A Passion

Tomorrow I will speak at First Baptist Church of Fletcher, Oklahoma, encouraging the church to continue their faithful giving to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for Foreign Missions.  This part of Oklahoma is like a second home to me.  My mother, the last of nine children, was born about 5 miles south of Fletcher.  I have many aunts and uncles who grew up in this area and many cousins who still live here.

My first memory of Fletcher was as a 6 year-old child (early 1960’s).  Every summer I would visit my grandparent’s farm and stay for a week or two.  One hot Saturday afternoon my grandfather said that we were going to Fletcher to hear Floyd preach.  Floyd was his younger brother who owned a business in town.  Every Saturday afternoon Floyd, who had no seminary education, would take a battery pack, bullhorn, and Bible to a corner on Main Street and preach for 2 hours.

For a city boy on a farm in the summer, going to hear someone preach was not high on my list of things I wanted to do.  But my grandfather was insistent and I’m glad he was.  I remember sitting on the curb of small-town Fletcher watching the people go by.  Some would pause to listen as Uncle Floyd broadcasted a message from God’s Word.  He didn’t collect any money.  Rather, his passion for the truth was his motivation.

I am so grateful that I’ve had family members who had a passion for God’s Word.  I recall my grandmother sitting in her worn-out rocking chair near the window where she had her Bible and markers.  Her days were filled with gardening, cooking, cleaning, sewing, and even chopping wood for the iron stove.  But each day was finished in time spent with God and His Word while in her rocking chair by the window.

But no one influenced me more than my Uncle Elmo and Aunt Beulah (we called her ‘Toots’).  They showed me how Christians should live.  They worked hard.  They were active in church. They were very generous to needy neighbors.  They talked about Jesus and the characters of the Bible as if they were next door neighbors.  And they spent time daily in God’s Word, either in the morning with the first rays of the sun, or in the evening when it set.

For the past 2 months here in Texas, in addition to speaking in churches, I’ve been scanning and organizing our family pictures, over 10,000 of them, to be given as a gift to my kids.  Beginning on Dec. 22, we will gather in a cabin north of Breckenridge, Colorado, for 10 days.  All my family will be there.  As we enjoy home cooked meals, fellowship, hiking, games, sledding, and strolling along the lighted streets of Breckenridge and Vail, it is my plan to spend each evening in a Bible study time with my family, passing along to them the same godly heritage that I have been blessed with - a passion for God and His Word.