I once knew a man who was such an inspiration to me that, quite frankly, he changed my life. He passed on recently. I was there when he passed but I didn’t mourn. If there had been a funeral, I honestly don’t think anyone would’ve shown up. I was put in charge of his estate. I sold his belongings — it was just baggage really. I assumed his debt too — it was the least I could do because I knew I would be indebted to him forever. It’s funny, I don’t miss him now and honestly, sometimes I forget how close we were. What made him so special then you might ask? Well, I’ll let you decide. . . .
At the age of three, he had been given up to social services by his parents. He spent the next 9 years in multiple foster homes. During that time, he was both emotionally and sexually abused. He had no real father figure and during that time he managed to get in his share of trouble. He was caught stealing and banned from stores. He failed fourth grade and as he put it — he pretty much gave up on life. But at age 11 he was placed in a great foster home and life seemed to offer hope for the first time. Over the next seven years, the one father figure he would have, was a great example of what a man should be. But, as fate would have it, this new father was taken away in the blink of an eye when he died suddenly recovering from bypass surgery. Gone was the only role model he felt he had. He sank into depression and the years to follow went something like this: He gave up on his dream to play college basketball even though he was well qualified to do so- He barely graduated a two-year college – He began drinking heavily, and in almost 40 years of his life, he had over 40 different employers. He had 2 failed marriages, went bankrupt twice, was arrested once, had two cars repossessed, was turned down by the US military, he slept outside and worked the graveyard shift at a convenience store and stole from it just to eat. Finally, he lost almost everything in the crash of 2008! Sounds a bit depressing, doesn’t it? Just before he passed away, he asked me to pray with him. I honestly thought that he wanted me to pray for him, but he was really asking me if he could pray for me. And the one gift that this man gave me? It was a new life in Christ. Who was this man? It was me. The old me. If all I ever shared with you was that I have owned several homes, owned lots of cars and toys, started and owned several businesses, started a nonprofit, trained thousands of sales people, won numerous awards, traveled the country, published my own book, was a dad to two wonderful boys, have beautiful grandchildren, and now have security most could only dream about… You wouldn’t know the whole me. You see, there was a day almost 25 years ago that I decided what my purpose in life would be. It was simply to leave the house and find one person that day and make a difference in their life. John Maxwell calls it adding value. I didn’t know it at the time, but that’s what I was doing. Some of you may know this and some may not. In the sixties there was a song called Desert Pete. Hidden in the lyrics was quite a profound story. I’d like to share it with you. A man is wandering through the desert with bottles of water on his shoulder. He conserves the water carefully until it’s almost gone and then he begins to get thirsty. That thirst gets deeper and deeper, but up ahead he sees a pump sticking out of the sand and he runs to it. He lifts the handle and pulls it down but all he hears is the sound of metal on metal. He starts to panic. Then he sees a tin can at the bottom of the pump and in the tin can is a message. It says: “Dear traveler, do not despair, there is enough water here. Just follow these instructions. Under the pump in front of you buried under the sand is a bottle of water. Pick up the bottle of water and pour it into the cylinder and start priming the pump. The moisture will get the system to work. The rush of water will start gushing out of the pump. You can drink all of the water you want, fill all your bottles and be on your way, but do not forget to fill up the original bottle again and leave it for the next passerby. Warning: you’re going to be tempted when you see this one bottle of water to drink it. But don’t! Eventually you’ll be thirsty again and so will everyone else who goes by. Empty it out as instructed and you will have all the water you want and so will everybody else.” Now that parable is so appropriate on so many different levels, but the one I want to share, is how I feel it speaks to me when it comes to my purpose in life. You see, I want to share my story and use my God-given talents and experiences to give everyone hope. To add value to people’s lives and let them know faith is a beautiful thing. My ultimate goal? I simply want to prime the pump and leave a bottle of water for the next generation.