God called me to be a minister way back in 1983. I was in a “relationship” with a woman who didn’t become my wife and it was a “friendship with benefits”, and I had not been listening to Him very well. I answered the call by going to Oral Robert’s University for a weekend to scope out the place in a way. I felt His call and His Presence touching my life while I was there and I listened, weakly, but I did listen.

But…when I cam home, I decided to reject His call and keep going on with my life like I wanted it and the way that I wanted to do it. Unfortunately, that was not the answer that He wanted to hear from me. It wasn’t but a few months until the woman that I had been in a relationship with found someone else and was planning a wedding until she died in a car accident.

Did that have anything to do with me or my decisions? I don’t know. Could it have been something caused by God or allowed by Him to get my attention? Maybe. But…I still didn’t turn toward Him in the way that I should’ve. My life went through a few more “storms” (to use an overused word) before I finally listened to Him. What kind of storms? Well, a bankruptcy and a divorce and a little while of driving OTR trucks (although driving the trucks was fun).

Actually while driving the trucks I began talking to God while I was driving. I told Him that I had messed up my life by not listening to Him the way I should, so I wanted Him to find my soul mate because I had heard Him the first time I got married but I didn’t listen. This time I wanted Him to find her for me and then make sure I knew it and didn’t walk away this time.

To shorten this a bit I did hear Him and we did get married and we are still married, going on now for twenty-six years now. So, yes, I learned my lesson about listening to God’s “still, small voice”. It is easy to hear if you are listening but it is also too easy to ignore because God’s voice is not loud. He tests your spiritual ears and if you hear Him and acknowledge it then He knows you are listening.

The next time that He got my attention was in ’95 when my grandfather died right around Easter that year and my Mom died on Christmas Eve. It took a year or more before I could continue my college education because I was half-way through my first two years when this happened. God called me again to be His minister about nine years later and this time I listened. I studied His Word during the night shifts while I worked as a Medical Technologist in a lab (during the times when I wasn’t really busy).

In 2011 I was called to be a pastor of a small church close to home and by the grace of God, I am still preaching there. I do realize that this story is about my life but I want to show you that when God calls you to be His minister or His disciple or His follower…don’t turn away from Him and don’t ignore His call on your life!