Sunday Dispatch.671

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.671

Steve McQueen is one of my favorite actors. One thing I liked about him was that in scenes where he was being shot at, he looked scared. This made his films more realistic to me. He didn’t come across as a super hero immune to danger. He could express a wide range of emotions.

I was watching one of his films a few nights ago and it brought back some thoughts about Steve McQueen and his life…and about his faith.

The part of his life I want to share concerns the last part of his life. Note: Quoted paragraph is from Southern Yankee Gospel and McQueen quotes from Notes in the Key of Life.

This final chapter of his life started when he hired a pilot to teach him to fly.

"The pilot who taught him was a man in his early 60s by the name of Sammy Mason. Self-described as cranky and difficult to get along with, he became fast friends with McQueen. As they shared long hours in the air, talking together about the meaning of life, Steve sensed that there was something different about him. The more time they spent together, the more he wanted to know what Mason’s secret was. One day he asked him outright. Mason sat down with the aging actor and explained what, or rather who, had made the difference in his life. The answer, he said, was Jesus Christ."

A few weeks later while attending church, McQueen accepted Christ.

Several months later that year McQueen was diagnosed with pleural mesothelioma, a fast-spreading and incurable form of cancer. The news was crushing because he had expected God to use him in some great way now that he was a Christian.

While he was undergoing experimental treatments for his cancer, McQueen met with some doctors who practiced visualization techniques to encourage healing. In his interviews with them, McQueen repeatedly talked about his faith and how he wanted to share it with others.

"...you mentioned earlier about finding a cure in my life. Well, that cure was finding the Lord in my life.”

McQueen endured several treatments and operations, but a physical cure was not to be.

Four days after Billy Graham visited him in the hospital McQueen died with a Bible resting on his chest. It was opened to his favorite verse: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, so that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Tribute Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHBUzU3pfeU