I’ve been packing my office and man do I have a lot of books. I also have a lot of CD’s and tapes, the latter of which I have no means to listen to. Who even has a tape player anymore? I’d honestly be afraid to play some of these; they might start smoking!

A lot of these are recordings from Jason Almond when he preached at the Mayflower church of Christ, from Bob Turner and Chris Eubanks when they preached at the church in Greenbrier, and from Barry Grider during the days when he was recorded to cassette at the Forest Hill congregation. I have countless others from men like Marshall Keeble, Guy Woods, Paul Haley, Gus Nichols and more. Those older ones are special because…well, you just can’t find Marshall Keeble on tape much anymore. It’s a novelty.

Barry Grider? He’s a dime a dozen.

I looked at the stack and contemplated if I should just throw them out. It would have been the practical thing to do, after all; I don’t have a tape player and I have most of those men in other formats. And yet I couldn’t bring myself to chuck them. Men like Bob and Chris, Jason and Barry are the men who helped shape my Christian life. They guided me, counseled me, reproved me, and above all encouraged me to stick with it; to stick with being a preacher and even just stick with being a disciple of the Lord.

Everyone probably has someone they can point to and say “I don’t know if I’d have made it if not for ______.”

I’m blessed to have a lot of people like that. Thank God for them all.

Now you go and thank God for those who have helped you along the way!