Dear Friends,
Those of us who regularly endure the trauma of social media have probably seen the daily posts of people expressing their thanks in the month of November. Not to be left out, I started to think about those in my life who are long overdue for me to say “thanks” to. And by long I mean, at least ten years overdue.
If you are one of the few who has survived the Biblical Studies major at Northwest Nazarene College (now University) the journey took you though 5 terms of New Testament Greek. While the ranks were large the first day of Greek 1 by the 5th class the trail laid strewn with many bloodied bodies.
For my group we were whittled, beat, and carved down to three. Kevin, Bill and myself. The small class size did occasionally lead to tangents by our professor. It was one of these tangents that is forever engraved in my soul. Our professor, Dr. George Lyons, spent the majority of the class period one morning talking about the challenges of singleness, especially for those in the ministry. He advised us that if we ever wanted to change things then we needed to make changes in our lives. We needed to actually ask a girl out. We needed to live in such a way that made us “interesting” to those of the female persuasion. Now there is just one other detail about our trio you should know. Kevin and Bill were married. I was the only single in the class . . . and I was furious. In all the hours I have spent in the classroom I have never been so angry or humiliated. The lecture was clearly directed at only one person in the room: ME. I left the class never wanting to come back. If I had not been so close to graduation I probably would have walked off campus to never return.
Once I calmed down, my respect for the professor and trust of my classmates, brought me back to the class. But it would take months, actually a few years, for the lecture to fully sink in. When it did, I began to make changes to my life. I can still picture in my mind the day I sat in a dorm room in Larrabie-Morris Hall, while attending a different school, looking out over the Lexington Avenue in Wilmore, Kentucky, recalling the advice from that painful day in Greek and finding in it the courage to ask a girl to take the risk to intentionally spend time together. That girl was Laura, and an infuriating lecture in Williams Hall was the place where the ground for our relationship was prepared.
Thank you Dr. Lyons, I learned many things about life and ministry from you during the three years I spent at NNU. Any success I have in life and ministry is partly due to your influence and my failures are likely the product of my falling asleep in class.
To the others who are reading this message, what about you? Are there people in your life who are ten years or more overdue to hear about the influence they have had on your life? People you should say “Thanks!” to?
What better time could there be than now to send them a message?
Blessings,
Pastor Stephen