It's amazing how a few little words can have an impact on your life decades later.

In the fall of 1980, I was a freshman at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Okla. I was still wide-eyed, and naive, and I was still trying to process some worship styles and beliefs that were quite different from what I'd experienced in little country United Methodist churches back here in Bedford County.

One week, Oral Roberts invited Dr. Frederick Price to chapel. Price represented the worst part of "name-it-and-claim-it" theology, a gross oversimplification of the Bible which treats faith like a get-rich scheme. Price all but implied during his sermon that anyone who was sick was sick due to their own lack of faith, because if they had enough faith, God would obviously have healed them by now. At one point, he raised some sort of rhetorical question and a member of the theology school faculty, upset at the proceedings, got up and yelled "no!" in response, no doubt earning himself a world of trouble from the powers that be.

That night, we had our regular and required "wing meeting," with three dozen of us living on the same dormitory wing. Our wing chaplain, an upperclassman named Bill Meenk, said this:

"Regardless of what you might have heard, God is not a Coke machine."

Those were brave words, because Oral Roberts himself sometimes used a vending machine as a metaphor for faith. If we put money in, we expect product to come out. I don't mean to knock Christian college at all, but in some cases a Christian college can have a go-along-to-get-along atmosphere which seems to discourage independent thought and intimidate people from speaking out. For a wing chaplain at ORU to actually question the words of Oral Roberts, not in casual conversation but in an actual meeting, where his words might easily be noted and passed along to higher authorities, took a little bit of guts.

That lesson stuck with me, and remembering it helped me get through my college experience with my free will intact.

Anyway, on Monday night, a blogger whom I follow, Katherine Coble, posted something about the nature and purpose of prayer and the fact that it's supposed to lead to a closer relationship with God and a better understanding of what God wants. The Bible verses about God granting our requests mean, in part, that our requests will change as we better understand God's plan. Anyway, Kat made a comment about God not being a vending machine and I immediately thought of Bill Meenk. I started writing a blog post, in response to Kat's blog post, similar to what I've told you just now. I wondered where Bill was now. I hadn't kept up with him at all since college, but since his last name isn't especially common I thought I might look him up on Google.

Sure enough, there he was, the executive director of a foster care agency (although they dislike the term "foster care" and do not apply it to themselves) in California. I recognized his photo immediately, and his bio even included reference to ORU.

I dropped him an e-mail, saying I wasn't sure if he'd remember me. I heard back less than an hour later.

"I got a broad smile on my face when I saw your name on my message center," he wrote. "Of course I remember you, man! The man that knew everything about every movie ever made!" (I was in charge of the on-campus movies for 2 1/2 years at ORU.)

You don't always know what sorts of things are going to stick with you through the years, and you don't always get the chance to thank people for the impact they had on your lives. It was nice to be able to re-connect with Bill Meenk and thank him for having the courage to speak his mind.

John I. Carney is city editor of the Times-Gazette and covers county government and other topics. His home page is lakeneuron.com.