February 15. Pat Boone. In the 1950s and 60s, Boone was a popular singing star—slash—heart throb, second only to Elvis Presley. On this date in 1970, Boone portrayed evangelist-to-the-gangs David Wilkerson in the movie: The Cross and the Switchblade.
At the time this introduction is being written in 2020, Boone is still going strong. He created his own record company: The Gold Label, which features stars “‘of a certain age.’
“‘It’s a senior tour for singers,’ Boone says. ‘But there is a qualification: they have to be able to sell records.’”
Featured stars include Glen Campbell, Jack Jones, Roger Williams, Patti Page, Cleo Laine, Sha Na Na, and Boone himself. So far, they’ve released more than thirty Gold Record albums.
Boone also has personal projects, such as: “For My Country,” a musical tribute to the National Guard, which builds on his sixty-first hit record: “Under God.”
Putting his beliefs out there “stirred up debate as well as sales.” Boone said, “It’s not just liberals who can stir things up through recordings.” Today’s story is about a time God did the stirring.
Destructive living can cripple a guy, but surrendering to Jesus can heal him.
It was 1968, and Boone was out. The Beatles, Dean Martin, Steve McQueen—they were in. To succeed in his career, Boone had to become the bad boy that Hollywood wanted. Or so he thought.
This new path fed his growing doubts in the God he had once trusted. “I felt my lifelong faith in the inspiration of the Bible, in miracles, in God-man relationships begin to crack,” he said.
Boone went to church. He wrote books on parenting that painted a perfect picture of his family life. But the noble path he had once walked soon became a “twisting, bumpy, downhill road.”
Drinking, smoking, gambling in Las Vegas—he couldn’t give them up. His wife no longer loved him as she once had, and their home had become a battlefield. He didn’t want to be there. And she didn’t want him to be there.
To ease her own pain and keep an eye on her husband, Boone’s wife Shirley decided to embrace his new lifestyle: drinking and partying with him. They walked “hand in hand into the darkness.”
And their marriage, already teetering on the edge of destruction, reached a new low. Suspicion crept in; accusations flew. Criticism became their everyday language.
And then one day, a glimmer of light burst through the dark cloud. It came in the form of Clint Davidson—a man who had once been hailed as “the world’s worst insurance salesman.”
In a very short time, Clint had miraculously become the very opposite—a man with a shocking secret for success.
Clint had read the Bible and committed himself to the Lord. And he had read how the Apostle Paul had confronted obstacles greater than his and had overcome them with faith. So he surrendered his work to God, and in a very short period of time he became the chairman of three corporations, and even got his ideas for taxation bills enacted by Congress.
But that wasn’t the most impressive thing about Clint Davidson: “When he prayed, it was the most intimate, personal conversation with Jesus I had ever heard,” Boone said.
Clint radiated the love of Jesus to Boone and his family, and he brought much-needed joy to their family. This joy seemed even more profound when Boone discovered that, as a result of an accident, Clint’s wife Flora lived every day with agonizing hip pain.
Clint mentioned that he believed in God’s power to heal the sick, and he acted on this faith by bringing Flora to a prayer meeting held by Oral Roberts, a man who moved in the healing power of God.
Flora returned home without any pain, and after mystified doctors confirmed what she knew to be true, the Boones were undone. A great hunger to know Jesus swept in. To know him in the same way Clint and Flora did.
A few months later, Boone prayed a prayer that changed him forever: “Oh Father, I yield my life to you. Take it Lord and make of it whatever You want. Forgive me of every sin, wash me clean; and Jesus, oh precious Jesus, baptize me in Your Spirit, the Spirit of the living God.”
From that moment on, in every business decision, every family decision, they sought to put Jesus first. If it didn’t please him, it wasn’t an option. They read the Bible with new eyes, prayed with new passion. And nothing about their lives was ever the same again.
“The one who loves his life [eventually] loses it [through death], but the one who hates his life in this world [and is concerned with pleasing God] will keep it for life eternal” (John 12:25 AMP).
Are you ready to totally surrender your life to Jesus? Destructive living can cripple a guy, but surrendering to Jesus can heal him.
“Boone, Pat.” Updated September 22, 2020. Encyclopedia.com. https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/music-popular-and-jazz-biographies/pat-boone.
Boone, Charles Eugene. A New Song. Lake Mary, FL: Creation House, 1971.
“About Pat Boone.” Accessed October 1, 2020. Pat Boone. https://patboone.com/about-pat/.
Story read by Chuck Stecker