The Loss of a Mentor

I read in a John Stott book once that Christianity is built upon a succession of mentorships. Each one of us, if we had the information, could link our mentorship heritage back to one of the disciples and ultimately Jesus himself. The Bible does not work alone to move people towards God, but he uses a combination of truth and love, the Bible and relationships.

What happens when your mentors fail you? Well, first you get sad. You feel for that failure and grieve for the loss you are about to endure. Then you get an array of other feelings and anger presents itself as the one with the most to say. Then comes the questions

1. What do I do now that I have lost my mentor?
2. What do I do with the truth my mentor taught me?
3. What do I do with my mentor relationally?
4. What do I do with God's desire for my life? What life lesson is God really trying to show me?
5. How do I trust myself to choose another mentor?
6. If I have other mentors, do I still trust them? How much do I trust them?
7. Do I need a mentor? Why?
8. Who could be my next mentor? Where do I look? Is God just going to provide one?
8. What does a mentor offer me that I can't just get from God alone, or myself?

I am working through these types of questions right now. I am trying to understand what part of the succession of mentors in the Kingdom of God do I get to interact with? Who is God going to put in my path next? What are they going to add or take away from my understanding of who God really is?

I believe in the process of mentorship. I believe it is the best form of really being known by another human and another human letting themselves be known. I think heaven is going to be a form of eternal mentorship where God will never use anyone except himself as our mentor. I believe that he was and continued to want to be Adam's mentor. The more we can be mentored by Jesus the more we can truly understand who we are meant to be because he is the one who has achieved what we desire to achieve as humans.

Find a good mentor and pray for their spiritual connection to God to remain consistent and growing.