I originally wrote this post in 2015, the year my dad turned 93. Little did I know at that time it would be my dad’s last birthday. As the years pass without him, the life-lessons and principles he taught me are as relevant as ever. Here are fifteen things I learned from my dad.

1. Commit your heart to Jesus. My dad’s faith began forming when he was a young farm boy searching for a lost cow. As he went from field to field looking for the wayward beast, he eventually became disoriented and panicked. In that moment, dad asked God to help him, and he instantaneously remembered that he could tell the direction home by looking at the sun. The seeds of faith sown that day on the prairie came to fruition at age 15 when a traveling evangelist came to town. When the altar call came, dad felt a burning in his heart to respond. “I practically ran to the front,” dad recalled. He says he knew that it was time to “get off the fence” and make a commitment to Christ. My father called it the most important decision he ever made—and one he never regretted to his final breath.

Baby-faced dad in WWII

2. Worrying is worthless. One of the hallmarks of my dad’s faith was how it dissolved fear. As a soldier in WWII, his fellow Army buddies asked him why he didn’t share their fear of dying on the battlefield. He responded, “My life is in God’s hands, and I know that if I die, I will go to heaven.” My dad consistently turned to prayer during trying times, leaving the matters in God’s hands. He was famous for saying, “we’ll take it one day at a time,” a philosophy that focused on the present rather than fearing the future. As the frailties and challenges of old age crept in, dad often said, “I’ll sleep well tonight; I don’t have anything to worry about. What good would it do, anyway?”

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