053: Mentors

April 9, 2010
1 Samuel 13:8-14

The story of Saul always kind of made me sad. It just doesn’t necessarily feel fair that he gets kicked out of the contender for the monarchy of Israel long term because he messed up a couple times. This is where my issues with grace come in – I know that God has lots of it, but when am I counting on too much?? I’m not sure.

As I just reread this passage, though, I was reminded of an excellent article I read today about mentoring. The author of this article relayed the story of how he came to be mentored by a man named Bill. He wanted a mentor, so he asked around his church and other Christian leaders in the community who they most felt exhibited the characteristics of Jesus. All of them said “Bill,” so the author approached Bill about being his mentor. Bill didn’t respond, instead he took a week or so to pray about it. When he came back to the author, he agreed to be the mentor with conditions:

They would meet every Tuesday morning at 5:30AM, and the first week of the month the author was to bring his checkbook and credit card statement and they’d go through his finances together to make sure he was honoring God with his finances. The second Tuesday, the author was to bring his calendar and they’d go through how he scheduled his time and make sure he was prioritizing the right responsibilities. Before the third week, Bill asked permission to call the author’s kids to hear their perspective on how their father was fathering them so they could talk about parenting at their weekly meeting. The fourth week of the month Bill got to call the author’s wife and hear her perspective on her marriage and what kind of husband the author was being, and then Bill would talk to the author at their morning meeting. If there was a fifth Tuesday of the month, Bill had permission to call the author’s boss and coworkers to ask about his work on the job.

Bill kept the author accountable when he was traveling by having the author have the front desk call him after they’d turned off pornographic channels to his room. Bill also got up an hour earlier on Tuesdays to pray for the author and the author’s family. But most impressive to me is the fact that the first week Bill and the author met, the author pulled out his checkbook and credit card statement, nervous about a couple things he’d bought that he didn’t feel like he really should have bought, and Bill pulled out his checkbook and credit card statement as well so they could go through it all together.

I think that the mark of a true mentor is what the author said of Bill: he never asked the author to do something that he wasn’t willing to do himself, and he never asked the author to change something he wasn’t first willing to change in his own life. It sounds like Bill was the kind of amazing mentor we wish we all could have – at least, I definitely wish I had someone like that in my life! But then I realized, rather than bemoaning that I don’t have someone like that to meet me weekly, I want to strive to become like that so someday I can be a blessing to someone like Bill is to the author.

I used to feel bad for Saul, but then I look at the potential for a great mentor that he had in Samuel. Should we not take a hold of the opportunities we have for growth? Whether there’s a mentor or not? Sure, Samuel wasn’t perfect or always present in Saul’s life, but that doesn’t mean Saul couldn’t have hung in there on his own awhile… Maybe I need to do that too.