Once Upon A Time

Tonight, my family was discussing what the most important things that happened in 2008. My answer was easily being called to ministry. This sparked my thinking and I thought that I might share my testimony with my readers.

I was saved at five after reading a brief and abridged version of The Pilgrim's Progress. My Dad was a pastor and my family was quite strong in our faith. I read that story and that was the moment it made sense. I wanted to become a part of what my Dad was doing even if I didn't understand it all. Fast-forward until I was about 10. We had moved and started serving at a different church and I was the PK there. Everything was fine. I was well-loved by the members, familiar with faith, and cool with my friends. But I was spiritually dead. I was just getting by because I was the pastor's kid. Everyone expected me to be perfect in being a good "church-person" or be just getting by. So, I did. I got comfortable. I ignored any stirring I might have had.

We moved to our current church when I was 11. I went on my first over-night youth trip at 12. It was different. I felt something that I couldn't ignore. I wanted to go down and talk with someone but I had already been saved, so what else was there? I went on another youth trip in February. I felt it again. But this time I realized there was something more. And I guess it scared me. I ignored it again because I didn't know how to feel about it. All this time since we moved, everything I heard became something pointed directly at me. Everything I heard reminded I was spiritually dead. I wanted to get close to God, but I had never done that before and the idea scared me. Then, this summer, I went to camp. If you haven't ever been to a World Changers camp, they have a very special service where they black out the windows, turn off the lights, center the stage light on the cross, and have a prayer service. All throughout the service you pray, cry, and write on big boards about sin and prayer. Most of all you have an experience with God. It was the best experience ever and I wanted to sit there forever. But this was not the night I was called. I was called two night later at a normal worship service. I now realize that the night of prayer was to give me an experience with God to prepare me for the night he would call me. That night during the invitation I started to pray. As soon as I started to pray, God spoke in my mind and said "Ministry" a couple of times. I realized what it meant and was worried about how to handle it, but I felt God's peace. So for the first time in my life, I heard God's voice and acknowledged it. I later talked to Gregg about it and realized how awesome it was. I went up to the room I was staying in and laid down on my half-deflated air mattress and talked to God, asking things like if that was really what he said, how I should to terms with it, but mainly "What now?". I looked at some ministry brochures that I had been given and found the verse Romans 10:14-15.

"How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!"

This verse convinced in me that my call was the most important thing in my life and that if anything lived in me, it should be my call. That is how I came to be who I am in Christ today. My spiritual life did not begin when I was saved or when I understood it, but when God told me to live it. And that is what I plan to do.