Any parent yearning for the right thing dies to have great folks involved with their children. The aspirations of our hearts are informed by 3 John 4 where John says, "I have no greater joy than to see my children walking in the truth." Because of that joy, we break ourselves to get these people around our kids who can influence them for Christ's sake. We love to have them around models that are following hard after the One who loved us and gave Himself for us.

Our Abbey has several older young married gals who are interested in her. These ladies love Jesus and it rubs off on Abbey and wets her desire as she is with them and they pour their lives into her. They are worth their weight in gold to Andi and me. We relish every time that Abbey has to be with them. We relish Caleb spending time with this one older young leader in our church.

Ben had a neat thing happen in his life. He is a sophomore at Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. We knew they were in a search for a new president, but we are way out of that information loop. Then eight days ago, I received word that they were announcing their new president over the weekend-a guy you would die to have influence your children.

When I was in college at Cedarville in the late seventies, it was chapel and what some Cedarville then Dallas Theological Seminary graduate preachers modeled in chapel that stuck home to my heart. I began to ponder my vocational future as I experienced yearnings in my heart to dig deep into the Word of God and communicate it to others. Leading in that provocation was young man in his thirties named Joseph M. Stowell III. He had been the founding pastor at the church where I was attending and now serve, the Southgate Baptist Church. When he opened the Bible, God filleted my heart and exposed my unbelief and my fear and self-centeredness. I majored in Business Administration with an emphasis in management and was headed to Navistar to follow my dad into management there building trucks. But God intercepted that pass and ran beside me in another direction.

That change of course was particularly mediated in one hour I spent with Joe in the Spring of 1980 when he was preaching a week of meetings at Cedarville. I took my spirit, which was wrestling with my future and trying to identify what I now know as desires for ministry involvement, into that office and laid it out in front of Joe. He kindly indulged me and encouraged me to not consider why I should not go into ministry with such aspirations, but to think, why shouldn't I (given these yearnings) go into ministry. He gave me permission to think that God could use me. He then talked about an important threshold moment of decision that he had in being counseled years before by our mutual friend, Wendell Kempton. That discussion with Wendell proved decisive for Joe, as did that March of 1980 discussion with Joe proved for me. He encouraged me to pray a prayer that I have utilized these last twenty seven years. "Lord, make me to be your kind of man (a prayer for godliness) and make me to be in your place of ministry." That prayer covers all the bases. Be godly! Be in God's place! What more is there?

Joe ended that discussion with a line I was foolish enough to believe, "Eric, let's stay in touch. I am interested in you." And he was serious. And I have. And one of the great blessings of my life has been the times, however infrequent, that Joe has taken me into his circle and we would grab a personal hour here and there. He is one of those guys who gives you his undivided attention when you are with him. I was with him one day with a professor from Wheaton with a great wit who I had just met. He leaned over to me as we were eating lunch and said, "Isn't it great to be one of Joe's five thousand close friends?" We both laughed heartily and gratefully unto the Lord.

Joe spoke at my ordination service in 1987. Psalm 11, I will always remember the message. He spoke at my installation service in Grand Ledge, Michigan in January of 1990. That was a surprise gift to me by the leadership of the Church. But it was super bowl night. I felt a little bad...we had a great preacher there...but Joe Montana drew a larger crowd than Joe Stowell. Those kinds of friends in ministry are invaluable. I stand on their shoulders and serve our Lord. I will always live in his debt.

So, you could understand our joy in receiving the news last Thursday that Joe was to be announced as president. I immediately emailed Ben the line, "I just feel like something good is about to happen". I told Ben he was going to have a good weekend. He phoned back and said the tease was too much...but we held out.

On Monday Ben went to chapel as Joe spoke and was introduced as the new president of Cornerstone University. He waited in line and at his turn, introduced himself as Benjamin Warfield Mounts. Ben is named after a famous Princeton Seminary prof from the 19th and early 20th centuries who loved the Bible and loved his wife all of his days. Years ago when Ben was a boy, I introduced Ben to Joe with his full name. Characteristically, Joe celebrated the introduction and enveloped Ben in a big bear hug and gave a focused few minutes to a college sophomore. Ben walked away and immediately phoned us. His world was just enlarged. God had delivered a grace gift to the university and Ben will benefit from the bounty. And we who yearn to have godly folks around our kids to build into their lives...could not be more pleased! Praise God from whom all blessings flow!