Here’s me and my ol’ mentor, Bob McKenzie, wrapping up a visit at his house last week, October 13th. There are few people in my life who have impacted me as much as this dear saint. It’s hard to imagine my life without this man, and how the Lord has woven much of his life into my own. Even though he was cut from a different cloth than me, he grew in a different era than I did, he nevertheless bridged the generational chasm and demonstrated three characteristics that I wanted to share with you:
Consistency
We rarely if ever missed meeting for just about 12 years. For the 3 years that I was in grad school at TAMU, we talked on the phone for 1-hour every Sunday evening, and then when we moved to Dallas, we met every Monday at 7am at the McDonalds in Las Colinas. If we missed a Monday, we made it up for lunch on that Wednesday or Thursday. He drove from his house in the North Dallas area to meet me–his drive was at least 30 minutes both ways. That didn’t phase him, and I was profoundly impacted by this indirect gift he gave me. He was consistent.
Love
It didn’t matter what I had done wrong or if I had done something wonderful, Bob never judged me nor glorified me. He believed the best in me, and brought me down to earth with my eyes fixed on the Lord. His questions reflected this fact. He wasn’t swayed either way if I succeeded or failed at whatever it was that I was investing my life in–no, he just wanted to see me love Jesus through the process. He cared about me, about my interests (even though they were most often foreign from his), and he encouraged me immensely in some of my most important life decisions–including, but not limited to: leaving my Dallas job to attend grad school, search for a ring and proposing to Jennifer (he was included along with my family at the engagement celebration), accepting the position with Goldman Sachs, considering and turning away from other jobs during the financial meltdown, considering attending DTS, when to have children, how much to save for a house down payment, leaving my corporate job and entering into full time ministry, and on, and on. He loved me, and he showed me how to love others.
Prayer
One of the things Bob would always tell me was that I was the old knucklehead on his daily prayer list, along with his family. He prayed…everyday. That may seem somewhat trivial, but he was a prayer warrior and it deeply influenced my prayer life. He would always ask me how he could pray for me that week (until we met again), and I knew that when I told him something to pray for that he was going to do it. Bob prayed, and that changed my life.
This is a man who exhibited many positive characteristics, and each of these characteristics were motivated by his desire to share his life with mine. He reflected a relational intuition that wasn’t motivated by his agenda, but whatever the Lord would have for both of us. He didn’t see me as a means to an end, but rather saw me as someone who he wanted to invest in and see the Lord do things in and through.
Bob is now winding down his journey on this earth, but his legacy lives on in and through me. He changed my life, and for that I am forever grateful to him and our Lord. In fact, our life-verse that he gave me when we first started meeting and has since been something I find great comfort reflecting upon is Proverbs 16:3…
“Roll your works upon the Lord [commit and trust them wholly to Him; He will cause your thoughts to become agreeable to His will, and] so shall your plans be established and succeed.” (Amplified version)
I guess a challenge for all of us all is to pray for a Bob-type person to come alongside us in life–not an expert, but just further down the road–and see what the Lord might do in our lives and theirs. Pray that the Lord will bring a mentor in your life if you do not already have one.
— October 21, 2016