The Molding of a Shepherd

My entire life has been spent involved in some type of ministry. Pretty much after entering this world, I was placed in the church. This was the calling on my father's life: to be a pastor. Though it wasn't mine, I still went along for the ride, mostly willing. With this calling placed on my parent's lives, however, I had a front seat ride through a thrilling and trying life spent in ministry. I learned and grew a great deal and the most prevalent thing I can remember growing up is how I would never pursue this with my life. The line read, "I could never do what dad does." It's funny how we are bold and make claims that seem to be very valid, yet can turn entirely wrong in an instance.

As I went through middle school and high school, I began to struggle some with the toll of ministry on my family. I mean that was our life. It consumed us. We were nearly at the church 5 out of 7 days a week sometimes and I found it daunting. But as I began to mature, nearing the end of my high school days, God began to work on my heart and truly show me the reasons we are placed in certain situations: to rely on Him. Through certain issues that arose at the end of my high school career, through relationships and not receiving a full ride for college, I learned a harder way of what it meant to rely on God for the provision He would provide and saw fit to sustain me. Even in my doubt and feeling of lostness, He provided. It came through for my schooling to still be paid in one way or another. I was extremely thankful for the encouragement of my family at that stage in pointing me to Christ, as I was even broken down in my mother's office at work after receiving the news. She stated, "It will be okay. God will provide still. This was not meant to be but it will still be alright."

Here I am about four years later, looking back on this moment and seeing the incredible provision of the Lord. I still entered the sidewalks of Marshall University in the Fall of 2011, as a biology major in hopes of entering the medical field upon graduation. This was the plan. The only formidable option of my future because what else would I do? I began the #sciencelife, got plugged into a campus ministry and small group, as well as a church. I was on my own for these things and it was a little weird. It was the first point in my life where I saw my faith as my own and I wasn't following my parents’ path in it. It was the first time that I truly learned what it meant to place my identity in Christ above all things. And it was a beautiful thing to behold. Christ in His glory and my life used to glorify Him.

As we continue onto sophomore year, I continued in the #sciencelife in hopes of medicine. I also had the incredible opportunity to serve on my campus ministry's leadership team, which if you had asked me a few years prior I would have laughed and never thought I'd be in that position. It was a truly humbling year for me as God broke me down and truly showed what relying on Him in uncertainty was. This was the year that plans changed. This was the year where I began to let go of my dreams of medicine and hold onto the will of God, trusting in Him in all things and proclaiming and glorifying Him in all things. Come Spring semester, I came to the point a lot of college students come to, trying to answer the question of, "What will I do with my life?" Thankfully I was a sophomore and had plenty of time. Or at least I thought.

I began to research what I could do with a biology degree. Over the course of that semester, I visited a seminary because BCM (the campus ministry I'm a part of) took a trip and I thought why not? I learned a great deal from the trip but still held onto the notion that I would pursue something with my degree rather than ministry because as I stated when I was younger, "I could never do what Dad did." So the weekly Google searches continued.

As I entered junior year, I was given leadership over a group of guys, where as the year before I had just assisted and co-lead. "Me leading a small group?" was the recurring thought throughout my head but God humbled me and worked incredibly to make Him glorified through our lives. We rallied with each other and learned a great deal from His word in Ephesians and shared with one another what was going on in our lives. As we would state repeatedly throughout the year and how I would summarize it, "Our knowledge was surpassed," referencing Ephesians 3. They bore a great deal with me through my weekly career path and I thank them for putting up with my indecisiveness.

It was in the spring again when things began to change. Due to family circumstances, my Dad had to leave and be with my granddad last minute on a Saturday night and he called me to ask if I would fill in for him Sunday morning. Me, you know the one who could never do what Dad did, was now being called on to preach? What? I couldn't fathom it, yet I said yes with his reassurance I would be fine. It was a whirlwind of a night in preparation and then I took off the next morning with the prayers of my brothers and sisters flooding over me as I preached God's word. It was incredible to see the way God used me for His purposes to be fulfilled. I had never thought I'd be in that position, yet here I was, in the pulpit.

God worked mightily in that and I had another opportunity over the summer to fill in for my Dad again. And again, I was stunned in how He works in unforeseen ways and how He works beyond what we could ever think. The verses we had just studied in Ephesians in my small group were coming full circle in my life;

"Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen"(Ephesians 3:20-21 ESV).

God was working in me far beyond what I could ask or think. Thus began the thoughts that had been in the back of my mind, that I had ignored until now because I couldn't anymore, am I called into ministry? I began to walk through earnest prayer throughout the Summer and the beginning of the fall to see how I might be used and it all kept coming back to this, I tried to determine if I needed to utilize my major in any way and struggled to see it as a waste the past four years. But I finally came to terms it would be utilized in some way. The Lord can use any aspect for His glory and that is something I continually need to hold onto.

Which brings me to this point: I am called into the ministry. Never did I think I would say that nor have ever been surer of something in my life. My indecisiveness over the past few years has ended, though I do not know where this will lead still as I graduate, I just know for now that I will pursue some sort of work to glorify God in ministry as He has called. The Lord has blessed me with gifts of understanding, wisdom, and the ability to articulate, speak, and write that I cannot lay to waste but use to build His kingdom while I am here on this Earth. I ask as my readers, brothers and sisters in Christ, that you pray with me and for me as I continue onto what He might have me do in order that He may continue to increase in my life and that I may become His humble servant in building up the body on the Earth for what is in store for us in glory!

(Photo credit: http://barbarashdwallpapers.com/sheep-wallpapers/)