The Peter Pollock Story

Clean Bowled!
by Peter Pollock

Peter Pollock, considered one of South Africa's best fast bowlers, and one of the few Springboks to have captured over 100 test wickets, came to know Jesus Christ as personal Saviour and Lord through means of a television program. He tells his life changing story in his book CLEAN BOWLED. This article is an extract from the first chapter. (by permission of PETER POLLOCK).

It was Sunday evening August 1st, 1982. While my wife Inez smartened herself for church, I grabbed an ice-cold dumpy of lager and flopped onto the TV couch.
Oh no! Horror of horrors, that tell-tale music introducing religious programs on the air and sure enough it was 'Cross Questions.' This type of stuff wasn't for me. Epilogues, 'Boekevat', or anything religious I could not tolerate. Maybe they stirred some deep guilt in me? But I kept the TV on this time and, in fact, immediately became interested.
On the panel was Reinhard Bonnke, the well known evangelist, and Stephen Grenfell, critic and self-confessed cynic. He at once showed himself to share the same sort of views as myself on these self-righteous people who claim to be closer to God than the rest of us.
I think Inez was a little disappointed by what Grenfell was saying but she was spared too much agony by the arrival of her lift. She could now escape my clutches and those of Stephen Grenfell, and seek the haven of her church. I thought. "Typical! They (Christians) can't see the blunt facts and reality of life. They are always just running away."
They left me on my own, and slowly, frighteningly, it was as if that whole TV set was speaking only to me. Suddenly in Stephen's place I saw myself transposed on the screen and there, rudely exposed, was the ugly real me. Yes, there was the fast bowler whose intense hard eyes were once pictured in a magazine article under the banner: 'The man who loves to hate.' I saw the cynic, the know-all, the selfishness and the one-track ambition that seeks recognition and gratification, no matter what the expense. It all came before me, like a flood, and what I saw was ugly, ugly as sin.
But worse, I had the audacity to question what Jesus Christ stood for, there represented by Reinhard Bonnke. Indeed, there was I seemingly pointing a finger from out of the mud and darkness at the shining light of Jesus Christ. I had never before seen myself so clearly exposed, cut through the center by a surgeon's scalpel. That ordinary Sunday was starting to become very extraordinary.
The next thing I remember was the telephone ringing and my wife inviting me to come up the road to Arnie and Lorraine's house for coffee. When I arrived there was Henry Hauser, the former Springbok soccer skipper and his charming wife May. May set out to explain to me how wrong I was in some of the blasphemies that I had resorted to in my arguments.
That experience in front of the TV set had already opened my ears. They pricked up like a frightened rabbit's, keen to hear but perhaps fearing the awesomeness of the message. I was still very aggressive but at least I listened. Very much later, somewhere near midnight, as we got up to leave, May slipped a little piece of paper into my pocket, with a tender "Just in case you need it", and a smile. Later, I read it while Inez was in the bathroom, cleaning her teeth.
It was the sinner's prayer. I had no doubt at all. I found a quiet spot and committed my life to Jesus Christ. These are the words I prayed as I followed exactly May's hastily written transcript:

"Lord Jesus, I come to You today just as I am. I thank you that You accept me just as I am. I recognize that I am a sinner and I repent of my sins of the past. Thank You for dying on the Cross for my sins, and please come into my life and become my Lord and Saviour.
I surrender my will to You now. Thank You for coming into my life and for forgiving my sins."

Yes, what had started out as a very ordinary day suddenly became the greatest day in my life. My forty years of wandering in the world's wilderness had come to an end in that glorious, very simple act of faith. I was now 'born again'. I had opened the door for Jesus Christ to come in and in so doing I had taken my first step into a spiritual and eternal existence which is the ultimate destination of any truly fulfilled life.
Conversions don't come much more sudden than that! A growling lion transformed into a lamb.

Jesus Christ's way of saving is not always conventional. He finds ways to save us in the most extraordinary ways. May he continue to enter 'unbelievers' lives in such a manner. Praise the wonderful name of our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Almighty God.