An Inkling
We heard this week that Jim Simmons passed away. He was Pastor of the Clear Lake Church in Houston in the 1970s. When Sarah was led to Christ by a high school friend at age 15, she had no church. So she headed from church to church, until she found Clear Lake Presbyterian, where Jim served. With guitar in hand, Jim helped lead the worship as well as preaching, and he focused many of his efforts on the youth of the church. Sarah and her friends grew by leaps and bounds as followers of Jesus.My family moved to Clear Lake when I was 18, and we joined Clear Lake Church too. Jim quickly became a key component in my call to the ministry. Jim had lots of ministry “tools” – talents that enhanced his ministry. But it wasn’t the tools that struck me, or even his presence at important moments – he married us. It was his passion for Jesus. I don’t remember anything in particular that Jim taught us, but I remember his passion, and it was that passion which God used to fan my own. If God could use Jim to change lives, maybe he could use me too – so I hoped.
Last fall Sarah and her best high school buddy, Terri, met in Lubbock, Texas, to visit Jim. It was a poignant visit, for Jim had walked away from the Lord for some years for reasons fully known only to the Lord. But then in recent years he had been called back into faith, and was just as zealous for Jesus as he had ever been, though his greatly diminished health left him witnessing to that zeal mostly from the couch through Facebook posts. While he was away from the Lord he deliberately separated from his many children in the faith, including Sarah and Terri. So for them to get to see him, back in the saddle with Jesus, was a joy both for them and for Jim. God’s mercy was illustrated in so many winsome ways in Jim’s life. And God’s kindness was shown to Jim through this visit from two of his spiritual daughters. It touched both his heart and theirs. Gratefully, when God prompted they went. For they didn’t know just how short the time was.
Which leads to these questions: whom did God use in your life as a young Christian? Do you have a spiritual father or mother? Are they still around? Might you go see them? You will surely bring joy to their hearts. And God will likely do something in your heart as well. He certainly did in Sarah’s and Terri’s.
And another thought: you never know how God might use your passion for Jesus. When we think of our effect as Christians, we get entirely too focused on our talents and roles. God uses us in those ways. But it’s your passion, your heart afire, that he most uses to kindle other hearts. And he does so in ways beyond what we can design or manage – a great gift in itself.
Thank you Lord for Jim! And if I know him, hoping that he “rests in peace” doesn’t quite capture what he’s surely up to. It’s more likely leaps and bounds and hallelujahs. There’s a joyful new voice in heaven.
Keith
