I am a Preacher...

Today, as I struggle to get everything done as I prepare for my upcoming trip to lead Family Week 2 at Camp Linn Haven, I was directed in my prayer time to an excerpt of a writing by O. P. Kretzmann given to me by one of my seminary instructors.  It cause me to pause, and to put things in perspective.

"I am a Preacher" by O. P. Kretzmann 1900-1975

I am a Preacher... I am one of the greatest line in the history of men...My line reaches back beyond the Cross to the days when theflood came over the earth...Only becasue of the Church I serve and the Word I preach does God permit the world to roll on its way...I have watched men step quietly through the last gate because I had been permitted to show them the way...There are men and women, and children, too, before the throne of heaven today who are my children....They are there becasue God let me bring them there....The saints of the Church are my joy, and the sinners are my burden...

I am an ambassador of the King of kings...

My lips are among the few left in the world that speak the truth....I almost alone among men deal day after day with eternal things...I am the last echo of a far voice that forever calls men home...I am the hand of the brindegroom, the shadow of the Cross, the trumptet of the King...Neither obscurity nor popularity can rob me of my glory...It is not my own but the reflected glory of Him whose free and happy slave I am...

I am a driven man...

I preach faith in a world that disbelieves, hope in a time that has no hope, and joy in an hour that knows only sorrow...I am at home in a tenement house or in a mansion because my home is neither...I and my people alone stand between the world and destruction...The flames on my altar will not die and the lights in my sanctuary will not be quenched by flood or storm...

I am a preacher--and very glad of it..

A distinguished theologian and educator, Kretzman is most prominently known for his presidency of Valporaiso University from 1940 to 1968 in which time the school grew from 400 to 4000 students.  The Popular Commentary of the Bible which he completed and published at age 24 is a classic resourse for students of the bible to this day.  Never copywrited, though it is out of print, it is readily available via the internet at www.kretzmannproject.org