My Mentor, Dr. Myles Munroe Is Now ‘Empty’
My mentor, Dr. Myles Munroe, is dead. In 24 hours I would have been boarding a plane to Freeport, Grand Bahama Island, to join heads of state, business leaders, Church leaders, and fellow mentees, for the annual and iconic Global Leadership Summit. I was so excited and about to start packing, when I happened to log on to my I-pad and a message was awaiting me. My mentor, Dr Myles Munroe; his wife Ruth-Ann; his senior pastor and brother-in-law Dr. Richard Pinder; his freshly minted Youth Pastor, Lavard ‘Manifest’ Parks with his entire family; my fellow mentee King Diego; and, his two pilots had all died in a horrific plane crash. They were on their way to the Global Leadership Summit like so many of us. I do not know if I can even begin to put into words what I feel. Maybe that I will wake up in a few hours and be told this was all a bad dream.
You may not know who Dr. Myles Munroe was and quite possibly, you might not even care. Understandable. When I met Dr. (grandpa) Myles, I was dying! It was at a time when I had accomplished some major feats in my life. A few degrees; a great career; my own home by age 28; a nice luxury car; and, a few awesome friends. What you wouldn’t have known just by looking at me, was that I was so depressed I had literally started praying for death to come. With all of my success, I was lost, unfulfilled, discontented, miserable! I had even quit “going to church”. That was probably the best move I’d ever made in my life because it was during that period of intense turmoil and loss, while surfing the Bahamas Faith Ministry International website, I discovered the Myles Munroe Leadership Mentoring Program. It proved to be a divine orchestration and quite honestly, divine intervention. For the first time in months, I started feeling that, just maybe, I had not even started living!
The program with Dr. Myles Munroe lasted 3 years. It was a journey into self-discovery. I learnt things about myself I had never, ever known existed. The process helped unearth potentials and hidden passions deep down on the inside of me. My entire life was revolutionized. I had finally discovered my purpose for being on the planet and I had a clear picture or vision of my assignment. After emerging from my very first Global Leadership Summit in November 2012, I enrolled in the Marriage and Family Therapy program at Nova Southeastern. This was a monumental move, for you see, I had no background at all in the Humanities. My background is exclusively Environmental Science and Engineering. Dr. Myles personally placed a call to me after I sent him an email concerning my intentions to “abandon” my current career path to pursue this new avenue. He told me unequivocally and without apology, “Ms. Bryce, do not do that. Find a way to marry the two fields and make them work together”. Make them work together? How in the world….?
Needless to say, I did and I am finding a way. My organization; Building According To Pattern, LLC, the avenue through which I am finding a way to heed Dr. Myles Munroe’s instructions, was also birthed out of that Global Leadership Summit experience. “Empowering others, through the process of self-discovery and the pursuit of their tailored purpose, to build their lives by design”; is the mission of this organization. An organization that Dr. Myles Munroe helped stir up the gift in me to give birth to. He gave me my voice. Now I am the primary author for the Building According To Pattern Blog Series; host of the widely listened to biweekly Building According To Pattern Podcast Series; I serve as a personal development coach and mentor to at-risk high school students as well as to other demography; and, I am an empowerment speaker. One day I will travel the globe to speak internationally as my mentor, grandpa Myles had spent more than half of his life doing.
If it sounds like bragging to you, you are absolutely right! I will brag in this regard because the world will know that Dr. Myles Munroe’s life was in no way impact-less. I will never, ever be the same and I commit to spending the rest of my life living out my purpose as he did his. His purpose ignited mine and I am equally as passionate about igniting the purposes of others. One of his mantras that I will always hold dear to my heart lies in this one statement; “Don’t just die, die empty”.
I will never understand the sovereignty of our King, the Lord God. I will likely never understand why Dr. Myles had to go now, of all the times. One thing I do know is that, as horrible as this situation is for so many of us who loved and cherished this man and his wife so dearly, he lived on purpose. He gave his all. I am satisfied in knowing that, my mentor, Dr. Myles Munroe is now ’empty’. His legacy will undoubtedly live on.
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This was a beautiful tribute. Living on purpose is the message he conveyed to all; that our living not be in vain. His death and those who were with him is such a shock and clearly difficult to phathom. God is sovereign He rules and He reigns…He decides. All those who gleaned from each of those fallen warriors were truly at an advantage. It is like you have been saying ” the church needs to get it together, we are too passive about the things of God” I believe this tragedy is a great warning to the church world, to shock us. Those that all are passive need to move and those that all re passive moving need to keep pressing. It is time to be mature and walk upright. Dr. Myles was a forerunner a visionary that was uncompromising. He heard the voice of God and he moved…The land is shifting, are we in position? The path has been laid and we have to choose the more excellent way…God is Sovereign!
Amen Anita. I have only one prayer; that I do everything I was placed in this earth to do in the time allotted, without reservation, without fear and without compromise. Please pray for me in this regard, always. And I pray that as the “grain of corn” has died, we will experience a massive harvest 1,000 times more. Let Your Kingdom come, let Your will be done on earth, even as it is in the heavens.
Great article! I’m sharing forward!
Thanks Julio!
What a wonderful sentiment about your mentor and a mentor to many. One of his greatest sharings was on the wealth of the graveyard and his desire to rob the grave by leaving empty. What is important is the depth of what he poured in the allotted time. He will truly be missed and on the other he has poured into successors. Great leaders create leaders, challenge them, grow them, encourage them and walk with them until the journey’s end.
Howie, thank you so much for your comments. I had to give honor to whom honor is due. He did exactly what he said he would do; “die empty”. He knew it too! I will challenge myself to do the same. Blessings sir!
Hearing this news, I am deeply saddened; because I loved Dr. Monroe’s teaching from the Lord Jesus Christ; yet I know that there is rejoicing in heaven for the arrival of Dr. Miles Monroe, his beautiful wife, family and Ministry leaders. They boarded to go to the Global Leadership Summit; but Dr. Monroe’s assignment was finished, and God called him, and the other saints to the Greatest Summit, to receive their “crown of righteousness” and “crown of glory.”
He knew it Desiree! Dr. Myles spent a considerable portion of his last years on earth putting a succession plan in place for his ministry as well as his organizations. Close to the end he kept rehearsing to his core team that he was “empty” and that he was satisfied that he had done all that he needed to do and had no doubt that the legacy would continue. And it will, simply because his was a God-idea. Thank you so very much for your comments. Blessings sis!
Thank you Georgia for this awesome tribute … for an awesome man. OUR mentor Dr. Myles Munroe. I first heard of Dr. Myles when a young man that I helped to mentor gave me a cd with Dr’s voice on it. It was Manpower 2009 … and it spoke to my spirit and changed my life. Later on that year I unfortunately went through a separation from my estranged wife, after 20 yrs of marriage and (3) of the most beautiful human beings born to us. I nearly lost my mind …. but held on to God’s unchanging hand…STUDIED the cd of Dr. Myles Munroe while STUDYING the word of God. This not only brought me out but it also SPOKE INTO ME, MY PURPOSE ! And that is to take this message of God’s design & purpose for HIS man-children (young & old )through out the world !
So I am so glad you had the chance to meet Dr. Munroe and as a result was compelled to put up this tribute – blog. I pray that we can meet one day and work these visions together.
God bless,
Patrick
It really is amazing Patrick, how our Master Designer has a way of getting out of us what he placed in us at the most “inappropriate” moments. It was a time of immense crisis for you and a time of great success for me. I am and will be forever grateful for the man that Dr. Munroe was. I endeavor to pattern his character and conviction, but most importantly, his humility and love of and for people. What was most endearing about Dr. Munroe was not so much his wisdom or eloquence of speech. It was his authenticity,genuine warmth and passion for putting others before him and pushing them towards success, based on their own unique and individual design. I dare to make this declaration that we WILL meet one day Patrick and forge the kind of collaboration that is reminiscient of my mentor. He was a master at pulling great minds together. Blessings sir!
Georgia, you have written lovely sentiments about your mentor and Awesome Man of God. I pray that you continue to take all that you have learned from him and allow the Lord to continue to manifest your knowledge into ideas and endeavors that will continue to bless others as this blog post has. My God continue to bless you and your ministry.
Min. Wendi
Hi Min. Wendi,
Thank you so much for your kind words and for reaching out during this time. I count myself way beyond being fortunate to have had the opportunity to interface with Dr. Myles during the last years of his life. Apart of me wish I had capitalize more on those times when he was in the vicinity or called him when I could have. I always felt I had time. He left us with a tremendous legacy and his voice, I believe, will reverberate throughout the globe for generations to come. I found my life and I really started living when Dr. Myles Munroe crossed my path and that is the honest to goodness truth. Now that I have been handed this baton, I will run my leg of the journey with honor, devotion, passion, and absolute conviction because, like grandpa Myles, I also want to “die empty”. Blessings Sis!!
Hi I was so happy to see your article about our common mentor, late Myles Munroe. I had just finished writing my testimony about my personal experience with him and I was looking for a picture for illustration when I saw your article.
Wonderful, congratulation for this piece.
I even created a link to my own article at WordPress
Stay blessed, sure the master has gone to Eternity, empty, but we are still loaded. Let’s keep on with the legacy.
http://wp.me/p5uCjK-P
I salute you Seniorako! It’s amazing that one man is responsible for impacting the lives of so many people across the globe. His legacy will live on forever; captured in his books, messages and personal contact with others. I am so happy to see you’ve also been impacted by grandpa Myles and thank you so much for your warm sentiments. Go light your world and run your leg of the journey. The baton has been passed on to you. Finish strong!!
Blessings Always
Georgia