The last four weeks have been interesting indeed.  We have been traveling throughout eastern and southern Ukraine.  We have been in 11 states where we have interviewed 15 people who have very interesting stories of God’s grace at work in their lives.

These stories will be published as a book of conversion stories as well as gospel tracts (individual stories) to be given to unbelievers.  We also plan to establish a web site where these stories will be placed in Russian and English so people all over the world can read them.

We have interviewed people from all walks of life.  A former soldier of the Soviet Army who now has a foundation for orphans, a business man, several intellectuals, a lady who has published many books of Christian poetry, drug addicts that are now pastors of churches, a man who spent 23 years in prison, even a former witch doctor who is producing CD’s of Christian music.  One man, who was in the Russian navy, spent 5 ½ months in a sunken submarine in the Mediterranean Sea in total darkness.  Half of the other sailors died of despair and fright, but he lived to tell the story and later to find Christ, and now he takes the gospel to Ukrainian villages.  Some of the stories sound more like fiction that fact, but they are true stories that have been recommended to us by regional district superintendents. Jesus Christ has made changes in these lives that are simply incredible.

Right now our interviews are over and Shane Muir and I are resting in preparation for our trip home on Wednesday and Thursday (although we have a few things to do before leaving).  What a joy it will be to be with my family again.  Martha has been holding down the fort admirably and has had to deal with a myriad of stressful situations.  I have indeed been blessed with a wonderful spouse.  Also I am praising God that my son Andrew escaped a tragic situation in South African (read his letter below) and that my son Joe escape unharmed from two accidents in the USA while I was gone.

LETTER FROM ANDREW

Ok, I’m not sure where to start this email, so I will try and start from the
beginning.

Last night the 3rd of July we had a very good service! Then afterwards,
Peat Botha and his wife invited a bunch of young people over to their place
to eat and talk. During that time, Peat wanted to speak to all of us. He did
and God was dealing with everyone in the room, especially me. The Lord was
showing me so many things and how to be close to him. Later, after it was
all over I left to go pray and read some. I had noticed there was a small
fire earlier behind a large tent. So I went to see if it was still going. It
was, so I stirred it up to where I could read and keep warm. I
spent a couple of hours in prayer and before I knew it, it was 1:35 a.m. I
wanted to finish my chapter though, so I kept on reading. I heard a car
pull up to the missions front gate where the guard shack is, which was just
on the other side of the tent. I couldn’t see the car or anything because
the tent separates it all. Cars are in and out of here a lot, even late at
night sometimes. So it hardly crossed my mind that the car should not be
coming in there. 5 minutes went by and I started to head to my room. I
rounded the corner of the tent. The tent sits on a small grass runway in the

middle of the mission compound. The airstrip is about 80 yards wide. I
looked to my right and saw that the car that had pulled up 5 minutes ago was
still there. I kept walking, and then I thought to myself, “that’s strange,
the car still hadn’t gone into the mission compound yet”. It was still
right in front of the guard shack and an African man standing right in front
of the car. It looked as if he had something in his hand that was kind of
long. I strained to see what it was, but it was hard to see because I was
looking into a fire just a second ago. That’s when the seconds started
creeping by! I saw what it was, a gun, and to be exact an AK47. I was
heading right in the direction where he was. By this time, I’m out in the
open and in the middle of the airstrip. I then saw a second man, also with
an AK. (Those of you who do not know what an AK47 is, it’s an assault rifle
that can shoot thousands of rounds in minutes) known to be the most popular
terrorist gun. It will shoot through brick walls with no problem and is
very accurate! I turned slightly to the left and started to head away from
them. But it was too late; they saw me and yelled for me to come to them.
They were speaking English and pointing their guns at me and they were
standing 60 yards from me. I thought, “Should I run?” another thought, “if
what they have is in fact a machine gun, there is no running away alive. So
I stopped and they began walking fast to me telling me to come.  I slowly
walked towards them. One man specifically was walking towards me.
He also had an AK47 pointing at me. I then began to pray and pray out loud.
By then he was 40 feet away. I looked to my right only to see a total of
five of them. Just in front of the guard shack there is an ATM right
beside a small convenience store. There were two men working with it. I then
knew what they were after; I didn’t think it was me that they wanted after
all. The two men began to calmly walk away from the ATM. I looked up to see
the other man almost right in front of me now. Just then the biggest
explosion that I had ever seen or heard went off about 80 yards away. I was
unprepared for the explosion and it knocked me off my feet! The ground
shook and I looked up, pieces were flying in the air every direction. And
the man with the AK47 never missed a beat! He now was 6 feet from me and had
the gun at my chest. He told me to come with him. By this time I’m praying
out loud fairly loud. He told me to be quieter. He was very calm and I
kept praying but just a little softer. He took me to a corner of a building
and had me stand up against a wall by some bushes and told me to kneel. I
did, again he told me, “be more quiet” a little more stern than he did

the time before. Then I realized that there were 3 other guys in the bushes
right beside me as well. They were the mission guards. One man guarded us while
the others worked at getting the ATM in the white car that they had. About
30 seconds went by and the man guarding us slowly walked around a wall where we couldn’t
see him. My ears were still ringing fairly loud, so I couldn’t here what
they were doing. About 20 seconds went by and I crept up to the corner
where they had been. They were gone. Even the car was gone. The ATM was no
longer there. The small room where the safe was, was blown to pieces! The
bulletproof window where the ATM once was, was shattered in a million
pieces. Most of it was about 20 feet away from where it once was attached to
the ATM. Out loud, I began thanking God that they were gone! A huge relief
came over me and I began to shake then. And shake I did! It wasn’t long
before the cops and people who heard the blast were standing around the
sight and me. Some with their arms around me, trying to calm my shaking
body a little. After about thirty minutes, I slowly started to stop
shaking. A white African American who lived on the mission took me to his
house to calm me down and have some tea and a bite to eat. That helped!
They were very kind to me and sorry that everything had happen to me! We
prayed and thanked God for our safety. Right after the cops arrived, the
guys that were held up gathered in a circle and thanked God for keeping us
safe! After an hour and half of tea and talking I went back to bed. After
sometime, I finally was able to sleep. When the sun came up and there was a
knock on the door. A friend said that the chief of police wanted to see me.
“Ok” I said. Five minutes later I walked up to him. He greeted me and
said, “Welcome to South Africa”. Then he snickered and shook his head. He
then proceeded to tell me that he was the head of the “bombing
investigation.” I told him from the beginning, in detail, what all had
happened.

Wow! I was so scared sitting in those bushes with an AK47 at my chest. I
now have thanked God so much! And many people have prayed as well, with me
and for our safe keeping.

I’m still a little shaken this a.m. but I am much much better!! The locals
here said they have never seen anything like this in the lifetime that they
have lived here. They also told me that these are the kind of guys that

wouldn’t think twice about killing you if given any trouble at all. These
guys were experienced at this. They never once ran or yelled. They
just remained calm the whole time.

The chief told me also that these were extremely dangerous men! And they
wouldn’t have hesitated to shoot if I would have done anything else other
than listen them.

The people that live here were shocked to see something like that happen
here. It’s not anything that you see here much at all! One guy said this
is the worst thing that’s even come close to happening in the 15 years of
living here.

Thank you all for your prayers! I have much more traveling to do here. But
the areas that we are going to be in will not be as dangerous.

Love you all!! My 4th of July fireworks at Kwasizabantu Mission, South Africa.

If anyone has any comments to this email, please send it to
takingthecandle@yahoo.com

Andrew Glick

I wrote this devotional on mercy just hours before hearing that my son Andrew was in a very dangerous situation in South Africa. He and several others were held by a gang of criminals at gunpoint while a local ATM machine was robbed. My wife in the US called me in southern Ukraine (where Scott Sobie, Shane Muir and I are conducting interviews for a book on conversion stories) to tell me that Andrew (age 20) in South Africa had by the mercy of God escape a very dangerous and life-threatening situation.  Praise God for his mercy.

“Then Daniel went to his house and made the decision known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions that they might seek mercies from the God of heaven concerning this secret, so that Daniel and his companions might not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon” (Daniel 2:17-18).

The news in Babylon was dark—very dark. The killings had already commenced.  The decree declared that all the wise men of the kingdom should be put to death because some of them were not able to reveal the contents of the king’s dream.  By default this meant Daniel and the three Hebrew children would die too.

When Arioch, the captain of the king’s guard, arrived at Daniel’s house, Daniel appealed for a personal audience with the king.  When granted this audience, he petitioned the king for more time to reveal the king’s forgotten dream and its meaning.

With the request granted, Daniel returned to his house and to the company of Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.  Together they sought “mercies from the God of heaven concerning this secret”.  As we know, God was merciful and revealed to Daniel both the dream and its meaning in a night vision thus sparing his life and the lives of his friends.

Mercy is what they asked of God and mercy is what God gave them.  Ask and it shall be given you.  The writer to the Hebrews wrote, “Come boldly to the throne of grace, that you might obtain mercy…” (Hebrews 4:16). 

God loves to show mercy to those who ask for it.  When Jesus was approached by two blind men who cried out, “Son of David, have mercy on us”, He gave the mercy of physical healing to their sightless eyes (Matthew 9:27-30).  In the same chapter He said, “Go and learn what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice” (9:13).  Jesus was an advocate of mercy and was the perfect embodiment of it.

Today, you and I are in the need of mercy.  We may need the mercy of direction, or the mercy of forgiveness, or the mercy of comfort, or the mercy of provision and protection.  Our families, our churches, and our communities need mercy. We may plead God’s mercy both for ourselves and others.  There is a prodigal child today needing a parent to plead the mercy of God for him. 

A Russian Orthodox mystic taught believers to continually pray, “Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.”  Today, in every situation, let’s breathe this prayer to God and like Daniel and his companions, we will become recipients of that mercy.

 It has been the opinion of the Christian church throughout history that fasting is a Biblical and practical spiritual discipline. A study of Bible characters, great men and women through the centuries of the church, and the history of revivals will lead one to see how God has made this exercise a means of great grace and blessing.

From a biblical perspective, fasting is a Christian’s voluntary abstinence from food for spiritual purposes. If medically possible, fasting from food should be done regularly by every Christian.  Jesus said, “When you fast…,” not “if you fast” (Matthew 6:16-18). Paul wrote to the Corinthian church about a kind of fasting from the marital relationship for a certain limited time and by mutual consent (I Cor. 7:5).

But there is a broader view of fasting that is often overlooked. In the words of Richard Foster, a fast is “the voluntary denial of a normal function for the sake of intense spiritual activity.”  The following are several normal functions from which we could abstain profitably for a period of time.

Fasting from Talking – I once fasted in this way for six hours in the middle of the day. I informed my family that I would not speak during this time, and that they should be creative and ask me only “yes” or “no” questions, that I could answer with a nod of my head. They enjoyed having a silent father, and I gained a new control over my tongue. Frequently we are so noisy and quick spoken, that we do not hear what God and others are really saying to us. Sometimes we lack inner control, because we fail to control our words.

Fasting from the Media – Many of us fail to recognize our addiction to the media. Radio, newspapers, television, video, and the internet have changed our world forever. Daily our thoughts are preoccupied and shaped by these voices, and most of the information is hardly necessary for life and godliness. How beneficial it can be to turn off these voices and listen for the voice of God and our loved ones. The art of meditation has been lost primarily because we fill most of our silent spaces with the noise of the media.

Fasting from the Company of Others – Jesus regularly practiced this form of fasting, otherwise known as solitude. The Gospels inform us that He withdrew himself from the company of others and sought solitary places where He could be alone with God for prayer and meditation. We need the fellowship of others, or we will become stale; but we need time alone, or we will remain shallow. In The Still Hour, Austin Phelps wrote, “It has been said that no great work in literature or in science was ever wrought by a man who did not love solitude. We may lay it down as an elemental principle of religion, that no large growth in holiness was ever gained by one who did not take time to be often and long alone with God.”

Fasting from Sleep – All of us need our rest, but sometimes we don’t need as much as we take. Perhaps for a week or two we might want to sleep one hour less and give that time to prayer for God’s blessing in some particular area of our life. We might be pleasantly surprised how God will reward this small act of self denial.

Fasting from Negative Commentary – While it might not be possible or desirable to live our entire life without making negative statements, it may be very helpful to live some time without them. In fact, to do so may help us gain a certain measure of control over ourselves, enabling us to make only the negative statements that bring about positive results. I suggest that you try to go one whole day without uttering one negative comment about anything. This would include the weather, traffic conditions, the attitudes and actions of others, and the food you’re eating.  I wish you well. I have yet to have one person, who taking up this challenge, came back to me to say that they had succeeded.  Many came back to tell me of failure. Oops, was that negative commentary.

Shane Muir and I had a nice trip here Monday night.  Tuesday and Wednesday we were able to visit the Vatican, the Roman Forum, the Colosseum (where Christians were thrown to the lions), and many other places of interest.  We were both able to sleep some on the plane because we had whole aisles to ourselves. The lady at the gate told us kindly which aisles were completely free and that we could go and claim them.  May the Lord smile on her.  Tomorrow, God willing,  we will go on to Kiev, Ukraine.  By the way, George Bush was in Rome today with the Pope.  Big day in Rome:  Bush, the Pope, Muir, Glick.

Today (Monday) I am leaving for Ukraine.  I will miss speaking at the funeral service (tomorrow) of a wonderful man of God that passed away on Friday.  Vince Adams was a WWII veteran and a member of the church in Florence where I am the pastor.  Rev. Mark Cravens, campus pastor at God’s Bible School and College will be the supply pastor for seven weeks while I am gone.  On his first day , he will be conducting the funeral service.

Below is the letter I am having Mark read at the memorial service.  Vince was one of those rare souls that was so greatly respected by those who knew him.  He was truly a beloved and faithful man of God. 

To the Family and Friends of Vince Adams

June 10, 2008

I deeply regret that I have had to miss this occasion today.  Obviously none of us can control the events of life and death.

With my pen, however, I wish to convey my sense of sorrow and loss at the passing of Vince.   I also pray that the comfort of God will be richly yours as you pass through the events of this day. 

I did not know Vince Adams for a long period of time.  I made his acquaintance two years ago when I became pastor of his church.  It didn’t take me long to recognize what a beloved and faithful man that Vince Adams was.

I saw him in the twilight of his life:  devotedly visiting his wife in the nursing home everyday for four years, faithfully coming to the house of God to worship the One he served, softly speaking words of comfort and encouragement to me and many others, quietly and unassumingly going about his business as he had strength, calmly suffering through his last illness without self-pity and complaints.  If the twilight of his life was any reflection of the many years that preceded my acquaintance with him, then Vince Adams was the kind of man that God has intended men to be.

Vince gave his life to the Lord 48 years ago and he never wavered from that commitment.  That commitment made all the difference in Vince’s life and it is what gave him the courage to face his death with such serenity. He told me two weeks ago that he has lived for this moment and that there was no reason to start crying now.  

While I have left on an overseas trip from which, God willing, I will return in three weeks.  Vince has left on a trip from which he will not return.  The only way any of us will be able to see Vince again is to go to where he is at.  I am sure that nothing would please Vince more than for everyone in this room to determine by the grace of God to meet him again.

Vince, perhaps where you are at, you will not be able to hear me say this. But in case you can, let me say thanks for being a man’s man.  Thanks for serving your country.  Thanks for serving your family. Thanks for serving your church.  Thanks for serving your fellow man.  You are one of those great unsung heroes that now are getting your fair reward.  Thanks for leaving such a good example for the rest of us. You will be sorely missed.

See you in the morning,

Your pastor,

Daniel Glick

“Then the king made Daniel a great man, and gave him many great gifts, and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon…” (Daniel 2:48).

Daniel’s rise to prominence was not without obstacles. When King Jehoiakim rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonians brought an army to Judah and removed the vassal king, plundering the temple and taking the vessels of gold and silver from the house of God. They also seized some of the finest young men from Judah and took them back to Babylon to serve the interests of the empire. Daniel and his three companions, still in the tender years of their youth, were among them.

Daniel spent the rest of his life in exile and it was there that he rose to great position of authority in the governments of both the Chaldeans and the Medo-Persians. Without the trauma of being exiled from home and all that was familiar, we may have never heard from or about this outstanding biblical character. His fame came about through personal tragedy.

Daniel’s rise to leadership was marked, not only by personal tragedy, but by faithful adherence to his religious convictions.  He “purposed in his heart not to be defiled” by anything contrary to the tenants of his faith (Daniel 1:8).  He would not give up prayer when it was declared illegal (Daniel 6), choosing to lose favor with the king and even die before abandoning his principles.  While some leaders have gotten to where they are because they exchanged matters of principle for position, Daniel never engaged in these politics. 

There were also enemies desiring to dethrone Daniel from his place of prominence.  They in fact tried, but they ended up with greater problems than he. After contriving a plan to have him removed by convincing the king to sign an edict banning prayer, it was they, not he, who became lunch for hungry lions.

Personal tragedy, political enemies, and principled living marked Daniel.  These are factors that do not necessarily favor elevation to high level leadership, unless of course this is where God wants a person. If that be the case, no power can stop what will be.

This has been a year of new experiences so far. In January I had a heart problem that came to a little crises on the 28th. For a few hours it looked like I might be meeting my Maker. Two days later (on my birthday) I had an invasive heart procedure that seems to have corrected the problem. A close encounter with death was both exciting (not necessarily positive excitement) and purifying.

In May I graduated from a doctoral program that I had been in for 10 years. Several months ago I learned how to blog and last week I learned how to roller blade. Today (Memorial Day) Rachel and I bladed 5 miles. We think we earned our rest (below).

In two weeks I leave for Ukraine to start work on a book of conversion stories from all over the Ukraine. Shane Muir and I will stop in Rome for two days. Rome is a new European city for me. If you’re like me, you’ve got to be experiencing new things to starve off boredom.

Keep the new experiences coming!

My parents, being the human beings that they are, made some mistakes while raising me. Imagine that! Seventeen years I spent in their home, and they actually came up short a few times. Shame on them!  Of course, I wasn’t exactly a model child. Shame on me! Sometimes I was rebellious, disrespectful and disobedient. I fudged on the truth and frequently walked around with a bad attitude. I know what you’re thinking: “Impossible! No way a child could choose to be that way all on his own! Must have been those terrible parents!” Wrong! I made decisions, chose attitudes, and engaged in certain behaviors; and my parents never put a gun to my head, not even once.

Parent-blaming is a popular activity with many, until they have their own children and understand the difficulties of parenting. This human propensity to redirect responsibility for our own bad behavior goes back a long way. Our forefather, Adam, was quite adept at it: “It is the wife you gave me.”  Eve, too, knew how to shift blame: “The serpent deceived me.” By shifting blame, one never needs to take responsibility for his/her own actions. If my parents are to be blamed for my behavior, who is to be blamed for theirs? Are my parents just the product of bad parenting the generation before?

I am not diminishing the fact that many people have been brought up in dysfunctional homes by parents who had serious problems; but each one of us can choose to break that cycle if we work hard and rely heavily on the grace of God. By the time we reach middle age, most of us know that we have learned many good things from our parents, despite their less-than-perfectparenting skills. Much of what is good about us is not simply what we have made of ourselves while unfairly leaving our parents to bear the responsibility for what is bad in us. I am profoundly grateful that my less-than-perfect parents, by both words and deeds, managed to instill in me some very important lessons.

Following are seven of them.

1. My parents taught me to work hard and do the job right. I was made to mow the lawn, clean the house, do my share of dishes, work in the garden, and milk the goats. You can be sure that I didn’t feel like it, but my father wasn’t in the habit of consulting my feelings. He could sometimes drive my brothers and me a little crazy by only accepting work that was “perfect.” Ifit wasn’t perfectly square or level, we had to do it again. Not bad training!

2. My father taught me to be fiscally responsible. He stayed out of debt and didn’t spend money on trifles. He still irritates me at times by reminding me that the extra trip I took to a town three miles away was extravagant. While not all of this kind of thinking rubbed off on me, I picked up enough of it to keep me out of debt for 25 years.

3. My parents trained me to love people and to practice hospitality.They constantly entertained people in our home. My mother has served thousands of meals at the dinner table. My wife and I have followed suit, and this practice has served us well in the ministry for the last 25 years.

4. My parents taught me that marriage was a permanent arrangement.They did this by staying together. I am sure that their marriage has had its share of challenging moments like most marriages, but I never heard the “D word” discussed.

5. My parents taught me that the spiritual and eternal must be given priority. If Little League conflicted with Wednesday evening prayer meeting, you can guess which one I had to give up. I have memoriesof my father reading his Bible at the breakfast table and my mother spending her hour in prayer each day.

6. My parents taught me not tohold grudges. I couldn’t help but notice how quickly they seemed to get over the wrongs done to them. For example, I remember when a minister wanted to buy a car from my father. He made a payment or two and then just disappeared. I was more disturbed by this guy than my father seemed to be, even though he lost the money, not me.

7. My parents made me believe that doing God’s will was the goal of life, no matter where that led me. Ministry was encouraged over materialism and service over selfishness. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for doing so many things right!

“Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2).

It is important to apply scripture to our lives.  It is one thing to know what scripture means by engaging in the sometimes difficult work of exegesis.  It is another thing to make sure our lives are constantly being challenged and changed by what we read through the even more difficult work of application.

I had my children read Romans 12:1-2 tonight for family devotions. This was followed by a discussion about the areas of our lives that we need to exercise caution lest we be ”conformed to the world”. 

Our nine year old daughter, Rachel, remembered that earlier in the evening, when we were rollerblading (yes, Martha and I both have picked up the exercise) that we passed a rock music performance, and she commented that we should not entertain ourselves by listening to this kind of music.  This music, if in fact it can be called music, calls for conformity to the values of this world, rather than encouraging us to be “transformed” and thus empowered to conform to the high standards of God’s kingdom.

This evening we also passed some people who were inappropriately dressed. We agreed that this kind of dressing (or undressing) should also be avoided if we are not going to be “conformed to the world”.  Godly people reflect their godliness even in the way they attire themselves.

And then, when our rollerblading excursion was nearly at an end, we received a cell phone call from our son Joseph who broke the unhappy news that the van we recently purchased had been vandalized.  The passenger side window had been smashed to a thousand pieces and the windshield had been shattered. 

OK, so now what does it mean not to be “conformed to the world” upon hearing this news. What is the usual “worldly” response or attitude in the face of negative circumstances:  anger, complaint, and cursing?  Does that sound right? 

I can’t say that we didn’t feel some temptation to at least some of these reactions.  But later we thought of this scripture and wondered how it applies when someone deliberately defaces your property.  Wouldn’t we look for good in this situation?  We tried, and in that effort we found four things for which to praise God. 

First, we were happy that the “bad” news was about an attack on our van rather than on a family member.  After all, just last Friday night, less than two blocks down the same street we live on, a young man was shot to death in his car. Our 13 year old son Tim was a witness to the murder and gave testimony to the police.  We were thankful that this attack was on our property and not on our person.

Second, we were thankful that while they did some damage, they didn’t do more.  They certainly could have. When looking for something to beat on, a van is a rather large object with lots of material to destroy.  They threw rocks, but apparently they stopped after throwing only two.

Third, we discovered that we had comprehensive insurance on that van (Initially I wasn’t sure, because I often do not carry more than liability).  The insurance will pay the full price of the restoration needed for the van. We won’t need to foot the bill. 

 Four, the windshield had a little damage to it before this event, but to replace it would have cost a good deal of money.  Now that these “friends” have shattered it, the windshield will be replaced free of charge causing the van to look a little bit better than before. So thank you guys.

Now back to the text.  “Do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed.”  This English word “transformed” has been thus translated from the word metamorphosis in the Greek text. In the world of nature, this word describes (if you remember your primary school science textbook) the process by which a caterpillar is turned into a beautiful butterfly. 

When used in a spiritual sense, it is the process by which we, in both attitude and action, behave more like a saint and less like a sinner. More like Christ and less like the world.

Prayer:  Lord, thank you for demonstrating the ability to bring good out of evil.  Teach us to see the good in all situations and to keep our focus there. Help us not to be “conformed to this world”, but to be “transformed” into the image of your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.  We want to be beautiful butterflies dancing in the skies, not caterpillars groveling in low places. Help us to find the way to apply your word to our lives daily so that this transformation can take place.  Amen.

Commencement Address

God’s Bible School and College

May 17, 2008

Dr. Dan Glick

President Avery; esteemed members of the board; faculty, staff and students; family and friends; and especially the graduating class of 2008,

Garry Trudeau once said, “Commencement speeches were invented largely in the belief that outgoing college students should never be released into the world until they have been properly sedated.”  Unfortunately some commencement speeches do provide that sedation, but tt is my hope that my comments today will be both brief and interesting enough to keep the sedation rather light and short lived. 

Congratulations seniors, on reaching this major milestone in your life.  Today is at least a partial payday for all the days, weeks, months, and years that you have worked so hard.  The early morning classes, the long nights of study, the endless and sometimes tedious lectures, the thousands of pages of reading, the hundreds of pages of writing, the discipline of living in the dorm, the discipline of living with your roommate, and the discipline of paying your college bill.   In a few moments when you take the diploma into your hands I would remind you that this little piece of paper celebrates discipline, work, perseverance, achievement and success.

So let you heart by merry, let your day be full of congratulations and celebrations. And when the fireworks have settled down take a few quiet moments and thank God that He brought you to GBS and has given you his grace and the opportunities that have come to you by being here.

As you leave these halls of learning, as you leave this chapel of spiritual influence, as you leave your friends and professors, as you leave these grounds dedicated to God and the training of his people, let me take this one last chance to remind you of where you will need to keep your focus as you go out to face your future and put your hand to the plow of God’s work for your life.

You are going from here to write your own history—choice by choice, decision by decision.  If your history is to glorify God and someday be worth reading than I am recommending…

PRAYER (God)

I remind you that the one true need in life will be prayer.  In prayer we interface with God and keep a strong spiritual connection to the One who can make our life both blessed and a blessing to others. In prayer we will be kept from being pulled from one urgent issue to another while we become strangers to God and our own heart.  In prayer we will find the grace and power for living a life that will be worth recording. Ignore God and daily prayer and we will write a history that we will not be proud of.  No matter who we are or claim to be, there are no substitute for the need to be in daily prayer.  Good looks, an intelligent mind, the strength of youth, or even learning at this institution will never diminish the need for prayer and the power and grace it will bring to one’s life. 

It is true that you have learned many good and noble things here at GBS.

From Dr Phil Brown you have learned principles of the Christian life, from Dr Allan Brown you have learned the doctrine of holiness, from Larry Smith you have learned appreciation for the history of the church, from Aaron Profit you have learned how to write, from Mark Bird you have learned the basic message of the Bible, from Marcia Davis you have learned the history of Western Civilization, from Kristen Bird you have learned how to teach, from Mark Cravens you have learned how to preach, from Garen Wolf you have learned how to play and sing, from Sheila Wolf you have learned to establish a godly family.  From Mr. Miles you have learned how to give great counsel and discipline that is fair, from Mr. Hooker you have learned how to be positive and stay involved in your community, from Sonya Vernon and our dean’s staff you have learned how to deal with a mountain of interpersonal problems and afterwards to take a stroll through the zoo rather than through the halls of a psychiatric hospital, and from our beloved President you have learned how to be an outstanding leader.  From many others on this campus you have learned many other things, but this will never be enough.

Like Mary you will need to chose the better part. You will need to take daily instruction at the feet of our Master, if your life is going to live up to its full potential.  You will need more than this degree you’re receiving today to get you through.  You’ll need the presence and direction of Almighty God and there is only one way that you will get that presence and help.  It is through a well cultivated prayer life.  

Prayer is our best but most underused resource.  Don’t ignore it, and don’t under use it.  In being focused on prayer you will stay focused on God and a life focused on God cannot be a failure; a life focused on anywhere else cannot be a success.

PEOPLE

And then there is the matter of people.  In case you haven’t notice, there is quite a few of them on planet earth these days.  6.4 billion (give or take a few hundred million) to be rather precise.  Line them up in a single file line giving them each 12 inches to stand in and the line would wrap around the earth at the equator over 55 times.  Many of these people are suffering from estrangement from God, moral depravity, and a soul wrenching emptiness that this world can never fill.  I remind you that you have come to this institution to prepare to serve the needing people of this world.

If you fail to stay focused on others and their need, you will waste your life and spend most of it in misery.  Jesus said about himself, “Even the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and become a ransom for many.”  Jesus had a philosophy of life and it centered around doing God’s will by giving himself in service to others. 

In John chapter 13, when the disciples of Christ seemed to think they were to high and mighty to wash each other’s feet (as was the custom of the day), Jesus rose up in their midst and took a towel and basin and began to wash their feet.  When he completed the task he said to them, “If I your Lord and Master have washed your feet, then you ought to wash one another’s feet.”  He then continued with these very insightful words, “happy are you if you do these things.”  In other words, Christ both the Creator of life, and the Interpreter of its meaning clearly stated that there is only one way to happiness, joy, and fulfillment—-it is being focus, not on oneself, but on others by finding meaningful ways to serve them.  Any other way is to wrap oneself in the small package of self interest and self concern. This will lead to a misery existence.

Graduates, let me remind you that the true measure of a man’s happiness will not be how many servants he has, but how many men he serves.

Never fall into the delusion that you are above people or too good to serve others.  Your greatness will not be determined by how you treat the high and mighty, but how you serve the downcast and lowly. 

Joann Jones said that during my second year of nursing school our professor gave us a quiz. I breezed through the questions until I read the last one: “What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?” Surely this was a joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times, but how would I know her name.  I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Before the class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our grade. “Absolutely,” the professor said. “In your careers, you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say hello. “I’ve never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy.

You see, it is possible to think that you love people and that you have the high ideals of service, but do you know and love the Dorothys of this world, the cleaning lady.  Many people are like Charlie Brown, from the Peanuts Comic Strip, who said, “I love mankind; its people I can’t stand.” Or the chap who didn’t see his own hypocrisy when he said, “I keep meeting people that don’t love their fellow man, and I just hate people like that.”

Graduates, its not about us, its about others.  According to Jesus, its not the economy, its others.  Unless you get that, you don’t get it.  John D. Rockefeller had ulcers, misery, and lots of money when he was in his forties.  Life was all about himself.  He had millions but was not satisfied because of his misguided focus.  When asked how much money it takes for a man to be satisfied, he growled, “A little bit more.”  Because of his ulcers he lived on soup and crackers. Finally someone suggested that he change his focus and create a foundation where he could give away his money to help others.  Over the next 40+ years John D Rockefeller gave away over 540 million dollars to educational, medical, and religious causes. Rockefeller’s change of perspective may have saved his life.  His nerves settled down, his health was restored and he lived to be 98. 

You see people who get to the top soon discover that it is a lonely place of disillusionment and disappointment if it is not a place of service.

It is the “living for others” focus that caused the brilliant and beloved Aldersgate student Scott Sobie and his Ukrainian wife Oksana to return to Ukraine a few months ago even though Scott was pistol wiped and his life threatened by an enraged Ukrainian motorist a couple of years ago on the streets of Kiev.  Even though Oksana has had a recent bout with melanoma and lives with the fear that it could resurface at any time.  Even though the Sobies have five little children under the age of ten, and even though they have had problem after problem with living and ministering in Ukraine.  They know they are doing God’s will by serving the people and that this calling is second to none in importance.

The last word that I want you to make a motto in your life in addition to prayer and people is the word….

PERSEVERENCE

With prayer as the fuel of life and people as the focus, you will need perseverance to get you to the finish line.  As you leave this place you need to recognize that you won’t always have the supporting cast that you had here; that encouraging word from the campus pastor, the compliment from the president or a professor, that companionship of a roommate or friend.  These may be strangely absent. 

In their place you may encounter problems aplenty. After preaching that sermon, you may have a parishioner who suggests that you may need to revisit the idea of being a pastor.  After teaching that class, your evaluations may look as bad as the yearly record of the Kansas City Royals, or after a particularly bad argument, your spouse may try to be helpful by offering  to jump, from that bridge, with you.  

You may find yourself memorizing the book of Job and calling the 1-800-“help me hotline” only to find the line busy.  It will be at moments like this that you will need to persevere in the line of duty.  There will be plenty of casualties around you, but you must determine not to join their ranks.

In the fall of 1941 Winston Churchill delivered a graduation speech, the shortest on record, at his old preparatory school, Harrow.  The students before him would all soon be in uniform because the Battle of Britain was underway, and that nation was struggling for its very basic preservation.  He stood before them, after putting his derby on the rostrum, and, leaning his cane up against the side, he started out and gave a few preliminary remarks, and then he ended with the following.  I quote him:  “Never give in.  Never give in.  Never, never, never — on nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in, except to the convictions of your own honor and good sense.” 

And so I say to you today, never give up, never give up.  When the battle goes hard, never, never give in.  When the road looks long, don’t take a shortcut.  There are not shortcuts to any place worth going.

You may not always be able to control what is happening around you, but you can control your response to the problems. You don’t need to give in or quit. Art Linkletter said it best, when he said, “Things turn out best for the people who make the best out of the way things turn out.”

So press on to the end.  Persevere through the dark days and nights and be assured that God will never leave you nor forsake you.  Keep writing that history and make it worth reading.   Keep praying and thus stay fuel for life, keep ministry to people as the focus, and then persevere to the finish line.  There is another President (not of the university) but of the Universe who stands ready to present you with a diploma stamped with the words, “Well done thou good and faithful servant, enter into the joys of thy Lord.”