A Glimpse Into My World

This morning I had a dream. I was at a Spider Man themed amusement park. My family and I had just exited a Spider Man ride. While we were on our way to get Spider Man slushies from the Spider Man snack bar we passed a Spider Man character who was waving to the children.

Then I was startled as I felt a tap on my shoulder.

I turned to see who it was and this is who I found...

Socks and all! 

An Unlikely Link - John Stott and Magic Johnson

It seems I'm learning more and more of the world's news through Twitter. Sometimes it's good news. Sometimes it's bad. Today it was both.

About an hour ago I opened Twitter and read that John Stott had died. It brought back a feeling I don't remember feeling in twenty years. It was 1991, my eighth grade year, and as I got into the car after school I heard Magic Johnson telling the world he had AIDS. It rocked me. To me Magic wasn't just a celebrity or an athlete. He had become a part of me. It's kind of hard to write that, but it's true. I watched and emulated Magic Johnson so much that the way I played basketball was like him. I was a pass first - shoot second player who cared more about helping out a teammate than I did making shots. And it was all because my favorite player played that way. I wore my socks like him, played his video game (even though it couldn't compare to the Jordan vs Bird game), and tried to smile when I talked about basketball. Watching him and studying his game impacted me beyond just being a fan. Watching him face a terminal illness, even as a young teenager, rocked me. 

John Stott impacted me in a similar way. I'm not sure what kind of basketball player he was, but his love for Jesus and devotion to the beauty and truth of the gospel have become part of me. 

About eight years ago as I was leaving a cult my friend Stuart Latimer introduced me to Stott. I had been raised to believe dozens, if not hundreds of heresies. I was a new convert in desperate need of some good teaching. I was listening to five to ten sermons a week and being inspired and anchored in the good news of Jesus, but I still needed some foundational theology to repair all of the brokenness of the things I had previously believed. John Stott was the key. I remember lying in bed reading his commentaries on Romans, Galatians, Pauls letters to Timothy, and John's epistles. As I wrestled with my past in a heretical branch of Pentecostalism, Stott's commentary on Acts and his book Baptism and Fullness buoyed me in the waves of figuring out what I believed about the Holy Spirit. As I wrestled with the person and deity of Christ, Stott's The Incomparable Christ gently held my hand and glorified Jesus. I was a subscriber to his daily devotionals and cut my teeth on his messages daily. In the same way that studying Magic Johnson made me love unselfish basketball, John Stott's preaching and writing made me love Jesus-centered theology. 

So today I'm saddened as I think of the church's loss. I'm saddened as I think about a person I admire and feel is part of me being taken from us. But, being convinced of the faith that Stott so humbly shared, today I am happy for him and share just a little of the joy he knows and is experiencing. 

I'm grateful for the life of John Stott. I'm thankful for the impact he made on a young man he never met and I look forward to the day when we worship the King together.