One day I received a call from D. D. Lewis, former linebacker with the Dallas Cowboys. "I'm in trouble," D. D. said, "and I need help! Will you help me?"
D. D.'s voice sounded desperate. "Sure," I replied. "Let's meet Thursday morning."
While playing with the Cowboys, D. D. attended the church I pastored. After participating in five Super Bowls under Coach Tom Landry, he eventually retired and went into business. At some point, he had stopped attending church and I had lost contact with him.
Unfortunately, things didn't go well for D. D. He experienced two business failures and eventually went through a painful divorce that also left him alienated from his children. Although he was a professing Christian, his life had deteriorated. As we met that Thursday morning, this once-powerful man on the football field poured out his sad story. He knew he need ed spiritual help and more accountability.
Getting Back on Track
As I sat with D.D. that day, I saw the desperation in his eyes. "I'II help you," I replied. "Let's meet once a week for breakfast, and then work through my book The Measure of a Man."
D. D. was grateful. He would read a chapter each week, and then we would meet to talk, discuss and pray.
"You'll need to be honest with me," I said. "No secrets. If you fail in some area of your life, you'll need to admit it up front and get back on track with the Lord." Again, D.D. agreed and together we worked through the chap ters in this book. Later, he wrote me and shared the following Meeting with you and going through your book, The Measure of a Man, helped usher me back into renewed relationships with the family of God. This study showed me that God does have a design and standard for godly men to follow. With your loving encouragement, I have been able to see that God loves me in spite of my past behavior (Titus 3:3-7), and that my journey toward maturity is a process and not an overnight quick-fix emotional sensation. Our time together fostered in me a real thirst for God's Word. It has sustained me through some rough periods and trials. I have found out that most men have the same problems over the years, and that healing begins when we share ourselves with other godly men.
An Experience I Will Never Forget
As D. D. and I sat week after week, working through The Measure of a Man, my thoughts went back to a dynamic Bible study I had with a group of men in Dallas. We met on 20 successive Thursday mornings-from 6:45 to 7:45-in the Downtowner Motel conference room before we all went off to work for the day. We wanted to discover from Scripture and from each other how we could become better husband, better father, better Christians-in short, more mature men of God.
What made this time with D. D. Lewis so special was that the book we were using to study what God says about becoming a mature man of God grew out of that earlier group Bible study.
The Measure of a Man, Gene A Getz