The following article was written by Larry when he was the pastor at New Life Christian Center in Beloit, Kansas.  It was published in the Pentecostal Evangel on June 19, 1988. 

DAD DIED A SAINT

My dad died a saint.  Even now that truth fills me with excitement.  In my reminiscence about his life, you might expect to hear of a man raised in church and consecrated at an early age to serve God.  There might be stories of righteousness and of his business integrity, and a list of those won to the Lord by his testimony.  It might be appropriate to tell of his habit of guiding the family in devotions and to recall the many hours he prayed.  And surely I might note his work in the church and years of faithful giving to God.

But Dad never served on a church board.  He never worked with a building committee or ushered in a house of God.  I cannot recall any family devotions, and it’s doubtful he ever tithed from a single paycheck.

Still Dad died a saint.  And that is a miracle.

Funk and Wagnall’s defines grace as “the unmerited love and favor of God in Christ; hence, free gift; the divine influence acting within the heart to regenerate, sanctify, and keep it; a state of reconciliation to God through Christ, the power or disposition to exercise saving faith and to live the Christian life”.

Though Dad’s life was not the Christian model, his death was an embodiment of each of these aspects of the saving grace of our loving Father.  This personal background will help bring that out.

Dad was brought up in an unchurched home.  His first impression of Christianity came after marriage, for Mom was a woman of unabashed convictions.  She had been raised in a devout Lutheran community in southeast Kansas, and she brought strong standards to the union.  Not only would church attendance be expected weekly, Dad would have to join the church as well.  And his drinking, ever a passion with Dad, would have to be diminished to one cocktail a night ~ quite a sacrifice for the big ex-Marine.

With these spiritual requirements satisfied, the Bryans looked forward to raising a family.  They’d planned to have six children; and with their first girl, then twin boys, they were on their way.

Suddenly all changed.  Mom was killed in an auto accident, and Dad found himself one Saturday afternoon with a 4-year-old daughter and twin boys not yet 2.  He was devastated.

“Why, God?”  In the next few months that question would be asked a thousand times.

Bitterness crept into Dad’s life and finally took control.  And though he lived what seemed to be a frivolous life-style, the question went unanswered.

Alcohol became Dad’s best friend and close companion to his bitterness.  He saw the children he loved go to live with one uncle, then another, then finally to a foster home.  Dad never remarried.

Fifteen years passed.  I went months and at one point over a year without seeing Dad.  But as I entered high school, we began to share some weekends together.

During my senior year in high school I got saved and filled with the Spirit under the ministry of the Presbyterian pastor in our town. The following year I was called into the ministry at an Assemblies of God youth camp.

My one burning desire was to see the fulfillment of Acts 16:31: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.”  Within the next 2 years I witnessed the salvation of my brother (currently a faculty member at Southwestern Assemblies of God College, Waxahachie, Texas), as well as my sister and her husband (who have recently helped start a Christian school).  Dad was the final holdout.

Dad never really understood the changes in our lives.  It was as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2:14: “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

Dad tried to change; he would even read his Bible.  But it seemed he did it more out of love for us than for his own fulfillment. The last week of July Dad entered St. Mary’s Hospital in Kansas City with a variety of alcohol-related problems.  At 59 he had had cataract surgery on both eyes, and he was a diabetic.

I felt something during my visits to the hospital, something final.  Each day Dad grew weaker; each night rest was more difficult.

Something else had changed.  Dad was reading everything he could about King David.  For those 2 weeks Dad had an insatiable thirst for the Word of God.

Then came the day I’ll never forget.  Dad was so weak I could barely distinguish his words.  I placed my head on his chest with my ear just inches from his mouth.  Did I hear right?  “Dad, did you ask if we could pray?”

“Yes, could we pray?” he whispered.

I was more than happy to; but as I began, he said, “No, Son, I’d like to pray.”

And he prayed.  He prayed a prayer of repentance, and my eyes filled with tears.  When he opened his eyes, I could see that the question he’d asked all his life had somehow been answered.

He died a few days later.  The Lord took him at that moment in his life when he was living for God with all he had.

I see that God used my dad to redefine His love for me.  I’ll always remember the grace of God acting in my dad’s heart to regenerate it, to sanctify it, and to keep it.

Paul wrote in Romans 5:6,15, “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly . . . . For if through the offense of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath bounded unto many.”

Friend, it may seem life’s hardness is keeping your loved ones from finding Jesus as their Savior.  Do not abandon hope.  My dad died a saint!