Last week my youth pastor Dane Burk went home to be with Jesus after a courageous battle with brain cancer. I woke early the next morning, my sneakers crunching the fall leaves as I jogged through my neighborhood streets, pondering a life well lived.

Youth pastoring is not an easy job. Dane Burk made it a point to stick with me and the other teenagers in my class from our freshman year until we graduated high school. He wanted to see us through to the end of that season of our lives. And he did a fabulous job.

I wrote several months ago about Dane and some of the ways that his life impacted my own, but some people are just worthy of double honor and double mention. To me and for my life, Dane Burk is one of those rare people.

Two Moments I’ll Never Forget

I wanted to share today about how Dane Burk demonstrated the essence of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to me in two very important “God-moments” in my life. These two moments have shaped and influenced me in ways that I cannot begin to describe in words, but today I will try.

These two moments center around an event which happened when I was 17 years old. Our youth group went on a short term missions trip to Ecuador.

Dane encouraged my spiritual gifts and always pointed out how he saw the gift of leadership in my life. He always urged me to use those gifts to serve and to love others.

I will admit there was considerable religious pride and self-righteousness in my heart as a young adult. I took pride in my “good behavior” and “outward deeds” that I thought proved my spiritual commitment.

Back to our Ecuador trip. The trip started off great but ended horribly due to a handful of the youth sneaking alcohol the last evening of the trip. This little group included me. After trying so hard to be “good,” I, the “righteous saint who wouldn’t touch that stuff” had become recklessly drunk. On a missions trip.

I have always steered away from telling this story. Basically to anyone. It’s utterly humiliating in every way. And those of you who were there with me know how devastating it was. In fact, that moment is probably the most humiliating moment of my entire life.

So why, you may ask, would I share this in such a public fashion? Because God used this humiliating moment in my life to draw me closer to Himself than I had ever been before. And Dane Burk was in the center of His work in my life.

First Moment: I sat beside Dane on the plane ride home from Ecuador. He wept for me. Not just a few tears. He wept hard, his whole body shaking, for a long time.

In that moment, I saw how deeply he loved me as a pastor.

He did not abandon me. He did not condemn me. He bore humiliation with me and walked with me through every devastating and painful moment.

Breaking Down My House of Cards

Second Moment: After the pain and shock and humiliation had waned a bit, I hobbled like a bruised and broken lamb into a coffee shop alone to meet with Dane. I will never forget his words to me that day. Ever. They are burned like fire into my soul.

He took out some cards and built a tower with them. He said, “Laura, for a long time you built yourself up by your own works, righteousness, and goodness.”

Then Dane knocked the tower down. He continued, “But in a moment, all that pride in your own goodness came crashing down. God allowed you to see the depth of your sinful nature so that you might know the depth of your need for Him.”

He took out the cards again and said, “God wants to give you a clean start with a new foundation. He wants Jesus alone – His sinless life, the perfect sacrifice of Himself on the Cross, His resurrection from the dead – to be your foundation now.”

“He wants to rebuild you with His goodness, His mercy, His grace, His love, His power, His truth.”

In this moment, I saw the Gospel more clearly than I ever had before, even though I had been a Christian for years.

Why? I had been brought very, very low by my sin and recognized my deep need for a Savior. I realized that my own righteousness was like filthy rags to God and that there were no works I could do on my own to earn my way to Heaven.

I accepted that Jesus alone had made a way for me through His death on the Cross.

This was a turning point in my spiritual life that I will always look back on with great joy. Not because of the utterly humiliating experience that resulted from my sin, but because God used this experience to teach me what it means to be truly humbled, to know the wretchedness of my sin and my utter inadequacy to atone for it myself.

Some people who I considered good friends stopped speaking to me after that failure. But Dane did not. And he knew, deep down, what I knew now, too – that I had encountered the truth of the Gospel in a very personal way and I would never be the same.

Today, this precious man is in Heaven above, receiving his reward. And I know that one small thing Jesus will reward him for is the way he responded to a broken, humiliated teenage girl when she really needed mercy, love and the message of the Gospel.

Thank you, Dane. Thank you so much. I will never, ever forget your words of wisdom and heart of love.

Until we meet again….