You Would Have Been Proud!

May 17, 2010

 

“You Would Have Been Proud!”

 

My mother was the shaper and molder in our family.  She took great effort to instill in each of her children faith and values that would serve as guides and waypoints all along the journey of life.  She lived what she said.  This past Sunday I was off celebrating my son Michael’s graduation from Texas Wesleyan University in Ft. Worth.  I rented a small guest house in Azle, Texas.  Azle is just a few miles east of Weatherford, Texas.  So on Sunday I decided to go a little further west past Weatherford to the Bethesda United Methodist Church to hear a new, young pastor there named Brady.  As I sat in young Brady’s service that morning listening to him preach from the pulpit of his new church I was just so proud of him.  He is a pastor of a church!

After the service we were getting ready to go over to their new parsonage to see it and Brady excused himself to lock up the church.  I remember my first church.  I remember when they handed me that first set of keys.  As I received them it begin to dawn on me I was now the pastor in charge.  I was now God’s representative to those folks that I pastored and all of a sudden the weight of those keys was tremendous.  As Brady and I visited throughout the afternoon it was now as pastor to pastor.  We exchanged ideas about our churches and I now understood clearly that Brady was da’ man for the people of the Bethesda United Methodist Church.

 

As I reflected on my day with him and Annie I was just so very proud of him and of the church that God used to shape and mold them.  He is today who he is because of this sacred  place.  I always loved to hear his stories about growing up in this congregation as a child and later as a youth.  It always amazed me at the experiences that he paid attention to that for many people would surprise them regarding their influence on him and his faith.  That went for Annie too!  You see we never know what God is doing in someone’s life do we?  As I look at our children today as they gather for the children’s sermon or for Sunday school, or for M & M kids on Wednesday evenings I wonder how God is shaping and molding them in their faith here among us.  There might just be another Brady among them or another Annie.  Who knows? 

 

As I drove home and thought about my day with them I was proud of them and I was proud of you.  Thank you for allowing God to use you and work in and through you.  After all isn’t that why we are here?  Isn’t that what God has called us to do?  Had you been with me this past Sunday you would have been so very proud!  Regardless of where they are called to go by God they will always be ours!  Praise be to God!

 

I will see you on the road,

 

Travis