Teena Myers

I walked into the writer’s meeting and saw an unusual sight—a man. Jim a comedian, magician, and now author, learned about the meeting while performing at an event where he met one of our members. With a touch of humor, he shared his writing experience and goals. I could have listened to him talk for hours. Several months later, we met at a coffee shop, and I listened intently as he shared his faith.

Jim was twelve years old when he attended a Sunday school class that prepared him for church membership. At the end of the course, those who affirmed they understood the purpose of Jesus’ life were baptized. “In retrospect, taking the class did not change my life,” said Jim. “But from that time forward, if anyone asked me if I was a Christian, I would immediately say ‘yes.’”

While attending college, Jim lost interest in church and explored other beliefs, primarily Daoism, due to the popularity of the 1970s television series Kung Fu. But God had not lost interest in Jim. His skill on the basketball court earned him an invitation to play with an intramural team organized by the Baptist Student Union. Jim spent the next three years being active in the Student Union, where he met and later married Connie.

“Connie thought she had married a Christian,” said Jim. “About a year after we married, I told her ‘I love you more than anything in the world.’ She said she loved me too, but loved Jesus more. I blew a fuse and demanded to know how she could love Jesus more than me. That’s when she began to suspect that I wasn’t saved.”

Marriage, college, and working full-time proved difficult, so Jim dropped out of school and opened a screen printing business. The seasonal nature of the printing business compounded his frustrations. Connie, a committed Christian, encouraged Jim to seek God. Jim prayed for a burning bush experience as Moses experienced on Mt. Sinai, so he could have faith to believe in God. The heavens remained silent. Jim felt God had spurned him and relied on drugs to cope with life’s disappointments.

 Jim and Connie were at a party, when a magician, Ray, entertained the guests. He asked Jim to choose a card from the deck, look at it, and then return it to the deck.

Ray shuffled the deck and withdrew a card. “Is this your card?” said Ray.

“No,” said Jim.

Ray pulled out another card. “This is your card.”

“Nope.”

Ray leaned the deck against a blender full of daiquiris and walked into another room.

Jim looked at Connie. “This guy stinks.” Connie gasped. Jim looked back and saw his card rising out of the deck. “This guy is great!” shouted Jim as Ray re-entered the room laughing.

Jim looked at me, his face serious. “My life changed in that moment. If I had said, ‘How did you do that?’ he wouldn’t have told me. But I said, ‘I’d give anything to learn how to do stuff like that.’ Ray taught me magic. Within a year, I was entertaining people at birthday parties.”

A phone call to obtain supplies from Ray’s magic shop resulted in another life-changing moment. “Ray told me his business was booming. Once again, I made a statement that changed my life, ‘If you ever need any help, let me know.’ At the time, Ray’s business partner was looking for a store manager.” Jim moved to Atlanta to manage a prestigious magic shop. A year later, Jim opened his own magic shop in the New Orleans Hyatt Regency Hotel.

His business venture proved profitable until the New Orleans Riverwalk Marketplace opened. The shops in the Hyatt began closing until Ace Magic was a lone light at the end of a dark hallway. With his business failing and his finances drained, Jim contemplated suicide.

Two things happened that turned Jim’s life around. A friend gave him a construction job, and Showtime Television’s Funniest Man in America contest held regional tryouts in New Orleans. “Connie suggested I enter,” said Jim. “I told her I am a shopkeeper, not a comedian. She said, ‘You’re not much of a shopkeeper, so why not enter?’”

Jim grinned. “The New Orleans Laugh Off was one of fourteen regional competitions. I finished second, behind Ellen DeGeneres. Second place qualified me for the national competition, and offers to travel the comedy circuit poured in. But everyone I knew traveling the comedy circuit was divorced. I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my marriage for a successful career as a comedian.”

 Jim continued construction work during the day and earned extra money performing magic on the weekends, until he hurt his back. Several back surgeries later, working in construction ceased to be an option. Jim focused on a career as a full-time magician. He was earning enough to support his family when he sensed emptiness in his life.

Jim attended church sporadically to pacify his wife. One Sunday, he heard a sermon about intellectual Christianity. The pastor explained that some people know about Jesus, but they don’t have him in their hearts. Around the same time Jim heard the sermon, a friend gave him The Christ Commission by Og Mandino. The book examined the death and resurrection of Jesus in a similar manner to the Warren Commission’s investigation of Kennedy’s assassination.

The pastor’s sermon had convinced Jim that he did not have Jesus in his heart. After reading The Christ Commission, Jim realized he had never seriously read the Bible. For the first time in his life, Jim opened a Bible, intent on learning about God.

“I read a passage in Romans that made me stop and think: ‘That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved’ (Romans 10:9, KJV). Suddenly, I understood. Our belief justifies us, but it’s by our confession that we are saved. I believed the gospel story, but I had never confessed or even allowed Jesus to be the Lord of my life. The realization that I had to surrender my will before I could do his will was a turning point.”

Jim told Connie the next time they went to church he needed to ask Jesus to come into his heart and to be his Lord. He never made it to the church altar. Connie was part of a mass choir at a Jay Strack revival being held at Slidell High School’s football stadium that evening. He accompanied her to the meeting.

Jim smiled broadly, “On Tuesday night, November 19, 1991, I fell under conviction when the altar call was made. I didn’t know if I would still be alive next Sunday to walk the aisle in my church, so I joined the mass of teenagers at the front of the stadium. I knelt and said, ‘Lord, I’m tired. I’ve done everything I can do, and it’s just not working. If you can do a better job, here I am. Take my life and make something out of it. I’m totally yours.’ After I prayed, I felt like the weight of the world had been lifted from my shoulders.”

The following year, Jim took off his wedding band while practicing baseball with a friend. When he returned home, he reached into his pocket to retrieve his ring, but it wasn’t there. Jim had already lost three wedding bands and knew his wife would be furious to learn he had lost a fourth one. The following day, he returned to the baseball field to search for his ring.

Jim roamed the field, praying he would find the ring until he grew weary. Reluctantly, he walked back to his truck. As he reached for the door handle, he noticed a light underneath his truck. He took a step back. His ring glowing in the middle of the truck’s long black shadow.

 “The ring was glowing like a light bulb, radiant inside and out,” said Jim. “In order to reach it, I had to get on my knees. That is when I realized I was looking at my burning bush. The one I had demanded of God so many years earlier. I slipped the ring onto my finger and thanked God for the miracle. Then I asked God what wanted from me. In that moment, I knew my skill as a magician could be used in a positive way to communicate the gospel.”

I pointed to Jim’s wedding band. “Is that the ring that glowed?”

“Yes,” said Jim, “that happened eighteen years ago, and I never lost my wedding band again.”

Sometimes the answers to our prayers are delayed because our relationship with God is out of sync. Jim demanded a sign that he thought proved God’s love. But Moses’ experience at the burning bush was a call to service. God could not give Jim what he demanded until Jim recognized Jesus as Lord. When Jim yielded his life to God, he found his burning bush in a symbol of mutual love and commitment.