Lehdestä Christian Reader:
A lifechanging TV link
Johnny Hart admits that for years he was anything but serious about his own walk with God. He sought pleasure, enjoying the luxuries his successful career offered.
Johnny had made a commitment to Christ in his earlier years, but never lived it out. "Bobby (Roberta Hart) and I had backslidden and fallen into a life of drinking and partying," Johnny recalls. They ran with the "Hollywood types," yet he was becoming less and less satisfied.
Then Johnny had a satellite dish hooked up at his estate. A Christian father-and-son team installed it, and temporarily lived on-site with the Harts. The two workers were always flipping the dish to a Christian channel, "constantly using PTL as their test pattern," quips Johnny. And the cartoonist began viewing the shows as well.
"I became interested by osmosis," says Johnny. "PTL was always on."
Challenged by what he was hearing, Johnny and Bobby began looking back into the Scriptures. Today, he cracks, "I use TBN (the Trinity Broadcast Network) as a night light."
With time, the couple's commitment to the Lord solidified. "Probably the biggest realization—and it came to me very subtly—was that the Bible is the Word of God. I didn't have an 'experience.' Everything in my dealings with God has always been very gradual. I attribute that to my own spirit muddling things: personal resistance; me interfering."
Nevertheless, Johnny and Bobby now have set their lives on a course of service. Both teach Sunday school at the Presbyterian church in the small town of (get this) Ninevah, New York.
