The Long Road

When I look back, I see a long road.  My first thoughts about God came around age seven, baptism at the altar of a Methodist Church came at age nine, and just before I got out of high school I said "Yes" to Jesus with enough stickability to take me to the present day.   This is not to say there were not those moment of losing sight of the way.  Neither can I say not say that my life has been empty of free falls from my faith.  It has not by any means been a perfect journey, but it has been the one I have had as I sought to follow Jesus.   

There were times He should have looked behind at my spiritual meandering and said "Enough.  Let that one go his way," but He never did.  I have been the recipient of more forgiving grace than the prodigal son, been given more than my share of daily provision when there was very little in the pantry, and been turned around and pointed in the right way far more than Simon Peter.  I have always said that on the day when God called me to preach, He was scraping the bottom of the barrel and with such a conviction I will go to my grave.  

It still amazes me to look back on the road and see where God chose to use me and allowed me to be part of what He was doing in His Kingdom.  I am humbled from time to time as I hear voices from the past speak of God coming to them while I was with them.  It has been a long journey that is still unfolding.  More and more do I understand how the Apostle Paul could write, "I do not consider that I have made it on my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus."  (Philippians 3:13-14)