Shortly after I started College as a Freshman, a friend loaned me the book, “ The Cost of Discipleship,” by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He said, “You have got to read this book; it is amazing!” with that kind of encouragement, I read it through in a couple of days. I can identify about a dozen events in my life that I call “defining moments,” events that changed the course and direction of my life. Reading the “Cost of Discipleship” was one of those twelve. I was a young 18-year-old boy, just off the farm, from a very small community with only 30 kids in the High School I attended. I had no clue what I was going to do with my life; I was just, sort of feeling my way along, waiting for God to direct me. After reading the book, I still didn’t know what I was going to do, but I did know one thing: I wasn’t going to settle for mediocrity; I was going to take the narrow and hard way every time there was a fork in the road of my life.

Patty and I went to the movie, “ Bonhoeffer,” tonight. It was an incredible movie about the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He, indeed, was a man who made tough choices as a Pastor in Germany during the days of Hitler. He was executed by Hitler just weeks before World War II ended. He could have easily saved his life on numerous occasions, but his courage and commitment kept him from the easy way. I was nervous about going tonight for fear that my memory of him from the book would be damaged, but it wasn’t at all.

I love to read stories about heroes who lived for a cause and changed history because of it. I also enjoy going to movies about great people who did extraordinary things with their lives.