Sentimental (Prayer) Journey

Last Friday was my last day of full-time employment at Southwestern Baptist Seminary. It hardly seems like twenty-two years ago that I entered my first class room full of seminary students. I remember being filled with a mixture of holy boldness and absolute fear. Come to think of it, those are the same two emotions that I’m feeling as I face the first days of retirement. I arrived on campus early last Friday to take a sentimental journey/prayer-walk, through the Rotunda with its presidential portraits, down the hallways lined with pictures of beloved professors and colleagues, past classrooms where I both studied and taught. As I thanked God, precious memories flooded my soul. Back in my retirement office, I read (as I have for years) the daily entry in My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers. The verse was appropriate, “That your joy might be full.” (John 15:11) and mine was. Chambers’ final line of the devotion was more appropriate, “The lives that have been of most blessing to you are those who were unconscious of it.” Unfortunately, most of my heroes never knew they were my heroes. So today, I asked the Lord to just pull them up next to Him and tell them thanks from me. Have you taken a sentimental prayer journey lately, even if only in your mind? Maybe this week would be a good time express thanks for some memories and those who helped create them.