There is an old Portuguese proverb that says, “God writes straight with crooked lines”.  Although this proverb is not from the Bible, I think you will see the truth of it in this story.  (Jesus said “I am the way, the truth and the life – John 14:6a.  Therefore, all truth is God's truth).

Rev. Lawrence Thompson, Pastor T as I called him, and I were standing on a vacant lot looking toward where our new church would stand.  He was very excited at the prospect of having a larger church since we had outgrown our present facility.  He had, without really thinking about it, laid his Bible on the trunk of the car while we talked.  If I noticed him doing this it was on a subconscious level.  I know it was late spring or early summer because it was a couple of hours after I had quit work for the day and there was plenty of light.  We stayed for an hour or so walking around and talking about the future of the church.  It was 1974 as best I recall.

The next day he called me.  There was excitement in his voice.  He told me he had received a call from a Bob Matthews.  Bob was a policeman for the Kansas City, Missouri police department.  He was riding home from work the night before on his motorcycle when he saw a book lying in the middle of the road.  He stopped and picked it up seeing that it was a Bible.  He opened it up and found Pastor T's name, address and, phone number and had given him a call.  He and Bob had set a time for Bob to return the Bible.  During that meeting Pastor T led Bob to The Lord.  I remember him saying an angel must have pushed his Bible off right where Bob would see it.

I met Bob a few days later at church.  He was a good looking guy with a very pleasant personality.  He had a wife and a daughter.  He lived only about a half mile from me.  We became friends.  In fact a few months later we were at a church skating party when I fell on my rear hitting my elbow.  Being embarrassed, of course, I just blew it off as if nothing had happened.  About 2AM my arm was hurting so bad I decided I better go to the emergency room at the North Kansas City Hospital.  It was raining very heavily and I didn't think I should drive.  Rather than get my wife and two small sons out in the storm I called Bob.  He picked me up and drove me to the hospital and back home.  I had fractured my elbow and found later I had chipped a piece of bone that had to be surgically removed.  Bob was that kind of a friend.

About a year later I moved to Springfield, MO.  I transferred with an insurance company I represented to start another agency.  Just before I moved I had developed a company basketball team.  We insured a lot of churches in Kansas City and I had been scheduling games with some of them.  My home church was one of them.  I remember standing in the gym warming up before the game started.  Bob was on the church team.  He snuck up behind me and in front of the crowd pulled my shorts down to my ankles knowing I was wearing a long jersey that would not expose me.  The crowd roared and I, red faced and laughing, managed to get my shorts back up.  We were both characters.

I tried to keep up with him for a while.  I knew he had become a sheriff for a small city outside of Kansas City.  After that I lost track of him.  Our common bond and mutual friend, Pastor T, tragically, had been killed in a small plane accident with two other ministers.  I was devastated.  I had had supper with him and the others the night before the accident in Kansas City after a seminar.  In fact, I drove them to the airport.  The next morning about 6AM I got a phone call from his wife, Ruth, telling me he was gone.  I don't remember if I saw Bob at the funeral.  It was a dark time for me.  I was saved and called to preach under his ministry.  He referred to me as Timothy and I referred to him as Paul.  We had been close friends for about eight years.

I recently received an email from Ruth telling me she has been in touch with Bob.  He is coming home on furlough and has been a missionary in Saudi Arabia for the past ten years.  I was surprised, not that God could call him as a missionary, but I had no idea he had been called.  It has caused a great deal of remembering in me and I marvel how God directs the steps of men to accomplish his purpose. 

It brought up a memory of my son Vince, who is also in the ministry, when he lived in Kansas City.  He was in a store check out line and the clerk mentioned his name.  A man behind him asked him if he knew me.  Vince told him I was his dad.  He said tell him I am pastoring a church because of things he taught me in Sunday school when I was ten years old.  I taught a class of ten year old boys at the old church in Kansas City back in '72 and 3.    

I asked the Lord if Pastor T knows how many sons and grandsons he has in the ministry.  I heard Him say, “Yes and there are many”.