A Word of Witness

When Joe Bridges, the District Superintendent of the Dublin District, came to the Alamo Church that Spring evening just before my graduation from High School for a Quarterly Conference and said in his devotional, "When you see a need and realize you can do something about that need and do nothing, you may be neglecting the call of God on your life," he was not sending forth a call to ministry, but such is how it was heard.  I left there and later in the evening knelt down by my bed in a darkened room and gave my life to Jesus.  It was not the first time I gave my life to Jesus, but it was the first time I gave it and did not take it back.    

As I knelt there in that moment being made new by the power of the Spirit, I knew that those words I heard from the preacher were words meant for me.  They were words I did not want to receive and it took some months for me to come around to accepting that part of what was happening in my life that night.  I knew when I climbed into bed that everything was different.  The course was set.  It took me some months to publicly acknowledge the call to preach, but there was no doubt about God's call in those moments of beginning.    

Over the years the certainty of what happened that night has lingered and persisted.  I have doubted so many things in the doctrinal arena and in matters of personal faith, but never have I doubted the call.  And even though the expression of that call has changed in these years of retirement, I know in the deep places of my spirit that I am one called to ministry.  It was something I never would have chosen, but something chosen for me by the Father God who knew more about me than I knew about myself.