Wasted Years: My Journey to Heaven

By Duane Clarke

Many people today are bound by the chains of addiction, whether they are addicted to gambling, alcohol, drugs, or other behaviors. But in a world focused on pleasure and instant gratification, where can we turn to find lasting and meaningful guidance and start on the road to true recovery and restoration of our entire personmind, body, and soul?

In Wasted Years, author Duane Clarke shares his own powerful personal testimony of how God redeemed him from a thirty-year gambling addiction that nearly ruined his life, family, and finances. Duane invites those who may be struggling with addiction to be assured that they, too, can give up sin and gain victory over whatever problem they have; they can live the good life and become that person who God intended them to be.

We are on this earth for one reason, and that is to serve God, live for God, and live without sinand we can accomplish all of this because of the amazing grace God gives us. It is a free gift, and if you are bound by the chains of addiction, the salvation of Christ can free you from your bonds. God delivered and restored Duane, and God will do the same for you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Mar 9, 2018
• ISBN: 9781973620532

Duane Clarke

Duane Clarke was raised by loving, godly parents in a Christian home, and his father was a minister for the Church of God. Even though he was brought up in this environment, he became involved in gambling at the age of eighteen and was addicted to it for thirty years. At age forty-seven, shortly after the death of his father, Duane was truly saved and his life was transformed. Now, in Wasted Years, he shares his testimony of salvation and transformation.

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Copyright © 2018 Duane Clarke.

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This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

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ISBN: 978-1-9736-2051-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-2052-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-2053-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018902108

WestBow Press rev. date: 03/09/2018

Contents

Introduction

1 Early Years

2 Gambling Years

3 A Life Redeemed

1 About Creation—About the Triune God!

2 Sin

3 Bible Holiness

4 Christian Growth

5 The Gifts of the Spirit

6 The Abrahamic Covenant and the Kingdom of God

7 Probation’s End

I w

ould like to give credit to my friend, Inez Haythorn, for helping me with this book. She has been a friend of the family for years. Her aunt would have me sing His Eye is on the Sparrow, in church.

Introduction

My name is Duane Clarke, and I would like to tell you the story of my life. I know everyone has a story, but not all people tell their stories. This book is about God, sports, and gambling.

God first, because I give Him all the glory and all the praise. He is first in my life. Next, sports, because from the time I was a youngster, I loved sports. I played baseball, basketball, and football. Then when I was eighteen years old, I became addicted to gambling. Soon I was betting on baseball, basketball, football, poker, horse racing, and dog racing. I ended up having this problem for thirty years, until I was almost forty-eight years old. I will tell you about my parents and the kind of people they were, my childhood, my life as a gambler, my life as the father of four children, and my first wife, who died in 1978 of an aneurysm at the age of thirty-one. I will also tell you about Linda, my wife today. She has been a Christian since she was nineteen years old, and I will tell you how God is so good all the time, as well as how my life has changed since I became a Christian for real. You see, my God is real now. He is real in my heart. I have truly become born again.

The reason why I would like to tell my story is so perhaps others who have addictions will be inspired by my life to give up sin and gain victory over whatever problems they may have. They can live the good life and become the people that God intended them to be. I know we are on this earth for one reason, and that is to serve God, live for God, and live without sin because of the amazing grace God gives us. It is a free gift. I have admitted that I was a sinner, believed that Jesus is the Son of God, and confessed my sins to God.

Wasted Years

by Jimmy Swaggart

Have you lived without love, a life of tears?

Have you searched for life’s hidden meaning,

Or is your life filled with long and wasted years?

Wasted years, wasted years, oh how foolish,

As you walk on in darkness and in fears;

Turn around, turn around, God is calling,

He’s calling you from a life of wasted years.

1

Early Years

My mother told me that I was born at 12:17 a.m. on a Saturday. Soon she had me in church. From the time I was born, I was searching for something. I wasn’t a typical boy because I couldn’t see out of my left eye. I would wonder what was wrong with me.

I wasn’t normal like the other children. But at the same time, my life was like being in heaven. My mother and dad took good care of me. I would touch my left eye and wonder why I couldn’t see out of it. Other kids could see out of both eyes. Why couldn’t I? That is the way God made me.

The first day of school, I was embarrassed because I didn’t feel as though I was like the rest of the kids. Now when I look back, I realize I wasn’t any different than the other children, though they called me cross-eyed. In today’s world, those kids would be considered bullies. I sort of felt like I was in prison with this self-image problem. I was hurt, and I experienced a deep frustration.

At the age of twelve or thirteen, my dad took me to Pittsburgh to see about an operation. The doctor said that the best doctor was in Moundsville, and so we went to the doctor in Moundsville, West Virginia. He operated on me to straighten out my left eye.

My dad and his friend came to the hospital and prayed for me. I had to have a patch over both eyes for a day or so. First, they took the patch off my right eye. Then a week later, the bandage was removed from my left eye. That moment was when I felt as though I had a new beginning in life. I still could not see out of it, but the eye was straight. I felt normal.

God loves me just the way I am. He brought me into the world, and a true friend will like me no matter how I look. Clothing, looks, and possessions don’t determine who you are. People need to keep their self-respect and dignity by doing what they know is morally right. Through my life, thinking of others and helping others helped my worth.

My dad once told me that if you go through life and have five good friends, you are blessed. I asked him, What if you have fifteen good friends? He replied, Then you are really blessed.

My parents were great Christian people. There was a lot of love at my house. My dad worked at the glass house for fifty-one years. He provided for his family. He didn’t make much money but was still able to raise four children. My dad was also a part-time minister. He became a Christian when he was fourteen years old, and so he was a Christian for most of his life.

He and I would pick up a disabled lady and take her to church. He was very active at church. In the winter he would get up at six in the morning on a Sunday and go down to start the furnace at the church. Sometimes he would clean the snow off of the sidewalk, come back home, and get ready for the service. He was always involved with church work. He read his Bible and prayed. He was paid about twenty-five dollars a week as a part-time minister.

My dad was a very loving person. He always thought of others and was never selfish. Those who really knew my dad knew he was a good, caring man. He stuck to his Christian beliefs no matter what. He lived for God and served God at all times. Dad would not cheat anyone out of a dime. He loved to talk about Jesus.

We would holler for him to come to supper. He wouldn’t answer because he would be upstairs with the door shut, praying to God. Lots of days, he would be in the front room reading his Bible. As a very faithful man, my dad loved his children but loved the Lord first.

My dad told me, You have to live this life as a Christian, loving God and loving others. We are on this earth to serve God. And God truly blessed my parents throughout their lives.

Sometimes I would wonder why he wouldn’t let me do a lot of things that other children my age would do. But he knew best. I would ask him for a quarter to go to a movie, and he would ask me what the title was. If he thought it sounded okay, he would give me a quarter.

My mother and dad were married in 1927. They bought a new car in 1927 and then went to Anderson Camp Meeting on their honeymoon. Then they lost the car in the Depression, around 1933.

I have had several people tell me that my parents were true Christians and loving, caring people. My dad was known as an honest man. He would place a box of candy bars in front of the entrance to the glass house where he worked, and he hoped that people would buy one and leave the money in the box. He tried to show people how to be honest. He told me in all those years, he was short only twenty-five cents.

My dad would check his receipt from the store. If they charged him too much, he would tell them. If they didn’t charge him enough, he would also tell them. If he owed them ten cents, he would take it back to the store. My dad was a dominant influence in my life.

After my dad passed away, we met a