Lois, Kenneth and Rusty

There are certain advantages to driving a straight shift automobile as opposed to one with an automatic transmission. One advantage is that if the battery dies, you can “roll it off.” In simple English that means you either push the car or let it roll down a hill until it picks up enough speed so that you can put it in gear, drop the clutch, give it a little gas and let the transmission force the engine to turn over and thus start the car running.

The same is not true for an automatic transmission; there is no clutch. However I have been told by several knowledgeable persons on automobiles that if you get a car equipped with an automatic transmission up to 30 or 40 mph by pushing it with another car, it will start.

We were discussing this several years ago when one guy half joking half serious said: “Don't do what my sister did.”

He had our attention.

“What did she do?” we asked.

“She heard about this way of starting a car and had a friend hit her in the rear at 30 mph to get the car going.”

We did not know whether to fully believe him or not. Since that time I have heard several variations on that story. One thing that remains constant in every version of the story: IMPACT. Imagine the impact if that were true. It would certainly get you going!

Our lives are like that, there are certain individuals who make an impact on our lives. In one way or another they get us going. Lois Reid and Kenneth Munday are two such persons in my life. Both are very unassuming individuals. Humor me as I tell you a little about them.

Lois a schoolteacher who last I heard taught fifth grade. She wasn't even my teacher. She isn't old enough to have been. However she was the FIRST person who ever commented to me that I could teach; encouraged me to do so and was willing to listen to me.

The story goes something like this. My “home church” used to have (still does) Vacation Bible School in the summer. Lois being a school teacher was often asked to have a part. This particular year she was the chairperson of a department. Getting help then was like it is now . . . hard. She got desperate one year and asked me to help. I do not recall how it all came about, but I was elected to give the main lesson to the kids. (Like I said, they were desperate!) To this day I still remember walking up to the lectern my first time. (I did not stay behind it any better then than I do now.) I loved it, and strangely enough, so did the kids and other adult workers!

There is little else I remember about that week, except the last night. Lois came up to me, touched my shoulder and said: “You're good! I'm putting the word in right now. You are going to work in my department next year.”

I cannot tell you all of the emotions that swept over me. I was encouraged; I was challenged to go on. I was fulfilled. She gave my fragile ego a shot it has never gotten over. SHE HAD AN IMPACT!!! She hit me at 30 mph!

In an attempt to live out what Lois had stirred in me, I asked the church leaders if I could teach a Sunday School class. I was made the assistant teacher in the second grade boy's class. The main teacher was Kenneth Munday. Yes, the spelling is correct. Kenneth worked in the local cotton mill. He was a very unpretentious type person, but by observing him, he started the balls rolling that have been modified and developed into my present teaching style. Simply put: Kenneth also had an impact on me! He hit me at 30 miles per hour.

A couple of years later I was resigning that class because I was moving away to attend seminary and prepare for ministry. A small boy handed me a gift. It was a hand crafted plaster of paris plaque from a second grade boy, given to his teacher who was leaving. It is a small praying hands plaque that on the back reads: “To the best teacher in the whole world - Rusty Hawks - May 9, 1976.” Don't ever try to take that plaque; I'll fight you for it. The reason I was able to make an impact on that little boy, was because Lois and Kenneth had an impact on me! But the funny thing is, I doubt if Rusty knows the impact he and that plaque had upon me.

Who is your Lois? Who is your Kenneth? Who is your Rusty?

Let's get extremely personal, to whom are you a Lois or a Kenneth or a Rusty?

You are having an impact on someone. Romans 14:7 reads like this: “No one lives to himself, and no one dies to himself.”

In my church we are concluding a series of messages from the book of Jonah. This morning we looked at the impact Jonah had on the city of Nineveh. He did not intend to, and he did not understand what was happening, but he had an impact just the same.

You are having some type of impact. Are you seeking to be an encouragement to people you meet so they can look back and call you a Lois or a Kenneth or a Rusty? Or are you sending different signals? Here is the tough question, what if the signals are being sent to your own children?

Who is the Terry Mann in your life? You know, the person that may ultimately move away, and impact others without your ever knowing it? What will be their impact on the world based upon your impact on them? Will they have learned from you to backbite, criticize, gossip, make biting remarks and be unforgiving? Or will they have learned to trust the Lord? Will they have learned to quit when things get rough? Or will they have learned to be steadfast and obedient at all times?

You, my friend, are having an impact. Do not sell yourself short. You determine what the impact is. Why not give the people in your life a 30 m.p.h. kick of encouragement? Why not make it a positive kick they never get over?