By David W. Daniels

In my years in high school, I had known only one Christian: David Rhodes. He's the one who gave me Chick tracts. But David had said to a friend, basically this: "Of all the people I've known in my life, the one I'm sure won't get saved is David Daniels." I don't blame him! I looked pretty far away from Biblical Christianity.

But God saw me, and brought me to Himself at the right time. And what seed did God have planted in my mind? —a Chick tract.

You see, what David couldn't have known (because I never told him), was that 8 years before, on June 7, 1972, a man I'd never seen before or since, came by my apartment and asked me if I wanted to read the Chick tract, This Was Your Life!

And I read it —out loud to him. Then he asked if I would like to receive Jesus as my Saviour. And I said Yes. So, we turned to page 23 and I prayed that prayer. And God saw me. After he left, I had no one to guide me. And I became a Mormon for four years.

But during that time, I would bike, skateboard or walk across town to the Christian Light Bookstore in Ontario and buy the newest Chick tract for a nickel when it came out, even while I was a Mormon!

And when I went to my friend Chad's house, he and his brother Craig had a whole pile of Chick tracts lying around their room. When I stayed the night, I'd read them all —even though I didn't understand the doctrine.

Seeds were being planted all that time, even when it looked like I was as lost as could be. So, when the Lord called me back to Himself in repentance, He had been tending to my soil all that time, making me ready to leave all that other stuff behind to follow Him.

When we hand out gospel tracts we have no idea what will happen. So not just when I hand out Chick tracts to the servers or people I meet, but when I leave them lying around, I am spreading seeds to nurture someone's soil.

God sees them, and He knows when they're ready. And if there's a Christian willing to be used by God, they can receive the Lord right there. We have no idea who or how or when it will happen. But it does.

But what if that man didn't hand me This Was Your Life?

What if Chad and Craig didn't have those Chick tracts lying around? I saw other Christian pamphlets over the years, but I never read them. They were over my head. And they were full of words. But the comic tracts grabbed me, even when I didn't get all the doctrine. For instance, after reading Bewitched and The Thing, I destroyed my Ouija board. I got that message clear.

Things might have been quite different. I am so thankful for all those Chick tracts. God also saw Jack Chick, and gave him a vision, to make it easy to spread the gospel in the modern, busy world.

So, if you want to be part of God's work of sowing the seed of the word of God, and you don't have time to stand there and talk with everyone you see, there is a solution.

Do like David and Chad and others did for me. Give tracts. Pick ones you like. Pray over them. Leave them places. And let the paper missionaries get more soil ready.

You have no idea what fruit they will bear.