Discipleship Tears

Today in my discipleship class at the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary, as part of my regular teaching on this subject, I will be sharing the slide below. As I seek to build into the hearts of the students in the class what it means to make disciples, I tell them stories of people in the church from the past to the present who have displayed this ability. Discipleship is about the Lord building His kingdom through people into people.

As I have shared in a previous post, no one embodies that more to me than Dave Long. From his family to the church to the Purdue students you can see surrounding him, of which my daughter is one, Dave pours his life into people.

Yet as I tell the story, I'm afraid a tear or two may fall as I do. Dave has been fighting cancer this year, and last night he revealed that it has spread even further. He will be hospitalized tomorrow. So this is a post in part to ask you to pray for him, that the Lord might be pleased to do the miraculous and give him more years with family and in ministry.

However, it is also to share that Dave is still teaching me those discipleship lessons that are so difficult to learn and accept, yet in times of suffering are sweetened by the grace of our Savior. As we texted last night, I told him I was struggling to know what to say to him. Dave thanked me for the little I had said, then ended with these words. "My life is in His hands. What better place to be?"

There come those tears again.