Although Dan grew up attending
Sunday school and church with his mother regularly, he freely admits that
he knew nothing about God until he decided to stop being spiritually
ignorant at the age of 40.
Dan Moore has lived a life almost perfectly depicting the American
Dream. He grew up in a small farming town in New Mexico and helped his
dad
raise cotton, hay and cattle. He enjoyed hunting and fishing, raising
farm
animals, watermelons and cantaloupe. Throughout his early years, however,
Dan was most influenced by his dad, Jayder. Jayder's way of raising his
boys was one of example. Quietly working without complaint, Jayder
exemplified strength, patience, joy and love. In his own way, Dan's Dad
was a walking Bible, not preaching God's Word, but living God's Word and
displaying all the fruits of the spirit which we read about in Galatians
5:22-23. Dan was a young man, newly married with a new baby and not long
out of the Marines when Jayder passed away in 1974. But Jayder had given
Dan a legacy, the legacy of faith in God and faithful service to God.
That faith in God was soon needed when Dan lost his
right hand in a dynamite explosion in 1979. As a farmer, Dan had worked
with dynamite since the age of 14, but he underestimated his own strength
and wisdom the day he went out to dispose of some dynamite which had been
in storage. The lessons of character and strength stayed with him as a
friend rushed him to the hospital and as he underwent hours of surgery to
repair what was left of his arm. The most damage; however, had been done
to Dan's face. The bones in his hand had become shrapnel and the doctor
operated several hours more to reconstruct his mouth and nose. Dan
discovered then that God's grace had become his fortress, his ever
present
help in time of need. Dan didn't know God's Word, but he knew what his
dad
had taught by example, that we can overcome anything we need to with
God's
help.
At the time of the accident, Dan and Merrellee had been married 10
years and their daughter was almost 7. They learned together, as a
family,
just what it meant to be sustained and strengthened by God in a time of
crisis, but they had never learned about the gift of God's son, or the
Lordship of Jesus, the Christ. Another 10 years passed before Dan learned
that Jesus was his Savior. Throughout their first 20 years of marriage,
Dan and Merrellee went to church in a haphazard manner, going for a few
weeks, then not going for months and years at a time. Their relationship
with God was much the same as it is for most people, inconsistent and
lazy. They called themselves Christian without knowing the meaning of the
word and said the Apostle's prayer, being proud that they had memorized
the words.
In 1990, with their daughter in college, Dan and Merrellee moved to
Arizona on a contracting job. They had been relieved to leave the church
where they had been going in New Mexico, but somehow felt a need to hear
God's Word preached. Although television evangelists as a whole were
undergoing a terrible crisis, Merrellee happened to turn on the
television
one Sunday morning and heard a preacher speaking God's Word in a way
she'd
never heard before. She called Dan in and they listened, fascinated to
hear God's Word preached clearly and with strength and power. They still
didn't trust this preacher though and when he challenged his audience to
read the Word and find out for themselves, Merrellee spoke out loud and
said, "I will!" Dan agreed, and their new life began.
From that day, Dan and Merrellee started learning just how ignorant
they had been and how close to destruction they had come. They had never
learned that God's son, Jesus, had been born to be their Lord. But they
learned. They did not know that the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is
all about God's plan for our lives. But they learned. They did not know
that God had designed them for Himself and that He had called them to be
His Children. But they learned. Dan did not know, during his Dad's life,
just what a precious legacy he'd been given, a heart for God. But he
learned.
