Since I’ll be traveling for a few days, I’m re-posting 3 blogs about mentoring and what a good mentor looks like. Here’s the first:

Mentoring programs are big nowadays, but they’ve existed since ancient times. Elijah mentored Elisha. Moses mentored Joshua. Elizabeth mentored Mary. Paul mentored Timothy. And of course Jesus mentored his 12 disciples.

I’ve had several impactful mentors through the years, my parents among them. But the one who walked me through my adolescent immaturities and stuck with me until I was 60 was my Aunt Joyce (married to Dad’s brother). She let me live with her family three different summers in the 1960’s, gently counseling, instructing, and chiding me as needed.

My respect for her grew as I got older, taking on more common characteristics with her: marriage, motherhood, and other adult ups and downs. Aunt Joyce never preached. Instead she coaxed me into new ways of thinking for myself. She shared examples from her own life and was careful to include failures as well as successes. The fact that she would disclose her personal struggles to me always felt like a gift.

Aunt Joyce never labeled herself a mentor, and it wasn’t until we’d been “working together” for years that I realized I was her mentoree. She had others, too, and in her later years complete strangers approached her through church contacts, requesting mentoring. She never turned them away and viewed each relationship as a holy privilege.

One of the reasons Aunt Joyce was effective was that she didn’t say, “You should… do this or that.” Instead she’d say, “Here’s something you might want to try,” or “This approach worked for me in similar circumstances.” She made it seem like the two of us were in it together. And if my steady stream of questions and needs drained her, she never let on.

Of course the ultimate mentor is God, and he’s willing to partner with any of us desiring to be his mentorees. As with all good mentors, though, he leaves it up to us to take advantage of it.

Adam and Eve had it made with their daily mentoring sessions with him in the cool of each Eden evening. But despite their Mentor’s flawless advice, they only agreed with 90% of it. The 10% they tossed aside made a radical difference in their quality of life. We can contradict what our mentors tell us, ignore their counsel, or follow their advice and watch our lives change for the better.

Aunt Joyce lived a long, fruitful life and was a valuable mentor for one reason: her advice was always right-on. That’s because it came down to her from the Lord, which then allowed her to give her opinion with confidence.

I’ve tried to follow Aunt Joyce’s example in lots of ways, but the One she most hoped I would emulate was God himself, the ultimate in Mentors.

“One generation shall commend your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts.” (Psalm 145:4)