassionate.

And I knew that was characteristic of Christ.

Where had this girl, ten years my junior, gotten all this knowledge and all this sympathy? Who had taught her that men ultimately valued tenderness and sincerity? Who had instructed her to look beneath a windy intellect for the real motivations behind the long speeches?

Who had taught this beginner how to really love?

3

"If You're There, Show Me"

Yvonne was planning to spend a weekend at home in Louisville, and she asked me if I wanted to go along and meet her parents.

Well, I said yes, mainly because I wouldn't be able to get through a weekend without her. We had only been going together about three weeks at the time, but she was already indispensable to me.

Also, I wanted to meet her parents and see if they were the ones responsible for giving all that wisdom to this remarkable creature.

We drove down on Saturday, March 13, 1971.

I stayed at a hotel after dropping Yvonne off at her home. I left an early wake-up call at the desk because she wanted to take me to her church in the morning. It had been many years since I had been in a church, but I remembered that I hadn't been too impressed. Compared with the grandeur of Jewish worship, it was very plain.

The next morning I met her at the church as planned. It was a big Baptist church with an overflow crowd of smiling, satisfied people. I endured the handshaking, accompanied by the typical stares; as usual, I had the only beard, was the only Jew, et cetera.

Her parents had attended the earlier service and we were to meet them afterward. I sat down in the balcony while Yvonne joined the choir. I noticed that her trained voice could be heard clearly above all the rest. In truth, she could have buried the whole group, but she sang at half strength in what I supposed was Christian modesty.

The preacher was a big, jolly, red-headed fellow who spoke on a Bible text. I lost interest in a few minutes.

But then came the invitation.

The choir struck up a beautiful hymn and the preacher came down to the floor level in front of the podium. He raised his arms and appealed to the crowd that those unsaved should come to Christ. I struggled to maintain a cynical attitude. Does he really think people are going to march up the aisle and come to Christ right here and now? I thought.

But people did! Quite a few came forward, and I could see by their manner that they meant business. Some seemed emotionally stricken and were crying. I tried to imagine that it was simply a matter of building the church membership, but I was moved by what I saw.

Suddenly I felt a tug to go up there myself! I thought, in panic, Oh no! I'm not going up there in front of all these people! Not me! But I was practically having to hang onto the arms of my chair.

The feeling to take action was so pervasive in me that I had to make a bargain with myself. I resolved to go and see the preacher after the service, in private. Not to receive Christ, I told myself, but just to debate the point.

When the service ended I found Yvonne and we went outside to meet her parents. I could see at once that if they'd had a choice they would have preferred Yvonne to bring home with her someone quite different. Bearded Jews smoking cigarettes were not their specialty.

I told them that I wanted to see the pastor, and Yvonne's father was friendly and accomodating. He said they'd run an errand in the neighborhood and come back for me.

That little moment meant a lot to me. I could see that the guy wasn't crazy about me; but when I said I wanted to see the pastor, his personal feelings were put away and he was very kind.

I went to a building next to the church where the pastor and his wife were setting up a social hour. Some people had gotten there ahead of me and the pastor was engaged, but when I entered the room he noticed me. I saw him make a hand signal to his wife, who came right over to me. I figured he was thinking, My gosh, the weirdo with the beard from the balcony!

His wife graciously introduced herself, and the pastor soon joined us. I told him that I had been moved by what I saw and that I had been reading the Bible lately, but that I was still not certain about Christ.

He asked, "What do you want to know?"

I thought to myself, I can bury this guy alive. What does he know about life?

I said to him, "Well, what about evolution?" And I went into my thing about how the Bible looked like an ignorant book in the light of scientific discovery.

He listened patiently and in good humor. I realized this wasn't the first time he'd heard all that. When I finished he just shrugged and said he thought the Bible was accurate and God was real.

I attacked. "Now do you really, really believe Jesus is alive and standing right here? Do you think He takes over in the lives of the people that march up your aisle?"

I was looking for him to say something like, "Well, Christianity is a great thing and it helps people today" or some such side step. But he met me head on.

He said, "Yes."

I could see by his face that he meant it.

Then he said, "You can ask questions about evolution and other such things on and on. But isn't the life you're leading really the important thing? Why don't you come to God and see what happens? There's no charge."

I thanked him and slipped away, realizing I'd met my match.

I ended up thinking about him the same way I thought about Yvonne: "Where do they get their insight?"

Yvonne and her parents returned and we spent a brief time together. Then Yvonne and I set out for the campus, discussing our morning as we drove.

I was having a tough time justifying why I hadn't received Christ that morning. I reported truthfully that I realized that the minister was a real believer and that he made sense. I told her that I had felt pulled to the front when he made his invitation in the church. But I had no happy ending to report. I simply, dogmatically, refused to come to the Lord.

But I had no peace that night. I read the Scriptures until a late hour and then I began to talk with God. It was a funny conversation, as if I were saying, Just in case You're really there, I'd like to have a discussion with You.

I told God that I couldn't really say I was happy. I had lived my life my way and it wasn't all bad, but I was very lonesome. I wasn't a criminal or a dope addict, but I needed help all the same. Quietly, step by step, I came to the Lord.

My prayer, when it was in my heart to ask Him to come into my life, was very simple. I said, "If You're there, show me."

It wasn't fancy. It was hardly adequate to express real faith. But my Campus Crusade booklet said that God knew my heart and I didn't have to impress Him. As with the pastor in Louisville, I wasn't able to come out with the true extent of my need and my discomfort, but God knew me well and my prayer was answered.

I knew it was answered at once because I felt like a truly different person. I had an exhilaration enter my heart that is still there today. I had a new confidence and a new outlook. I slept beautifully that night, and my new faith was the first thing I thought of when I awoke the next morning.

I didn't tell Yvonne for about two days. I wanted to be certain that I hadn't done it just for her, and so I enjoyed my new feelings privately for awhile.

She was joyous beyond belief when I finally did reveal that I was her Christian brother. Now we could have the love of God together.

4

The Abundant Life

I found that receiving Christ is like taking a good hard look into one of those magnifying mirrors.

I suddenly started examining myself and really was coming up with some startling conclusions. I had always tried to figure myself out but I'd gotten nowhere. Now I had help. And my magnifying mirror was showing up a few blemishes.

Now I don't mean to sound like some martyr who discovered how filthy he was (and goes on about it until it sounds like bragging). But I found myself lacking, once I had some savvy about the standards of God.

I examined my job, my home, and my whole way of life. And about the only thing that looked good was Yvonne. I needed some changing for sure. I thought it would be a matter of a tune-up, but it was actually an overhaul, and it's still going on. I can safely say, at this time, that I still need help.

And I'm still getting it, from the same Source.

Yvonne, as I said, was joyous, and our relationship deepened considerably. I began to realize what a woman was. It says in the Jewish Talmud that a man must never make a woman weep because God counts her tears. Woman, I began to realize, was God's masterpiece, made especially for man, according to heavenly specifications.

I began to realize—and it was a great relief—that I didn't have to put on any special act to please Yvonne. I put on acts anyway, by habit, but they never worked. Invariably it worked best for me to be just what I was. We had long ago established that I was a sinner; she was just grateful that I was getting help. She said it showed, day by day.

I got convicted about the work I was doing, innocuous as it seemed. I was being paid to make my university look good. Well, it did look good to me and I never had to tell lies. But somehow I never was able to tell the whole truth either.

It was understood in our news bureau that whatever the news was, we were to "look on the bright side" in our writing. That's only normal public relations, but from the moment I belonged to the Lord it tasted sour to me.

Now, Christian people do public relations work, and I'm not above making my own ministry look as good as possible. But somehow, at that point in my Christian walk, I knew God wanted me elsewhere. I began to ask Him how and where.

I also began to see my studies as pointless. I was at the end of my doctorate in music, having only to prepare for the qualifying exams and write the dissertation. But I had been dragging it out for quite awhile and I now knew why. It was nothing but an ego trip.

I had been out in the music profession with symphony orchestras and Glen Campbell Show tours. I had conducted large ensembles, including whole operas. But I knew the entire time that it was just a matter of being the center of attention, collecting applause, et cetera.

But until I got with God I didn't know why it wasn't gratifying. I had prepared all my life for the money and glamour and artistic satisfaction of professional music, but I wasn't satisfied when I got there.

The answer was simple, as simple as Acts 16:31, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." I had just had nothing whatsoever to believe in except myself, and I wasn't very satisfied with myself. With Jesus I had, at the very least, Someone to do things for who loved me.

All these problems in my life were to resolve one by one. I was to quit my job and go into Christian work, and I was to drop my studies where they were (you don't have to call me doctor). In fact, the only thing that remained of my former life after a mere few months was Yvonne.

The Lord promised the abundant life, and mine became overwhelming. My simplest testimony that God lives is the abrupt change in my life just after I received Christ. My closest friends, my family, and even Yvonne, were stunned.

With Yvonne, matters reached a level I had never known before. Someday somebody is going to adequately describe a real "Love Story" the way it actually happens, with the wrenching emotions, the storms and the joys we all ache with but seldom talk about.

She was in a difficult position. I sometimes looked at her like a madonna who had personally saved me, and my manner fell short of leadership. Other times I expected very special treatment for one who had "given his all." I insisted on her being the saint I'd built her up to in my mind.

I constantly prayed about our relationship, and God gave me quite a few insights. I realized, for example, that a few moments of bitterness made a relationship better overall, like a few bitter spices improve the stew. This may seem elementary, but in my life as an unbeliever I had simply always gone on to the next girl when the going got tough. There seemed to be plenty of them. I had only forgotten that each one was a human being.

Reading about the ministry of Jesus Christ—His healing of lepers, His tenderness with every kind of sinner—reminds one that each human being is important.

There were times when Yvonne and I could simply not coordinate. She was a Gentile and I was Jew. She liked ham on white and I liked corned beef on rye. She liked Louisville and I liked New York.

But there was an advantage to this, too. We had a lot that was new to offer each other. We still do, for "there is neither Jew nor Greek ... in Christ."[2]

Only two weeks after I had come to the Lord I got a real chance to put my new faith to work. The university chapter of CCC was going to Daytona Beach over the spring break to witness to the hordes of college kids on the beaches. Yvonne was going to go, and I asked the Lord if He had need for a spiritual baby in Daytona.

Somehow the Campus Crusade people signed my form and put me to work. It was an experience!

I strolled the beaches with my brothers and sisters, trying to approach the drunken mobs of revelers and get somebody saved. One learns very quickly to depend on God completely in such circumstances.

Two people that I witnessed to through the week came to faith in Christ. One, a young "hippie," said he was able to talk to me because of my beard.

It was a stirring enough experience for me to actually witness to people and know that their lives were going to be changed. But a quiet event that took place on the trip was to have the most profound meaning for my own future. I met the director of EXPLO '72, the 100,000-member CCC conference planned for June 1972. He told me EXPLO needed a news director.

That need stayed in my mind and my prayers in the ensuing months back in Indiana, until I finally took my first big step of faith.

I left Yvonne and the university to work for Campus Crusade at the EXPLO '72 headquarters in Dallas. That was in the fall of 1971. I had been a Christian about six months. It was hard for Yvonne and me to separate, but we felt it was the calling of God for me. I had been asking Him steadily for a place in Christian work and it finally came.

At EXPLO I spent most of my time writing letters to Yvonne and most of my money phoning her. And I kept going upstairs to ask them if they needed another girl around the office. It was a fancy plan, but I wanted to get Yvonne down to Dallas where she could also work on the EXPLO project, and I could continue to work on her.

At length our prayers were answered and Yvonne, showing a bit of indecision, moved to the "big city" and joined the EXPLO staff.

I was the news director of the headquarters, again in the business of making our organization "sound good" in the papers. And again it was kind of getting me down, though I was thankful to be doing God's work and promoting Him in the world. Bearded Jews were scarce also among the EXPLO set, and I constantly felt out of place (except at the Christmas party where I played Santa Claus).

After EXPLO, I settled into book-writing and never went back to "work" again. Though I had never written a book before, and I certainly had no right to expect that I could make a living as a free-lancer, I read that "with God all things are possible."[1] I asked Him to make an author of me.

When I read that money was a thing that the Gentiles seek, I stopped seeking it. When I read that God would clothe and feed me as He does the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, I believed it.

I depended on God desperately, with no other hope.

Yvonne stood by after EXPLO, rather amazed by my deciding to sit at home and write books. She was certainly gratified by the faith of her convert, but I think she wondered inwardly if I weren't carrying things too far. I had no job, of course, and no guarantee that anything I would write would sell.

I had some encouraging friends, though. The Reverend Thomas S. McCall, a missionary to the Jews, was a constant prayer partner and mentor, and he had some good ideas to write about. He is an acclaimed expert on Israel, and especially on the Temple as an issue in prophecy. Tom believed, and had thoroughly researched, the fact that Israel is to have a third Temple in the coming Tribulation period.

f Matthew 19:26

In prayer and good fellowship we decided to write a book about it.

Yvonne took a job as secretary in downtown Dallas and also sang with the Dallas Civic Opera after EXPLO. Our relationship became still more complicated in the atmosphere of big-city pressures and hard work. The simple campus life had been easier on both of us. Now there were misunderstandings and a few real fights.

I was afraid she was getting away from me, and maybe would find herself self-sufficient enough to abandon me altogether. She bristled under my constant watchfulness.

I spoke to God about that daily. "What should I do, Lord?" I would ask. "You gave her to me. Would You give me something I can't handle?"

In the fall of 1972 I bought her an engagement ring, pretty much in the middle of an extended disagreement. For a few weeks we were real "love birds" again, but serious troubles still cropped up. We broke the engagement around the first of the year.

I didn't see Yvonne for a time but I couldn't forget her. We did talk on the phone from time to time, and she was very pleased that my ministry was growing. I was still managing to get by with selling my writing, and I was as well taken care of as a lily or a bird.

As summer approached we tried the engagement thing again. I got the ring back out and we tried to be happy. But somehow we couldn't make it again. We called that one off in a few weeks.

It must all sound ridiculous to read. Christian people are supposed to fall in love and get married simply and in faith. Christian marriages have no problems, we are told. But to my knowledge the Christian life is not "easier"; it is more intense. Everything is felt more deeply. Disciples of Christ are responsible for their behavior, and this weighs on them heavily. As much as Yvonne and I struggled to come together, we couldn't make our feelings blend. Maybe if we didn't have God we would have taken our chances with marriage more casually. But we knew how our God values marriage and we were fearful.

Then my ministry was greatly blessed. Mal Couch, a noted Christian film maker, wanted to make a documentary film based on our book, Satan in the Sanctuary, and Tom McCall, my coauthor, and I went off to Israel with Mal and his cameraman, Jerry Callaway.

It was a magnificent experience. I had never seen Israel, and had not really known what a Jew was until I became a Christian and read my Old Testament. But it was everything God said it was!

The highlight of the trip came when Tom baptized me in the Jordan River. Up to that point I had not been baptized, because every time the matter came up someone would invariably say, "What a pleasure it will be for our church to see a Jew baptized!" I had that same old feeling as in that Louisville church—"not in front of all those people!"

But Tom challenged me in Galilee and I was ready.

And I suppose that's how I finally got my wife.

I had a new closeness with the Lord after my baptism. Anyone who's ever been baptized can describe it. In any case, I came back to Dallas a determined man. I waited a discreet interval and then went to my woman with her ring.

I told her to put it on and start packing because we were going to be married in a week. (I had become a believer in short engagements.)

Yvonne was very pleased but she appealed for time to think it over. I told her, "Sure. I'll call you tomorrow night."

She did a lot of praying that next day.

I phoned her and said, "Well?"

She said, "The answer is 'Yes.'"

"Fine," I said. "The wedding is Saturday."

I didn't understand her panic. After all, she had six days to get ready. God made the whole world in six days!

It was a small wedding. I had to phone everybody. I asked Tom if he could perform my wedding, and he said, "Sure. Who're you going to marry?"

I thought I was going to have to decorate the church and play the piano for the ceremony, but with a little help from my friends, I got married the following Saturday.

It was a hectic week. Wednesday and Thursday I wrote the final film script for The Temple, our film shot in Israel. Friday night I wrote a magazine article whose deadline wouldn't wait for the honeymoon. Saturday morning I bought my shirt and tie for the ceremony.

Some of the guests beat me to the church.

5

"He Is There"

I often think back to my simple prayer to Christ when I first spoke to Him. Has He shown me He is there?

I leave it to you.

I was a writer of news releases and a musician. I had no real love in my life. I had no God.

Now I write books and they do very well. I write film scripts and act in films. I host a radio talk show and a national TV show. I speak in churches and at conferences. I respect myself and my work. I have a wife and my life is filled with love. I have a ministry and a purpose, and I look forward eagerly to meeting Christ face to face. I have verified that He is there, and that He keeps His promises.

I have no fear except as I have doubt. When my faith is strong, I have the mind of Christ, which never knew fear. I have the abundant life. All this has happened to me in just a few years!

If you are not a believer, I'm glad you read this little book. Thanks for your patience; I realize it's a crazy story to an unbeliever. I'm not a shouting evangelist, but you can understand my desire to share what has happened to me. I did not believe Yvonne for a long time when she told me God was real and that He changes lives. But obviously I was wrong.

My songs have changed considerably now that I live in Christ:

I came to Him unfit to come.

I said, "I've come, O Lord, I've come."

He said, "Now rest, just rest in Me.

I'll give you peace. Just rest in Me."

I said, "Oh Lord, I shouldn't have come."

I said, "I've sinned, and shouldn't have come.

I've been a liar, I've been a thief.

My life is sorrow, my life is grief."

He said, "I know you, friend, and I knew you before.

I thought of you at Calvary.

I saw your sorrow, I saw your grief,

I saw a liar, I saw a thief.

I told My Father then, as I said I would do,

'Prepare a place in Your house.

My friend is coming, My friend is coming!'

And I laid down My life for you."

I've lived every minute of this crazy life told here, and I can tell you that God is real and He loves you. If I were you, I would speak to Him. He died for you as He did for me. He's available to you as He was to me. He said, "I stand at the door, and knock."[3]There was a time I didn't believe it. But now I do.

Speak to Him for yourself. Tell Him whatever you like. He's a very good Listener. If you're in a mess, tell Him you're in a mess. If you figure you've got it made without Him, tell Him that. But start a communication.

This world is in terrible shape—you don't need a Hebrew prophet to tell you that, although they have predicted all this. I believe that implicitly. And I certainly do not fear His coming— and He is coming just as He promised. I've learned to trust His promises.

If you don't say anything else to God, try this: "If You're there, show me."

I can recommend it.

IF YOU’RE THERE, SHOW ME

What happens when “love at first sight” collides with the “rock of religious conviction”? Will even love-inspired argument change a cynical music and drama critic into a follower of the Messiah? Can an agnostic Jew find happiness with an evangelistically oriented Gentile?

Here’s the first-person report of an argument won—and the triumph of the love of God despite “impossible” odds.

* * *

ZOLA LEVITT has had a varied career as musician, teacher, music and drama critic for a daily newspaper, and family counselor. He has authored 36 books with major publishers and numerous Bible study guides. His television program, ZOLA LEVITT LIVE, shows weekly in all 50 states. He has guided several tours to Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Islands. All of this varied ministry effort began with this story.

1 John 8:46, New American Standard Bible f John 14:6.

2 Galatians 3:28

3 Revelation 3:20

Table of Contents

"The Most Beautiful Girl in the World"

"The Way I Want to Love"

"If You're There. Show Me"

The Abundant Life

"He Is There"

1

t

Only two weeks after I had come to the Lord I got a real chance to put my new faith to work. The uni

When I read that money was a thing that the Gentiles seek, I stopped seeking it. When I read that Go

Speak to Him for yourself. Tell Him whatever you like. He's a very good Listener. If you're in a mes

2 Galatians 3:28

3 Revelation 3:20