My wife Julie and I were married on May 25, 1981 at the ripe old ages of twenty and nineteen respectively. We were still attending college, Julie in computer science and myself in business/accounting when we made our lifetime commitment to one another. After graduating, Julie got a low paying job with a major government contractor and I went to work in the exciting field of public accounting. I am sure you can sense the excitement in that last sentence about my job. A few years later Julie had moved up into management and I was working for a Fortune 500 company in an accounting department that was responsible for one and a half billion dollars of sales accounting. My dream in life was to make one hundred thousand dollars a year. That goal had became my vision. We were on track and getting close to achieving that goal when something very strange happened. God called.
It’s strange not because I wasn’t expecting him to call, it was just what he was calling me to wasn’t a part of my plan and goals. If I remember correctly, it had something to do with being a preacher. What I found out later, was the he was specifically calling me to be a pastor. When God does things like this, you question if he really knows what he is doing, especially when it has to do with you. I kept wondering in the back of my mind if churches pay pastors one hundred thousand dollars a year before they reach the age of thirty. I reasoned that there must be churches out there that do so. After all I had my dream of making money. Surely God could merge my dream with his calling and we could both have our way. What can I say, when you’re young, you are also idealistic. Someone wise brought to my attention that being in ministry will not make you financially secure. Boy, were they right!
What was I thinking? No, what was God thinking? I had no theological training except what I had gotten through my local church at Sunday School and Church Training Union (an old Southern Baptist thing). Nobody had the courage to tell me, “Welcome to real world preacher boy. Get ready for the adventure of your life.” What could God be thinking!
It has been almost two decades since that time in my life when God tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Guess what?” Like most people serving in ministry, I have had my shares of ups and downs, tears and laughter, successes and failures. If you would have told me twenty years ago that I would be in full time vocational ministry, serving Jesus Christ, I would have believed you. I would have believed you, because even though it wasn’t a part of my personal goals, I knew that God would invite me somehow, sometime, somewhere to be involved with him. Personally, I was hoping that it would be when I was older in life, settled down and financially sound, not when I was young, and had my life in front of me. Funny how God works, isn’t it?
You too have a calling, an invitation to be a part of the greatest adventure in life. Perhaps you will be the person who finds the cure for cancer or AIDS, or maybe you will be someone who cares about the sick and elderly. I can say with all honesty that I do not miss the corporate world, but I do often wonder what kind of a difference I could have made being a sold out believer in the workplace, making a hundred grand a year!