I will be out of town for the next few days (back Wednesday) watching our grandson play high school baseball and also visiting with Janna and the clan. I’m posting this today but unless something happens where I feel I can post easily, I won’t be back until Thursday.

In my last post I wrote about Prince Thomas and the feeling that he had of being called to something, but he wasn’t sure what it was. His Uncle David told him to “bide his time, that if God was calling him, he would be tracked down in God’s time, not his own.” As the book (Dancing Prince) shows, his calling was to become the next king after his father, King Michael, relinquished the throne. I also mentioned that I would share my own journey about being called.

My mother told me once that as far as she could remember, I always talked about being a preacher. I remember it differently. 🙂 I always wanted to play professional baseball and then when I grew so quickly between my 8th & 9th grade, I took up basketball. I was so bad that I could not dribble and walk at the same time. The coach had me learn on the sidelines while the team was practicing. Eventually I got so I could do both and learned to love basketball. So much so, that when I was in an awkward age to play baseball (there was no team for my age), basketball took over. I soon wanted to get good enough to play college then professional ball. Well, several things stacked up against me on that. I was 6’3″; I wasn’t a good ball handler; and I sat the bench. Even as a Senior my coach decided to play underclassmen preparing for the next year or two. (It backfired. They did terribly).

Between my Freshman and Sophomore year in college, I made a solid commitment to Christ and to follow Him where ever. If that meant, the ministry then so be it.  I played basketball and studied… hard since nothing came easy to me. I decided not to play ball my senior year because I wanted better grades, was preaching on the weekends, and…oh yeah…got married. 🙂 I preached at a little country church for almost two years and then became a youth pastor closer to the school. After graduation, I was an Associate Pastor in Akron, OH where I was officially ordained on April 13, 1975. But I always wanted to preach and so the next church was a five-year preaching ministry in a small town (not even a stop light) in Ohio. In my 50 years of ministry I have been to Ohio, Indiana, back to Ohio, back to Indiana, back to Ohio and now back to Indiana for the past 19 years.  (The 19 best years of my ministry life).

There have been a lot of ups and downs, mistakes, foot-in-mouth disease, victories, losses, joy, sadness, but in all of it I know God was there. I have absolutely no doubt I am doing exactly what God designed me to do: Preach His Word and love His people. I wouldn’t trade one moment of His pleasure for all the money in the world.