If you’re a regular reader of The Ewellogy, you may have noticed that I quote my early Navigator mentor Skip Gray from time to time. He was the master of the profound one-liner. For example:

• Bitterness is like drinking poison and waiting for the other guy to die. (Compare Hebrews 12.14, 15)
• This one thing I do…not these 14 things I dabble in. (Compare Philippians 3.13, 14)
• The need does not constitute the call. (Compare Mark 1.35 – 38)
• Jesus had a 3-mile-per-hour ministry: he didn’t go jogging through Judea, sprinting through Samaria, or galloping through Galilee. He walked wherever he went.

I’m sad to report that on Saturday, November 13, Skip left us for his eternal dwelling.

Skip had had Parkinson’s for, I’m guessing, 15 – 20 years. He liked to say, “A lady came up to me and asked, ‘May I shake your hand?’ I replied, ‘Ma’am, all you have to do is hold it, it shakes all by itself.'” The last time I saw him was perhaps two years ago, pre-COVID, at a senior staff gathering. On the way out, he was still trying to share a joke with me even though I couldn’t hear him very well.

I loved Skip. He taught me a lot, but I’m not sad that he’s gone. At over 90 years old, with his body giving out, the longest-serving Navigator, it was time. He’s gone, but his legacy lives on both in people and in hundreds of sermons at DiscipleshipLibrary.com. Search on “Skip Gray” and pick any of them! You have three pages of titles to choose from. He also compiled a short book of his one-liners and astute observations from scripture: Navigating Insights: The Wit and Wisdom of Skip Gray. It’s only $8.00 on Amazon – strongly recommend!

I’ll never forget the way he took the offering at the week-long conferences of The Navigators’ Military Ministry back in the late 60s, early 70s. They would present a project, usually some Navigator beginning a new ministry overseas. They would want so much in moving expenses and monthly support. And I was amazed that fewer than 200 folks, many of them young military enlisted people, would meet the need every time. Some of it was the way Skip, in his slow, deliberate style, would read 2 Corinthians 9.6, 7 (… indicates pauses):

But this I say, He which soweth…sparingly…shall reap also…sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also…bountifully. Every man according as he purposeth in his heart,…so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.

He always challenged us to be making disciples:

• Where’s your man? Where’s your woman?

He said disciple-making gives us purpose. He would say,

• The happy Philistines [unbelievers] roaring around out there have everything they want except for one thing. They lack purpose.

He told us not to give our lives to the wrong things:

• It’s all gonna burn. (See 2 Peter 3.10 – 12)

It’s fair to say that June and I would not be doing what we’re doing today without the profound impact of Skip Gray. Rest in peace, my brother.

Skip shared with me this verse as a promise a few years ago over breakfast, and I pray nearly every day for “men of valor:”

Saul also went to his home at Gibeah, and with him went men of valor whose hearts God had touched. ( 1 Samuel 10.26, ESV)

…the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. (2 Timothy 4.6 – 8, ESV)