Imagine the blessing of having a godly father through childhood, early adulthood, middle age, and into your senior years. Imagine the blessing of a father whose example became more remarkable and more well known as he grew older—even as his age passed the century mark. Rev. Ken McBurney doesn’t have to imagine those joys. He experienced them, thanks to God’s grace to his father, Waldo, who lived on this earth to the age of 106.

While celebrating my own father’s 80th birthday last weekend, it wasn’t hard for me to count how blessed I have been as well. Thanks to my father and mother, I have always known God’s covenant love for me. I have always known that leaders must also be servants, something for which my dad, a pastor, set my first example.

As my pastor, Dad baptized me, led me in taking my membership vows, and preached at my wedding. Conveniently, I had someone knowledgeable in spiritual things close at hand. As a small child I asked, “Will we be big or little in heaven, Daddy?” He gave me an answer, and then, as pastors do, later used that exchange as a sermon illustration on the topic of heaven. Speaking of having a servant’s heart, I can remember him typing school papers for me on his manual typewriter. Not a sports fan himself, he drove me (and my siblings) to countless practices, early in the day, well into the evening, and on Saturdays and holidays. Though having a full house with five biological children, Mom and Dad opened their home as an emergency foster shelter. One child who came “temporarily” became a permanent part of our family.

As you can see, I have been greatly—and graciously—blessed. While my challenges in growing up, including the teenage years, seemed difficult enough to me, I do wonder how those without such a home as I had can manage. And yet I know that God’s mighty arm has not gotten shorter.

Also this past weekend, I witnessed an example of that as I attended a young man’s graduation at West Point. I have so much admiration for that man, and am so proud to know him. He did not have the benefit of an involved father like I had, and yet God put His gracious hand on this young man just as surely as He was also gracious to me in my childhood and youth. God was merciful in sparing this young man’s life from hell, and He also chose to spare him while he served his country in Iraq. And now He has sustained him through the rigors and influences at a military academy. I pray that God will continue to multiply this young man’s years on earth and his servant-leadership in the kingdom—perhaps to the century mark, and beyond.

There is nothing that God cannot do.