God Often Calls When We Are Minding Our Own Business

 July 31, 2024

Wednesday

I was minding my own business in church when God spoke to me. He called me to go into the full-time ministry. That is He called me into the professional ministry. You know, the one in which people pay you. Everyone is called into the ministry. The only question is how you will finance it. I talked with the pastor and he agreed with me that I should bite the bullet, go to seminary and pursue the ministry. I did not knowing where it would take me.

I was minding my own business when someone knocked on my office door. I was in a church that had a vacancy in the senior pastor position. That someone told me that each of the staff was being asked to preach services. I was the Singles Minister. I was pretty for down the food chain. They gave me a Wednesday night to begin. This church also owned a television station. Even the Wednesday night services were televised over the air. I agreed, never thinking that I would preach on a regular basis. God worked on me in that sermon. A couple of weeks later, God specifically called me to pursue preaching.

I wanted to preach but no church would contact me. No one wanted me to be their preacher. God still had more to do with me until I would get that opportunity. I knew my ministry was over where I was. I knew that God had something else for me. I told Him I would go anywhere and do any job. A couple of days later, churches started to contact me to be their Singles Minister. I made my mind up to go to a church in Louisiana but I needed to interview with a church in Tennessee because a friend had recommended me. The Louisiana interview was the next weekend. While in a hotel in Tennessee, minding my own business, God enter the room and spoke very clearly to me. I sent back the plane ticket to Louisiana before the Tennessee church contacted me again. I agreed with Him that I would go there. All He needed to do was convince the Tennessee church.

Ten months after I went to the church in Tennessee, the pastor left. Several months later the church called an incredible pastor. I was sure he didn't want me around. I was minding my own business when he said he wanted to go to lunch with me. "This is it," I thought, "Surely, he'll fire me." Instead, he asked me to become the church administrator.

I could go on but I think you may have gotten the point. God pursued me. I am no Moses. I am no Gideon. I am no David. But as sure as He came for them, He came for me. What I have realized is that I am not special. God pursues a deep relationship with each of us. It always happens when we agree to walk with Him. It isn't just the euphoria of a worship service in which we know Him. It is when we join Him.

He wants you to join Him, too. So, how about it? Do you just happen to be minding your own business and God calls?

Exodus 3:1–4 (NASB 2020) ¹ Now Moses was pasturing the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. ² Then the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not being consumed. ³ So Moses said, “I must turn aside and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burning up!” ⁴ When the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.”