A Life of Significance

This March is the first time I have celebrated my brother Bob’s birthday without him. During my sermon this past Sunday, I told my favorite Bob story – the story of when he led me to Christ.

On his birthday, Bob’s best friend from high school, Austin Pryor, and I spent some time via e-mail remembering Bob. Through Bob, Austin and I were good friends during high school. He and I shared the history of both being led to the Lord by Bob sharing his faith journey. Austin was a great guy as a young man and grew to become and amazing man. He did well in the business world, as a husband and father and as a Christian. Through his lifestyle of faith sharing, Austin impacted many lives for Christ. I’ll let him tell his “Bob Story.”

“I know what that bedroom you and Bob shared was like, and spent many happy nights there. In fact, I was sitting in that room when I paged through your yearbook and saw those (for me) devastating photos of Susie. When I asked about her, you said she was going with Joe. I asked if you ever heard anything about them breaking up, please let me know. Sure enough, 3-4 weeks later you had lunch at the Frisch's on Shelbyville Road where I was working and gave me the good word. I immediately called to ask her out! We'll be married 49 years this summer... so thank you old friend.

In your posts, you talked about Bob speaking truth to you. He did to us as well. In case you never read it (and why would you?) I spoke about it in my book:

The up and down emotions from running a restaurant chain and speculating in the stock market was no foundation upon which to build a fulfilling life or a healthy marriage. I was searching, trying to fill the emptiness but not really knowing how. It’s been said: “There’s a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man placed there by God that only He can fill.”

But I didn’t know that. To be sure, Susie and I had Christian upbringings. I have a loving mom who took me to church when I was a boy, and I learned about God: how He had visited earth in the person of Jesus Christ, had died on a cross and in so doing had somehow accepted the penalty for my own personal sins, and had come back to life again and was seen by more than 500 people. At least that’s what they taught me, and I accepted those teachings. But somehow, in the process, I never developed a full picture of a personal God.

In the Sunday school where I grew up, there were all these colored drawings of Jesus and His disciples. They were walking through the desert, and He was teaching and healing people and feeding the multitudes. Miraculous things! And I used to think: “Boy, I wish I could have been there and seen that! To see an honest-to-goodness miracle!” Did you ever wish that? To see something undeniably supernatural? Well, I did. But Jesus lived 2,000 years ago—a long, long, long time ago. So remote, so far away, that it almost wasn’t even real. And it made God seem far away, because I never heard of those kinds of miracles anymore.

So I had gradually gotten the impression that you couldn’t really know God now. He was there, but seemed too far away. I didn’t see any way to relate to Him in any meaningful, practical, relevant way. When I got to heaven, whatever and wherever that is, I could learn more about God. But until then, in this life, I assumed it was completely up to me to find my own way, to make my life count.

About this time, one of my very best friends came to town for a visit. We’d gone through high school together and were as close as brothers. He went to Ohio State to study engineering and had become involved with one of those Christian student organizations. He married a girl he met there, and they became really enthusiastic about spiritual things.

They came home about once a year and, when we would get together, always wanted to talk about the Bible and the Christian life. Now you know, when you’re not into that, a little bit goes a long way—so once a year was just about right for them!

Well, sure enough, Bob and Carole called to ask if they could stop by. I really wasn’t up for it. I asked Susie, and she wasn’t up for it. But he was a dear friend, so what can you do? After reluctantly concluding there was no gracious way out of it, I returned to the phone and said, “Great, we’d love to see you! How soon can you get over here? How about staying for dinner”

After dinner, it wasn’t long before Bob shifted the conversation to spiritual matters. He saw us living the comfortable life and asked Susie at one point: “Susie, are you happy?” And she answered, “We’ve really got a lot to be thankful for.”  He said: “I can see that. But are you happy?” And she paused and then simply said, “No.” Well, I was surprised! I didn’t know she was unhappy. And I was embarrassed. You just don’t want your wife to go around admitting she’s unhappy.  Before I could jump in and try to salvage the situation (“What Susie really meant by that was . . .”), Bob asked one of the most surprising questions I’d ever heard. He asked: “Have you ever considered asking Jesus Christ to take control of your life?”(Note – That was almost exactly the same question he asked me a few years before that changed my life.)

That really took me off guard, because no one had ever suggested to me that Jesus was even remotely interested in assisting in the everyday management of my life, let alone asked if I would be willing to let Him. Anyway, Susie responded: “This may sound egotistical, but I don’t think I want anyone running my life or telling me what to do.”

 The question scared her because, in our limited understanding of what it meant to give God “control” of our lives, it might mean that we had to go to the mission fields of Africa or something else equally traumatic. As for me, I certainly wasn’t attracted to the idea of God telling me what to do. I suppose I imagined that He would rob my life of any fun, or joy, or excitement. Besides, as a man I felt it would be a sign of weakness to depend on anyone else. Is there a higher, more masculine ethic than absolute self-sufficiency? As a man, I especially wanted to be completely in control of my own destiny.

But even so, Bob and Carole shared some things that night that shed new light on the basics of the Christian faith that we had learned as children.... As I was listening, I was thinking, “Bob, I’ve heard most of this since we were kids. We used to go to church together all the time. This isn’t what I really want to know. What I really am curious about is why do you and I believe pretty much these same things about who Christ was, but you’re so excited about it, so fired up, and I’m not? What has happened to make you so different now?”

After they left, Susie and I continued to talk. I can still remember lying on our bed with arms outstretched reading a little blue booklet they had left us, and sharing how we felt about what they had said. We eventually came to a prayer at the end of the booklet, which read: Dear Father, I need you. I acknowledge that I have been directing my own life and that, as a result, I have sinned against you. I thank you that you have forgiven my sins through Christ’s death on the cross for me. I now invite Christ to again take his place on the throne of my life. Fill me with the Holy Spirit as you commanded me to be filled, and as you promised in your word that you would do if I asked in faith. I pray this in the name of Jesus.

Then, right under the prayer was the suggestion that, if the prayer expressed the desire of our hearts, why didn’t we pray “right now.” I started to turn the page, but Susie said to wait, and asked, “What do you think of this prayer?” I said it was a nice prayer. She said, “Why don’t we pray it right now?” I was surprised that she was so eager.

But as we talked, my mind returned to Bob and how, to him, Christ was so real and so personal. It was obvious to me that his relationship with Christ was on a much more intimate level than mine. I recognized that if the claims Jesus made about Himself were true, He offered a significance and purpose to life that the world could never match; that, as God, He was truly worthy of first place in my life. After all, when you think it through to its logical conclusion, if the claims of Jesus are true, knowing Him is worth everything....

And I decided, lying there on the bed next to my wife, that I wanted to know Christ the way my friend did. I wanted to share in his excitement of knowing God personally if that were possible. If it required me to make Him sovereign in my life, so be it. So, I confessed my sins to God. There were many of them. Maybe the greatest sin of all was being indifferent to God—being what you might call a casual Christian—professing some sort of belief in God but really not treating it seriously. So Susie and I prayed together that night. Not because we were in church, not because everyone else was praying, but because we wanted to know God as never before.

Susie and I love Bob, and give thanks to the Lord for using Bob to draw us to Himself... as I know you do as well. So, we celebrate his life on this day of remembrance. Just wanted you to know.”

My brother Bob was an engineer. He earned his PhD at Purdue University and wrote a book I didn’t understand one word of. He was quiet and studious. He never did understand the impact his life had for the Kingdom of God. Through his witness to just Austin and me, his life impacted literally thousands of lives for Christ. And there is no telling how many others Bob shared his faith with. He truly lived a life of significance.

Copyright © 2014, William T. McConnell, All Rights Reserved