Stories

Hi, my name is David Graham. I graduated May 2020 and had my actual commencement 2021 due to Covid19. I met my wife on campus at Nazarene Bible College in Colorado Springs. She has been my awesome, faithful, hardworking, and loving wife through the new chapters of our life: two years of marriage, my first district license, moving to Oklahoma, and the arrival of Ruth Graham our daughter who is now eight months. I wanted to talk about a special place that has become sacred to me. I went back there recently for a Colorado Springs trip. It was night and I parked my car, on my left was the Nazarene Bible College chapel and the bell tower; what was only left of the physical campus. I walked up to the bell tower and touched it. I can still feel that slight presence of God there. In Scripture, God's holiness and presence could make a place sacred because simply God is there (He is in Christians and omnipresent too) (Exodus 3). Memories came back when I attended Nazarene Bible College in person. Dr. Attig, a dear missed professor who passed and reunited with Christ, approached me and said, "I want you to be an apostle. Phillip. Here are your lines." At Nazarene Bible College, we had a ceremony when Dr. Attig was alive, it was held at the Apostles court during commencement in Colorado Springs. Dr. Attig would choose one of the Apostles for you to play and you would have lines. You had to say it in such a way to make it convincing that you were that Apostle. We all took turns saying our lines right there in the Apostles' court, with the bell tower in the middle. It was powerful! Before the commencement day and the Apostles' ceremony, I went up to the Apostles' court and up towards the bell tower where I have heard from the Holy Spirit before. The Holy Spirit said: "David, follow in the footsteps of the Apostles." The verse came to mind and I knew what He was saying, "Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ" (1 Cor 11:1). God not only wanted me to be in this ceremony but literally walk in the footsteps of Paul's teachings and his example, which Paul's teachings were from Jesus and what He taught. After graduation, I have struggled to follow in the footsteps of Paul who followed Jesus, yet with God's helping hand we can hold "to the teachings" of the Apostles who received their teachings from the God-Man, Jesus (1 Cor 11:2). The Bell Tower will always be that reminder to keep to my vow to be a man after God's heart, always doing His will even as this world gets darker.