Part 16 of the story of how Gary's life changed. You could call it From Beer to Eternity. There might be 20 or so of these to make up the whole story. Links to other parts are on the right.
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I meet a man when we move to South Carolina. I've been a believer six months. I'm invited to tell our new church how I came to trust in Jesus (I'm part of a morning radio show so they think people might be interested in the radio celebrity). That night a man who was there calls and invites me to a class he teaches. He says I need to learn doctrine. What's that? When I walk in his class the first time, it's strange -- there's a calm, a peace, a seriousness in the air. And a sense that there's someone else there, but I don't see them.
He's not like any other Christian I've met. He's not cool and hip or rigid and dogmatic. He's a bank examiner and looks like the bank examiner Carter in "It's a Wonderful Life." He'd be easy to underestimate, but I see a rock, a giant. I've never met anyone like him. When I speak he doesn't say a word and I feel him listening thru the words and seeing everything I'm thinking and feeling. He's intimidating but not on purpose. I know him ten years before I hug him.
I go to his home Bible study where I learn how to read and study, and I also learn how to think. Before he teaches he makes 30 minutes of wise, insightful observations on events and news and things people are talking about, then he apologizes for taking up our time on that. I learn the Bible is always relevant, and the most relevant thing you can do is think the same way you see God thinking.
He invites me to call with questions and over several years I do -- hundreds of calls. I always ask if he is busy. He always just says, "go ahead." I ask about church, marriage, kids, work, bosses, money, people -- whatever happens to be getting my goat at the moment. I take notes. I have several three-ring binders plus folders filled with notes from his home study and our conversations. I don't know it at the time, but it's a life-course on understanding the Bible and translating it into life.
For some reason things he says seem to stay inside me, coming out of my mouth years later.
He never tells me what to do. He asks questions and gives perspectives and expects me to think.
At some point he tells me someone did the same thing with him. He says he "can't hold a candle to that guy." Later, I meet that guy and he describes another giant doing the same thing with him. I realize I'm part of a chain that goes back to Jesus. I'm scared.
He's the one on the right, quietly waiting to see if George Bailey needs help thinking about anything.
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