Salt Lake City – Day 4

Yesterday was my birthday. I did not allow anyone here to know. I received some calls and emails from folks back home, but for the most part I celebrated alone. That is not a whine, it was a choice. I did not want anything taking place here to be about me. Appropriately enough last night during worship there was a brief time of quiet when we were asked to recall when God called us into ministry.

For me, that occurred in my teenage years. I have never written here about my coming to faith, and am not now, that is not my purpose. Suffice it to say that I came to faith at the age of eleven. A couple of years later I attended a summer camp with some friends from my church. I must have been 13 years old. Each evening we would have a worship service they called Vespers. (That is a name I do not really get to this day. I know it comes from a basic meaning of Evening Prayers, but to call a teenage worship service by that name, well . . .) In any event, Thursday or Friday evening of that week during Vespers the speaker used as his text Romans 12:1-2.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

At the end of his message, of which I recall little, he challenged us as young teens to give our life over to God for whatever He may have for us. I recall going forward and talking to one of the counselors. That night I prayed and told God I would do or be whatever He desired me to do or be. This was coming from a teen living in a very poor home, who without God’s help would remain there. I verbalized the specifics of my call to my Dad 2-3 years later, had numerous folks in churches (once our family started attending a couple years later) tell me that I was gifted to ministry. But full time – not bi-vocational – ministry did not come my way until 1994. What caused me to hold on? I was called. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Last evening I recalled and celebrated God’s call upon my life! There are many times when this call is the only thing that keeps me in ministry! So I say again, last evening I recalled and celebrated God’s call upon my life.