Problems are for Solving

Some people call him Pastor Ben-Ezra, others the HHG (for High Holy Guy) and still others (including me) the wisest man living.

Today I had breakfast with him.

Today was different.

It’s funny, but I don’t think I noticed this before. Today I had breakfast with him as my friend. I think it’s the first time, at least in Peoria, that I’ve had a meal alone with him and it felt like two friends having a meal together.

This is significant not because we are just now becoming friends. We have been friends for some time. But the HHG is also in many ways my spiritual father. He was my first real mentor after coming to Christ and is still the man I look to for spiritual advice when I run up against a problem. Sure I’ve had other mentors and I ask my own father for advice in other areas, but as I’ve grown up in Christ I’ve always looked to Leon for advice on spiritual and church matters—as long as I can remember. Today, though, the conversation felt more like a conversation between equals. Not equals in wisdom—for I may never be as wise as he is now—but equals in office. He is my brother as well as a spiritual father.

The striking thought to me today that was such an encouragement is that someday I will have a similar transition with Samuel, Toby and Peter. One day they will grow to the point where they will still seek my advice, but they will see me as a friend and brother as well as “dad.� They’ll get to the point where they see areas where I can grow and will feel free to talk to me about them and I’ll no longer follow up my rebukes of them with any kind of discipline.

We will be equals.

I have changed their diapers and one day they will be my friends.

Today I glimpsed an ever so small picture of what that will be like as I enjoyed a breakfast with the man who changed my spiritual diapers.

I took great joy in what I saw and will hope to see as my sons become men.

I will enjoy, Lord willing, many more years of friendship with my old mentor and friend.

And many more years beyond that of friendship with my sons when they become men and stand upon my shoulders and become greater men than I am.

May God show them grace to be great sons to me—but more importantly great sons to their Father who is also my Father.

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