a lot of times we’re looking for god’s

word we’re waiting for him to talk to us

in the bible in first kings believe it

is elijah was kind of running from the

mountain where he had just done battle

with the prophets it says that he was

standing there and he heard an

earthquake and that wasn’t god and then

he heard this great wind go by and

that was that wasn’t god either and all

these things were happening around him

and he’s like well when is god going to

talk to me the bible says it got quiet

like you can’t even hear a whisper

and then he realized god was talking to

him

i was born in texas

my grandfather ran a small farm so it

was a lot of get up early do chores go

to school come back do more chores

so i went to church quite frequently

but never really had

you know understood what a relationship

with christ was

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my grandparents were pretty convinced i

was going to college

one of the ways to help

pay for college was the navy

and so the navy offered it was called uh

a partial scholarship stuff like that

once i was in i kind of gravitated to

that kind of lifestyle and you know

there was a lot of discipline which i

was very familiar with

growing up and we didn’t fly a lot of

places uh we if we went somewhere we

drove

that’s just how it was i’ve never flown

in my life in my second year of an avr

otc at rice university i got to go on an

s3 viking which was a navy twin engine

jet of those two weeks i was flying you

know just the smell of the jet fuel the

guys walking around in their flight

suits uh

strapping on an airplane and get and

being able to fly and you go out and do

really cool missions and come back and

that’s when i knew i wanted to fly it’s

a feeling of exhilaration

and so at that point in time i

my wife me had two children

and it was a lot of separation as much

fun as flying was as much fun as the

navy was you know you you don’t get to

see family a whole lot

that’s when i realized that i’d be

leaving the navy

but god was always there you know

god took care of my family we were we

came back to our home church which was

very comforting

i i’m convinced god put a pastor in that

in that uh

at that church at the time he was a

retired army colonel chaplain

my pastors told me about promise keepers

and said well i want you to come with us

on a bus

for a 37-hour trip to washington dc and

we’re going to go to a promise keeper

rally called stand in the gap

and there were

several hundred thousand men we couldn’t

even get as close as the washington

monument and they were on the capitol

whenever they started

it got quiet

and washington dc is a very busy city

and it was a saturday morning my

recollection and it was just quiet

and a speaker after speaker would speak

and there would be uh

great men who sang songs

and you listen to these guys singing and

you know it was it was a special time

and then there was this one uh pastor

got there

named dr tony evans and

when he started speaking it was just an

amazing uh

that’s a result in a messed up state

that will reside in a messed up country

that will bring about a messed up world

so if we want better worlds composed of

better countries inhabited by better

states made up of better counties that

are composed of better cities inhabited

by better neighborhoods illumined by

better churches made up of better

families we better go home better men it

starts with our own commitment to be men

of god

this might be a glimpse of what it’s

like in heaven you just you stand around

you’re

you’re hearing god’s word miss spoken

and you get to hear you’re singing and

then there’s times of prayer and it’s

just quiet and still and it was just

amazing when the uh when they called us

to pray how quiet it would get

uh what i really realized was that god

was giving me an opportunity to serve in

his church

and to uh to he was giving me an

invitation and he always had been giving

me an invitation

to

be a worker in his kingdom i think the

thing my wife and we did right was we

did raise our children in church and we

did

we did make going to church a priority

my wife and me were very good about

teaching them that it’s for them now to

write their own story it’s for them now

to to go make their mark in the world

for them to go determine who they want

to be

but we gave them the foundation and we

uh

we taught them

the bible we taught them the love of god

and we’ve taught them the importance of

corporate worship and private worship

and prayer and

and being there for people and if you

say you’re going to do something go do

it

but that’s up to them now to go to go uh

take what we’ve taught them

and you know take that forward and teach

it to their kids

that promise keeper

experience was something like that you

know

so yeah i as far as legacies don’t

really care that people know i’m a pilot

i don’t really care they know i run a

lot

it’s really more important about

my kids in the life they’re going to

live

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