Are you disappointed that you have not found a capable or available mentor?  Today you can start being mentored.  The Hero Mentor is one of the 7 types that is sometimes an untapped resource. This type of mentor do what the other models do but they do it through the pages of a book rather than live.  This person may be dead or alive but their biographies and autobiographies can mentor us.  The Hero Mentor can teach, challenge, motivate and give you hope by their example. 

I have had a number of these, have you?  Jim Elliott was a historical model who mentored me.  His life has had a life long impact on mine.  Years after reading his works I was able to meet his daughter at a conference I was speaking at.  Here are a few of the many and how they impacted my life:

• Jim Elliott – Zeal for relationship with God, purity of heart, and desire to give everything to God.
• Hudson Taylor– Vision.  Trusting God in and for the ministry.  My second born was named after this godly man.
• Amy Carmichael– Intimate walk with God.
• Henrietta Mears – A woman God used to shape some of the most influential Christians of our time.
• Dawson Trotman– Heart for the Great Commission. Vision for spiritual multiplication.
• Elizabeth NewBold – She was saved at a later age and God still used her to impact the world for Christ in a huge way.

Women often tell me, “I have never had anyone to mentor me.”  When they say that I know they have not made the discovery of the power and availability of contemporary and historical models. 

Let’s close with the best historical models of all. Jesus of course is the #1 Hero Mentor.  Others would be the apostles, saints and martyrs, the great prophets-Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Micah, Malachi and others.  These mentors have blessed my life as they have kindled in me some of the righteousness and conviction of pride, worldliness and fear for those who forget God, their courage for confronting sin.

Don’t forget that we are not looking for perfect Hero Mentors but how they responded to failure in their lives and how they progressed in the process.   Who has mentored you in this way?