BIG GOD, BIG THINGS … FOR REAL!
I had no idea that cold January day in 1964 that I was about to intersect destiny, or what the New Testament Greek text might call a kairos-moment.
I was readying to be a brand new student at Fort Worth’s Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. But I had a hefty challenge: the support of my wife and soon-coming baby. Someone told me to see Seminary Vice President John Earle Seelig for job guidance. I walked to his office hoping for a breakthrough.
That’s what happened.
I told Dr. Seelig that I had been youth pastor at a large church in Birmingham. When he heard it was of comparable size and challenge as his home church, Travis Avenue Baptist, he picked up the phone as I sat there and called the Senior Pastor, Dr. James Coggin.
Within weeks, I was leading student ministries at Travis Avenue, a relationship so wonderful Irene and I named our second child, a son, Travis.
Among the first people I met were John’s own sons, Steve and Tim. They were both hilariously mischievous teens who kept me on my toes, but (most of the time) secretly laughing all the way.
I was actually chuckling with my mouth closed that night Steve smacked me with a pie in the face at Camp Travis, our annual summer bash for our students. My mouth was closed because Steve had concocted the pie from the trash can. Stale coffee grounds, discarded potato salad, and whipped-cream do not a savory mix make.
I was struggling not to laugh out loud the night we were on a youth trip to Baylor University, staying in a Waco hotel (which probably had to shut down after we left). The reason for my stifled amusement was secretly watching Steve, who was supposed to be under curfew in his room, sneak out with a Texas-sized piece of chocolate cake and try to squeeze it under the door of the room where his buddies languished under the wicked curfew.
It was so funny I waited until he finished smearing the door, the carpet, the walls, his hands, his clothes with chocolate goo before I banished him to his hotel cell and the sinister curfew.
After I left the seminary and Fort Worth, Steve and I would intersect paths several times across the years. Then, in God’s wondrous will 38 years later, we wound up as fellow pastors under Dr. Ed Young at Houston’s Second Baptist Church.
I quickly discovered that Steve’s highly creative nefarious teen-schemes had matured. The creativity was still there, exponentially, but used, not for teenaged pranks, but fruit-bearing for God’s Kingdom.
Steve, even as a youth, evidenced the commitment that would grow through the years into one of the most exciting agents of the Kingdom of Heaven I know. Now he and I are old-—me in in my 70s and Steve in his 60s. I am watching Steve face the giant of cancer. In the snarl of that Goliath, Steve is laughing, not with the twitter of escapism, but from the deep joy of confidence in his Big God.
And Steve is up to Big Things for and through his Big God. Namely, Steve, through the continual strength of the Holy Spirit, is turning this rugged valley into the arena of ministry. Rather than denial and bitterness, Steve is choosing to use his struggle to stir joy and hope in others-—whether visitors or readers of his Facebook and blog postings.
And Bonita is right in there with him. In fact Irene and I call them a true “power couple.”
They are tremendous people showing us the Big God Who does Big Things. Their pain-forged testimony says it’s for real!
Wallace Henley
Senior Associate Pastor
http://wallacehenley.net/
