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| Tackling Tough Issues |  | |
| | | As pastors we cannot bring a person closer to Jesus than we are ourselves. | | by Richard W. O'Ffill | | The Kentucky-Tennessee Conference is located in the region of Nashville. My father's second assignment in the ministry was to be what was then termed the Home Missionary and Sabbath School secretary of the region comprising the churches in those two states. This is a story he liked to tell about his ministry in that long-ago time. It was early morning and dad was driving down the streets on his way to the office. Those were the days before freeways, and going into a city was just that--street by street and traffic signal by traffic signal. He happened to notice out of the corner of his eye a man staggering down the sidewalk. Though it was still morning the man had either begun to drink early or he was yet recovering from an all-night binge. He was so drunk that he was using both out-stretched arms, steadying himself along the wall of the building that faced the sidewalk on which he was staggering along. But in spite of his trying to steady himself, he lost his balance; scrapping his nose along the wall of the building, he fell to the sidewalk in a drunken stupor. Dad stopped his car and went to where the man lay. My dad was six feet tall and a strong man. As he contemplated the man's situation, he concluded that to leave him there might meant that the police would find him and take him to jail. Dad had another plan. He would put the man in the back seat of his car and take him to the office, where he would leave him in the back seat to sleep off his drunk. Following through with his plan, he left the man sleeping in the back seat of the car. He lowered the windows so that there would be fresh air, then he then went up to his office and promptly forgot all about the matter until around 10:30 in the morning. Realizing that he had better check out the situation, he went down to the parking lot; and as he approached his car he saw that the man was just waking up. His face was red and his hair messed up. Through blood-shot eyes the man saw my father approaching and asked, "Who are you?" Dad explained who he was. "What am I doing here?" asked the man from the street. Dad explained what had happened and how he had thought to keep the fellow out of jail. The man's next question was, "Why did you do that?" Dad's answer, "Because I love Jesus". "What is Jesus like?" the man blurted out. "Like me," replied Dad. Scripture says, "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth" John 1:14. We beheld the glory of the Father in the person of the Son. Now we are called upon to reflect the beauty of our Lord in our own lives. As the song goes, "Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me. Was dad arrogant to say, Like me? I don't think so. "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." 2 Corthians 3:18. | | |
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