St. Jack

On this All Saints’ Eve, I want to say a word about one of the saints in my life.  His name is Jack Enloe.  In February 1974, in my senior year in high school, I got serious about Jesus.  I had been in church all my life, but Jesus was more an add-on to my life than the very core of it.  Not long after I made that commitment to Jesus, I met Jack Enloe.  He was the Minister of Music and Youth at First Baptist Church, Branson, Missouri—my girlfriend’s church.  

I attended that church now and then so I could sit with my girlfriend (who later became my wife).  Okay, I’ll admit it, my attendance was more about glands than God, but God can even use glands to get us where he wants us.  He wanted me there.  He wanted me under the mentorship of Jack Enloe.  I am the better for it.  Jack was the first person I told about my call to ministry.  Jack taught me how to share Jesus with others.  Jack taught me how to minister to youth.  He modeled the Christian life for me.  He taught me how to do basic car maintenance on the junker I was driving at the time.  Mostly, Jack just made time for me.

Jack and his wife Carol spent last weekend at our house.  We hadn’t seen them in 40 years.  Dayna and I were thrilled to host them.  And we were thrilled to have them as guests in the church.  I wanted him to see how God had used his investment in me to impact the kingdom because his fingerprints are on every life I touch, every ministry accomplishment God brings to bear through my life.

I tried to tell him one more time how deeply I appreciate his investment in me so many years ago.  He just sort of dropped his head, not sure what to make of my comments.  And that’s when it hit me.  I said, “Jack, you don’t get it.  I understand that.  I’ve been at this ministry gig long enough to have been for some others what you’ve been for me.  And when they tell me how much I have blessed them, I don’t get it either.  It never seems like I did much of anything.  But it sure seemed like much to them.  And Jack your investment in me means more to me than I can say.  Thank you for being God’s person in my life when I needed you.”

I still don’t think he gets it.  But I do, and I will never forget it either.  So on this All Saints’ Eve, 2017, here’s to St. Jack.  I’m a better Christian and a better pastor because God put Jack in my life.  And, because Jack took time to invest in me, the kingdom of God is wider and broader too.  Thanks, Jack.  The impact of your ministry is so much larger than you thought it was.  Your ministry was not in vain.

Who invested in you that you’d honor on this holy day?

So Long to a Praying Friend

I buried another friend on Saturday.  I miss him already.  His name is Dick Wilkerson.  Yes, he was a great servant in the church.  He taught the Bible for more than 50 years, beginning preparations for the next Sunday on the previous Sunday—no Saturday night specials for Dick or his class.  He was also the Property Director at the church—a volunteer position that comes with an office and a generous budget.  He oversaw matters of maintenance and remodeling on the church property.  I will certainly miss his service in these important areas, but that’s not why I miss him.

I miss Dick because for years he and another man, Bob Deist, joined me every Wednesday evening in my study to pray.  We prayed for church matters and church people.  We prayed for the lost.  We prayed for our nation and world.  We prayed for each other.  In recent years, we did a good bit more of the latter because both Bob and Dick were stricken with nagging illnesses from which they could get no cure.  Across the years, Dick went from striding into my study to hobbling in, steadying himself on the furniture as he made his way to the chair.  But it didn’t keep him from praying.

And you know what he prayed?  Sometimes through tears he prayed, “Lord, you are a good God and so very good to me.”  He meant it.  No bitterness over his condition.  No doubting God's love for him in spite of his situation.  Dick had walked with God for so long and at such depth that broken down health couldn't shake his faith in God's love for him.  The man walked well through adversity.  He prayed in the spirit of Job whose prayers included lines like these: “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”  And, “Even though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.”

Dick taught me a lot about walking through adversity.  This is what I learned: pray honestly; keep the faith; lean on friends; keep serving God in the places he puts you; leverage your suffering to point others to Jesus and give him glory.  If God ever puts me in that level of adversity, I pray that I will be able to live through it like Dick lived through his.

Well, no more adversity for Dick.  All is well.  He is with Jesus.  No more suffering for him.  No more walker.  No more limp.  No more struggle for breath.  No more pills to take.  No more oxygen through a nasal cannula.  Dick is just fine.

I am so glad for him.  But I’m going to miss him.  I’m going to miss those seasons of prayer.  I’m going to miss his prayers for me.  Sad, yes.  But it gives me something to look forward to: that day on the other side when we join hearts again and pray around the throne, that day when we will get to see the ways God answered the prayers we prayed in that study, that glorious day when all our petitions and intercessions give way to nothing but praise.  

40 Years Later

On October 8, 1977, way back in the last century, Dayna Vanderpool became Dayna McCallum, I and became a blessed man.  Two children and seven grandchildren later, I’m still a blessed man.  Forty years is a long time—a lot of joy, plenty of sorrow, victories, defeats, seasons when the love is strong, seasons when it’s not.  But 40 years later, we’re still making a life together. 

If a person is paying attention, he or she can learn some things in 40 years.  Here is some of what I’ve learned …

A large part of a long-term marriage is just showing up every day—good days, bad days, hard days, fun days.  Just keep showing up bringing whatever you can of yourself to your marriage that day.

Keeping Christ at the center of the marriage is the rock that never crumbles, the glue that never loses its stick, the peace that finds a way to prevail, and the promise that our entwined lives have a kingdom impact far beyond our address and our years.

Having a lot in common helps but it is not necessary.  Dayna and I don’t have a lot of common interests.  We don’t have much in common recreationally or even when it comes to the kinds of TV shows and movies we prefer.  She’s a night owl.  I’m an early bird.  Lots of differences.  But what we do hold in common is strong: faith in God, love for one another and our family, love for the church, and dogged commitment that marriage is for a lifetime.

Love grows.  Married love looks different 40 years later than it did on that October day in 1977.  There’s a maturity and a comfort to it that can only be shaped by years of living together.  Love grows wider and higher and deeper over time.

Marriage will make a Christian out of you.  You can’t have a 40-year marriage without practicing patience, forgiveness, compassion, service, mercy, perseverance, and sacrificial love.

Sometimes it only takes one.  Ideally, marriages take two to make them work—ideally.  But in the whirlwind that is a sinner married to a sinner trying to make a marriage in a broken, sinful world, sometimes it only takes one—one to hold the rope, one to keep the faith, one to stay emotionally invested.  Two is always better.  But sometimes it only takes one.  Dayna has usually been that one in those seasons of our marriage.

Words matter.  Words carry the power of life and death.  Hurtful words stick with the recipient a long time, corroding the soul like a slow-working acid.  Life words renew, build confidence, and bring joy.  Words matter.  Season them with grace.

Actions matter maybe a little bit more.  Over time, words without actions ring hollow.  They lose their meaning.  A spouse quits listening.  Actions matter.  Do for the other.

Promises are worth keeping.  Because of childhood issues, I brought more baggage into our marriage than a diva on a two-week trip to the South of France.  I had no dad to provide a model.  I had to make it up as we went along.  Dayna could have done better.  Certainly, she could have had it easier.  But she hung in there with patience and mercy.  She was determined to keep her promise.  So was I.  By keeping our promises in a Christian marriage we bear witness to a faithful Savior who keeps his promises to the church.  We bring him glory in spite of our imperfect marriage.  Promises are worth keeping.

There you go—some of what I’ve learned in 40 years of marriage.  I wish I had learned these things sooner.  I wish I had learned them better.  But I couldn’t wish for a better partner in the process than my wife Dayna.

In his poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” Robert Frost wrote these memorable lines:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

I don’t know how many miles or years we have to go in our marriage—certainly way less than we did 40 years ago—but this I know, we will continue to keep our promises for the glory of the one who keeps all his promises to us.  Happy Anniversary, Dayna.  I love you.