CreatorWorship

I am very thankful for a weekend at home. I have been out of town six times in the last six weeks. I am also thankful that I am not a long distance truck driver or regional salesman. My back and mind would die a quick death in a vehicle seat. Last weekend I drove 32 hours in 4 1/2 days to see my fourth-born graduate from LeTourneau University in Longview, Texas. Not only was the graduation worth the trip but the Christian fellowship I experienced while there seemed like a spiritual retreat.

The couple whose house my son has lived at the last two semester was where my fourth son and I also stayed. They opened their home and their hearts. The man is an emergency transport helicopter pilot who once flew in Papua New Guinea for Wycliffe Bible Translators. He uses his technical expertise as a witness to how believers in Jesus serve people. His wife homeschooled their eight children. She explained how inadequate and fretful about teaching she felt at first until she remembered her Christian college president’s saying,”Walk with the King, and be a blessing.” That is what she wanted to teach her children and that was all that was required of her. She could relax and live the life of grace before them.

I met my son’s Senior Design Project Professor. He has an encouraging testimony of how God saved a wild red-neck and put him into service to teacher young men and women to make good use of God’s gifts while giving God the glory. 

The commencement speaker was Edmund C. Moy, one time Director of the US Mint in Washington, D.C. With stories from his own experience he urged graduates to be competent and caring Christians. Following are my quick notes on the seven pieces of advice he gave: 

1. Seek a Mentor.

2. Find or form a like-minded group with whom to pray and fellowship and witness.

3. Be trustworthy with the small things; integrity matters.

4. Do good work; it praises God.

5. Make a “to be list” to become spiritually mature.

6. Consider public service.

7.  Many resumes have a zig-zag path. That’s OK: God is behind it.

Both at the dinner on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon the hosts, other parents, and graduates talked freely of spiritual matters. Several of the graduates led singing of spiritual songs. Another father and I were grateful for the friendship forged between our sons and the hosts’ son-in-law over the last four years, encouraging each other to live godly lives and be good students imparted life-long lessons and habits in all three of these young men. On this Mother’s Day, several mothers told stories of God’s work in their children’s lives and the graduates responded with other stories and thanks for godly mothers and fun times with Christian brothers.

In the Sunday School my son has attended the last 3 1/2 years the teacher reminded us by a survey of examples that the stories of the Bible they had been learning are examples of God’s grace and sovereign plan worked without fail in believers’ lives. The sermon following was given as a series of five sermonettes by the five elders on aspects of God’s love:

1. God is love because He is a Father in a triune relationship.

2. God’s love is expressed in the Old Testament as ‘hesed’, steadfast love.

3. God’s love is best expressed in the gift of Jesus.

4. God’s love never fails.

5. It is difficult for us to comprehend how much God loves us.

I had abundant time to think about all of these lessons as I drove 5 hours on Sunday and 10 1/2 hours on Monday by myself back to North Carolina. My back ached by the time I arrived home and my mind was dull and exhausted but my spirit was refreshed, ready to begin again at the mundane and stressful job of teaching high school science with excellence and care.

Paraphrase of the Great and Secondary Commandments

One Time “Richest Acre in the World”, Kilgore, TX

Senior Design Project and Senior Designer

An Inventor, Entrepreneur, Industrialist, Philanthropist,
Evangelist Christian

!—!—!—!

Dad, Grad, and Sib

Good Aim Matters on The Big Muddy

Waiting in Line for the upstream passage