What kind of example are you setting?

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “The Great Adventure”

Our Bible verse for today: “In everything set them an example by doing what is good …” Titus 2:7 (NIV)

Our thought for today: “What kind of example are you setting?”

I believe the year was 1993. I was serving as the part-time Minister of Education at Hilltop Baptist Church in Chula Vista, CA. One Sunday we had a visit from a couple who were sent to us from the California Baptist Convention. Jim was a former pastor. His wife Kay was in failing health and had suffered a series of debilitating health issues that left her confined to a wheelchair. But they had a wheelchair-modified van and together Jim and Kay traveled the state of California on behalf of the California Baptist Convention, visiting and encouraging churches.

There was something about that couple that deeply impacted Linda and I. The obvious deep love Jim and Kay shared, and the way they handled Kay’s disabilities with dignity, grace, and a positive can-do spirit, moved us. We shared a meal with them that day and we had a little follow-up correspondence with them in the months following, and we never forgot their example. Little did Linda and I know that fourteen years later, in 2007, Linda would suffer a stroke and undergo brain surgery that would leave her seriously disabled for the last seventeen years of her life. But when that did happen, we both remembered Jim and Kay and we resolved that we were going to strive to handle our situation like they handled theirs. Their example became an inspiration and guide for us.

In his book “Fortitude” Congressman Dan Crenshaw, a combat-wounded Navy Seal wrote this, “We have to figure out who we want to be; not just what we want to do, but who we want to be. When we decide who we want to be we are identifying the character traits that we want to have define us.”

Linda and I saw something in Jim and Kay that we wanted to be true of us too. So, we strived to follow their example. Years later God would bring another couple into our lives with a similar story and who set a similar example – Steve and Jacki Tate. When we met them, Jacki had been battling cancer for close to fifteen years and was within a couple of years of the end of her life. Steve cared for Jacki the way Jim had cared for Kay, and they approached it with the same great attitude. Steve and Jacki’s example was inspiring for Linda and I at the very time we needed it, just as Jim and Kay’s had been years earlier.

As was noted in yesterday’s devotional, sometimes the adventure of living the Christian life is not fun. Life is filled with adversity and challenges. How we handle those hard times matters, and others notice. God can use your example as a means of teaching, encouraging, and inspiring others.

I encourage each of us to consider what kind of an example we are setting for others. Let’s make sure it’s a good one.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

(If you like what you’re reading in these daily devotionals, and if you would like more content from Oak Hill Baptist Church, join us on Sundays at 10:00, in-person if you are nearby or, if you are geographically distant or if you just can’t make it, online at www.YouTube.com/@oakhillbaptistcrossville

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