The Best Thing

By Kirk Jordan

The Best Thing is partly my story but mostly about God's amazing grace. I've been reading and writing my whole life, and providence has compelled me far too long to write a book, so here we are. The book may be crude and raw, but outside Calvary's forgiveness, it's neither worth writing or reading. I honestly feel like the "least of all of these

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stratton Press
• Release date: Jul 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781648954870

Kirk Jordan

Kirk F. Jordan was born in 1965 in Greenville, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, spent two years in Australia developing business, returned to the US and Boston, Massachusetts, to install equipment in a manufacturing facility. From there, he traveled the country with BFGoodrich for a season and then headed to Ontario, Canada, to attend Pat Wolfe Handcrafted Log Building School and fulfill a call on his life. From there, he would travel to Missoula, Montana, to work with Custom Log Homes and then to Maupin, Oregon, with Oregon Log Homes. He would winter in Pennsylvania and set out in the spring for Alaska, where he would spend three months in the wilderness, north of the Arctic circle on the shores of Lake Chandlar building a handcrafted log cabin. He would work on the Kenai Peninsula, Juneau, and then return to Pennsylvania to get married, buy a house, and hang out his shingle: "Jordan Log Homes." For twenty years, he would build handcrafted log cabins and homes until God would call him to be a fisher of men. He would further his education at Dubuque Theological Seminary, Thiel College and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. He pastored North Sandy Church, Utica, Pennsylvania, for approximately eight years, provides pulpit supply for a little church in Hoonah, Alaska, and prepares weekly sermons from the comfort of his country home in northwestern Pennsylvania.

Book preview

Acknowledgments

The older I get, the more I understand and observe, the more I am convinced a spirit of gratitude reaps a longer, healthier, joyful, peaceful, blessed, fulfilled life than all the world can muster. A cheerful heart is good medicine, and if there are side effects, the list would be long. Praiseful, thankful, grateful would be at the top of the list. The literary world recognizes these as acknowledgments, but in God’s economy, it is grateful praise, thanksgiving. I didn’t say much about my wife in the book. We agreed that would be another book altogether, but I can’t begin to summarize the major role she has played in my life. God knew exactly what I needed when I needed it and blessed me exceedingly with Kim.

When my mother, overcome with Alzheimer’s, could no longer pray for me, God saw fit to appoint an absolute treasure, an angel of the Lord, in my wife.

That even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives. (1 Peter 3:1)

This scripture has been absolutely fulfilled in my life in regard to my wife’s behavior. She didn’t raise her voice, point her finger, condemn me for my wayward life. No, she kept her tongue. She took it to the Lord in prayer, and I began to see changes take place in my life that I could not explain. Kim is the epitome of a Proverbs 31 woman, and anything I could add to that would be a gross understatement to the power and authority a woman has in the life of a man. Thank you, Kim, for being my completer, a blessed, holy gift from above.

It’s interesting that Kim displayed many of the characteristics of my mother, Mary Jane. I cannot say enough about my mother, but at the end of the day, she saw fit to have me in a pew on Sunday.

Raise up a child in the way they should go and when they are old, they will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6)

I thought she had us in the balcony on Sunday because of the view, but now that I think about it, I suspect it was better for everybody if a restless child was separated from the masses. Thank you, Mom, for raising me up in the way that I should go and setting me before those stained glass windows that would make all the difference in the world.

I want to thank my father for beating me into hell, a hell-bent for election life that left a path of destruction, bent metal, broken bones, and a blood trail for nearly thirty years. Suffering often seems the necessary part of our journey to salvation. My father suffered many things in his life, but I can’t begin to tell you how blessed I was by him. There is easily a book to be written about it, but one of my earliest memories at our home in Greenville was an entire wall in our living room was a bookshelf full of books. I want to thank Dad for passing along a love of reading and writing that has blessed and enriched my life beyond measure.

Mom and Dad, thank you for giving me a genetic disposition of a relentless, reckless, tenacious passion for life. A deep, rich, profound appreciation and love for things above and things on earth. I know that God knew me before the foundations of the earth, but my parents built on that foundation, and my life has been exceedingly, abundantly blessed because of my mom and dad.

Brother James, what can I say? I love you. You have been an absolute priceless piece of the journey, thank you. My sister Natalie. She may not remember this, but she got me Jack London’s Stories of Adventure for Christmas in 1986 and ten years later, My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers. Thank you for quietly encouraging God’s call on my life.

For Chas and Barry, Rick and Mike, and for Lisa and her life-sustaining chocolate chip cookies. For my friends in Alaska: Comolli, Budke, Kathie, Mark, Rhonda, Dave, Angie, Hindu Bob, and one of my all-time favorites, Tank. For all those good folks at the Hadley, Hoonah, and North Sandy Churches. Terry Miller, you are a treasure, brother. And John Hastings. I remember John telling me what his father told him, Make sure they know that Jesus loves them. Malcolm and Martha, Chuck VanDyne, Audrey Thurston, Les Irwin, Louie, Joseph, Miss Palovkin, Bill Reams, Mary Whitcomb, Dot Morrow, precious, precious Dot. And Razie, one of my dearly beloved angels, thank you for your diligence in things above, here on earth.

From the least to the greatest, I am grateful. Jesus loves each one of you. Now let’s put it in D for drive, and as Malcolm said, Ring the bell the way it ought to be rung, in the name of Jesus.

Foreword

Throughout the Old Testament, God called people with feet of clay: murderers, liars, adulterers, and unclean lips. Jesus called folks with rough hands, not the educated or sophisticated but those who knew a hard day’s work and the rough and tumble of the fish markets. Our world is full of the walking wounded, broken people leading broken lives. What better voice to tell the good news than one who by the grace of God has been called out of it, saved from it, ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven.

Like a voice crying in the wilderness to those stumbling in darkness, here is a compelling testimony to the saving, healing grace of Jesus Christ.

—Jim Moose

A friend and pastor

Unity Church, Greenfield, PA

The Best Thing Book Review

I have known Kirk Jordan since I was sixteen, and we graduated high school together. After he finished reading my recently published book, he sent me an email. I chose to keep my book secular, as I am always striving to appeal to everyone’s humanity, regardless of their respective religion. I have always considered myself to have Jesus in my heart, although I did not read the Bible, nor did I attend church. After reading most of The Best Thing, I started to feel something shift within me. I purchased the Kindle version of the Bible Kirk recommended and began reading it. For the first time in my life, what I was reading began to resonate deep within my heart like I have never felt before. This book has inspired me to shift the car in Drive! Kirk’s stories of his adventures, his humility, and love of Jesus are inspiring, and for this lost soul, life changing. Thank you, Kirk, for writing this book and helping me see that I have been blind and did not even know it.

—Sandee Sgarlata

The Best Thing is a timely written book where Kirk Jordan takes us on a unique ride as his words and heart dance on the pages. From a young child, broken by his earthly father, to an earthly child longing for a father figure, Kirk is led down a path of life lessons where he ultimately finds what his heart has desired all his life, a Father whose arms are always wide open with agape love and adoration for him. A Father who is proud to call him son and one he can hold onto and follow for all eternity, through Jesus Christ. Kirk now invites others that are broken and longing for a Father’s love into the same adoption. See what great love our Heavenly Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! (1 John 3:1).

—Denise Orr

This is a book about a selfish adventurous life that was apprehended, regenerated, and transformed by the grace of a loving God into a selfless adventurous life. A modern-day Paul who now lives by these words: one thing do; forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

—David Means

Chapter 1

D Is for Drive

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, the one fellow kept saying at the men’s book study down the road one evening. His name is Les Irwin. When someone asks his name, he says, Les Irwin, less of me and more of Him. Les is a good man, a Bible-believing, God-fearing man. Years before that book study, as we were exiting the little church down the road after a Wednesday night Bible study, Les handed me a copy of Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas. Another one of those divine seeds planted in the heart and mind of a hungry soul begging to be saved from the darkness within and the darkness without.

Remember John Denver’s lyrics in his famous Rocky Mountain High song: I know he’d be a poorer man if he never saw an eagle fly? John was right, there is something very special and very rare about an eagle. Every chance I get, I stop what I’m doing and watch them until they’re out of sight. They have something that we simply do not have, and there seems to be a longing to reach the heights and dance as they do. Oh, the stories I could tell watching them, studying them. It never gets old. They never disappoint. My appreciation only grows with each new encounter. They make it easy to get lost in the splendor of creation. As the eagle soars ever higher, a great blue heron passes by at about a third of the elevation, almost always in a straight line. They seem to have an agenda, leaves you wondering where they’re coming from or where they’re going. All in the same moment, a hummingbird lights on the barbwire fence, and if you don’t see the divinity therein, you know you’d be a poorer man. There really is a wonderment in all of it.

You’ll never go wrong by taking time out of your day to observe the eagle, heron, or hummingbird, just to mention a few, but the point with the John Denver song is this, if you don’t know who Dietrich Bonhoeffer is, you’d be a poorer man, or woman. Metaxas’s book is thick enough, over five hundred pages to separate the wheat from the chaff, but it’s like the eagle in many ways. Not to watch it, read it, study it, or understand it leaves us poorer simply because it is a rich offering. That’s not to say that there isn’t important work to do, but if we don’t take time for the eagle, we’ve missed one of life’s great treasures. We have a fine disposition for wasting our time on lesser things, in fact, oftentimes, things that are harmful, and we are robbed of precious moments and lessons that make the world a better place.

Metaxas’s book on Bonhoeffer teaches us things about humanity that had we not read it, we might sit idly by while history repeats itself. It’s a book that will change your life. If it doesn’t, it should, and if it should, it will. It did mine. We’re not designed to be stagnated, stifled, suffocated. We’re designed to grow, breathe, graduate, and be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2).

My mentor, Malcolm Vandevort, lived ninety-four years. He was healthy right up to the end, walked the hills of Ethiopia for thirty years as a missionary. I said to Malcolm, You should write a book.

He said, The world doesn’t need another book.

There are plenty of books out there that were a royal waste of time writing them and equally well reading them. My prayer is that this won’t be one of them. Sorry, Malcolm, providence compels me. I can tell you had I not watched an eagle fly, read Bonhoeffer, or met Malcolm Vandevort, I’d be a poorer man. Each one taught me something, transformed me, inspired me to search for a higher way.

Life is too precious to sit idly by. Each of you in the reading of these words is a treasure in an earthen vessel. Each