Grace-full mentoring comes in a multitude of forms… from helping a young mother in her attempts at caring for her new baby to guiding a pre-teen as she learns how to accessorize her wardrobe. From encouraging a neighbor with simple and inexpensive ways to prepare meals when her husband’s salary has been cut to sharing ideas with a bride-to-be whose mother died years before.
We often think mentoring means someone teaching deep theological messages, but mentoring comes in a variety of forms. When we think about it, we may be mentoring others in some way every day. We just need to pay closer attention to what it is we are offering as God’s grace in our mentoring. Often we mentor ideas that cannot be ordained by God because we do so apart from His grace and with our own motives which are less than His highest.
Psalm 119:130 (NASB) tells us, “The unfolding of Your words gives light; It gives understanding to the simple.” God set the example for our words to be those that offer His light and hope. When we share using the principles from His Word we offer what the psalmist refers to as “understanding to the simple.”
The most valuable lessons I have learned have come from those who expressed the light of God’s words to my simple mind. Their mentoring provided clear understanding that allowed me to easily embrace His truths and apply them to my thinking. Psam 71:18 says, “And even when I am old and gray, O God, do not forsake me, until I declare Your strength to this generation, Your power to all who are to come.”
God has given each of us something that we can pass on to anther to help them in their Christian life. Passing on to the next generation what is good and righteous is a command to us in Titus 2:3: “Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good…”
Let us not hold on to the truths that were mentored to us, but let us pass them on to those around us proclaiming God’s righteousness to the next generation. Look around you; someone is in need of what you can offer them. Be prepared and willing to be used by God today!
About Patti M. Hummel
Patti M. Hummel was called to missions in a youth revival. She was married to the late Rev. Donald R. Hummel, Sr. Patti has certificates in Bible from Moody Bible College and Duncan Park Bible Institute. She served in Christian Children's Homes and as GA State Sales Manager for Zondervan Publishing House. After her husband died, she and her three small children spent seven years in the South Pacific as long-term missionaries. Patti is an author and compiler/ author of 18 books. She is an international speaker to Christian groups. She is currently President of The Benchmark Group LLC in Nashville (benchmarkgrouppublishers.com) and is the grateful mother of 3 adult children and 2 precious granddaughters with another grandchild due spring of 2010.
