When our grandson Preston ? now a student at the College of Charleston ? was only 3 years old, he had a favorite ploy to gain the upper hand when he was getting nothing but negative feedback from Linda and me. He would defiantly declare, ?You are making me mad and I am not your friend.?

It's been more than 40 years since my career path in journalism wound its way over to Anderson College from Furman University, where I got my start in Baptist communications. I had no idea where the road would eventually take me, but I knew that God was ordering my steps and all would be well.

German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in his ?Letters and Papers from Prison? that it is 'so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe to the help of others.? The single purpose of this ?Commentary? is to pay at least in part ?what we owe to the help of others.?

I always will have a tender spot in my heart for Kenya and its people. For four years, the South Carolina Baptist Convention had a missions partnership with the Baptists in that African nation. In the summer of 1996 ? not long after I was named editor of the Courier ? I traveled with a team of South Carolina Baptist volunteers who composed a medical and educational team. It is impossible to measure with any accuracy the spiritual significance of that missions venture, which had been extended from three to four years.

I am grateful for the places of service I have been given for most of my years on earth and for just about all of my professional life. And for a career in denominational service that has satisfied, inspired and enriched my life, I am thankful to God ? and to John Roberts.

How busy are you each day? I know how many of you ? and maybe most of you ? will answer that question. So many things to do. So many places to be. So many people to meet. It tires you out just to think about it.

Moses was chosen for the major human role of liberator and lawgiver in God's great drama of deliverance of his Hebrew people out of bondage in Egypt. His story as recounted in the Old Testament book of Exodus still reads with all the excitement of one of today's action movies. In fact, the saga of Moses and the Hebrew people as they escaped bondage in Egypt bound for the Promised Land has been a movie and television favorite for decades.

In 1995, the Southern Baptist Convention voted yes to a reconciliation resolution. It expressed sorrow for the convention's racial origin and past. It also contained a promise to seek reconciliation. Fred Luter, pastor of the Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans, helped write that resolution. On June 19, the Southern Baptist Convention added the exclamation point to that document by electing Luter as president of the SBC. No other African-American has held that position in the 167-year history of the convention.

The 1970s hit musical ?Godspell? presented the story of Jesus in a lively and contemporary way that resonated with an entire generation of young people, many of whom had drifted away from organized religion. The struggle to somehow separate early Christianity from modern-day traditional religion is still in progress by believers who prefer to be known simply as followers of Jesus.

The Taylors Free Medical Clinic ? born in the hearts of community leaders who had been actively engaged in international medical missions work for years, primarily through the highly successful Mo-Med ministry of Taylors First Baptist Church ? held its annual spring gala May 22 at the TD Convention Center in Greenville.