Now that call was as clear and distinct as was our very salvation experience. It was for us, a specific call to preach and being a pastor was a means of doing that. To validate that calling our home churches would issue a “License to Preach” which opened the doors to churches other than our home church. Later would come “Ordination to the Gospel Ministry” that signified we had demonstrated the validity of that calling through our preaching.
I believe I told every pulpit (Pastor Search) committee that ever interviewed me, and there were many over the years, not to think that "you are paying me to preach." You see the only reason I changed the trajectory of my life was in response to God's call on my life to preach and teach the Gospel not to make a living.
Prior to God’s calling me to preach my personal life goal was to teach history at the University level. But on a date certain God touched my life and changed its direction. Sitting in my home church next to the woman who would become my wife I was totally oblivious to what the pastor was saying. I was reading a passage of Scripture when in my heart and in my head I heard God speak to me through that passage. “The verse was one in which Jesus said, “And I If I be lifted up will draw all men unto me.”
Trust me here, I know that Jesus was talking about his own sacrificial death ln the cross. However, on this day God used it totally out of context to speak to my heart and His purpose for my life. That evening I heard the voice of the Lord say, I want you to devote your life full time to lifting me up through the preaching of the Gospel. Now nearly sixty years later I still feel the imperative of that call. From that night to this day His word has been as Jeremiah said, “a fire within my bones” so that I had to preach. Believe me when I say this was not what I wanted for my life and it ran contrary to my personality. It was God’s call and it still baffles me as to “why me, Lord?”
Hence, no church ever paid me to preach regardless of what they thought. As I told them, they were paying me so I would not be hindered from preaching by financial stress and to do all the mundane things that we pastors do on behalf of our churches. Truth be told, money has never been much of a motivator for me. Maybe that is why I have so little. I never asked for a raise and that’s probably why over the years I got so few significant raises. I believed then and I believed now that the single most important thing I did in my life was to be faithful to preach the gospel and He would supply my needs. and He has.
I would add that the woman sitting next to that day I heard God speaking to me about His purpose for my life did in fact become my wife and that too was the result of the hand of God. She proved to be the perfect helpmate for me and a perfect preacher/pastor’s wife. The Lord knew I needed her in my life. Again, He suppled my need. He always has supplied my need.
The truth is we have never had more than just what we needed for the moment all throughout our ministry. However, the Lord has never failed to meet our life needs including the financial ones. Every church where I served met my financial needs. From the day I started preaching as a teenage boy God has used His people to supply all my material needs.
Unfortunately, I, like so many of my generation, didn’t have a clue about how to prepare for the day when the Lord says to hang up your guns. Sadly for many of us this “imposed retirement from active ministry leaves us living at or below the federal poverty line. Even more tragic is that many ministers made no preparation for retirement . . . . we just assumed we’d be preaching until we died. If fact, we all seemed to believe we would, and wanted to, die in the pulpit preaching . . . . . that’s how strong this call to preach was.
As I look back on my years as a preacher of the Gospel and a Baptist pastor I wish sometimes I had done more but there is a sense of satisfaction know that God blessed the preaching and ministry I delivered. There is also a sense of gratitude for His care. Susan and I often look back across the years and marvel and how God has blessed us in our service to Him. Truth is, we can see more clearly from our present perspective of age his providential hand working in our lives.
From the beginning when we left Pasadena, Texas for Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth with our two month old daughter and no money, no job, no housing and knowing not a single person there to this present day He has been faithful to supply our needs. There is the miracle of a last minute wonderful place to live; there are the checks that came in the mail at precisely the right moment; there was the terrific job with Safeway Grocery: and a thousand other things that supplied our needs. We never wanted for sustenance and He brought into our lives such wonderful people as Mrs. Thanish, Trozy Barker, Bob Coleman, Bill Warren, Micky Scott, Jimmy Hedges, David Medley, Jerry Wilkins, Charles Dennis, and Wayne Bowen. So through God’s grace and goodness we found a new home with new friends.
It has been that way all along the journey. We have never had an abundance but we always had what we needed to allow us to continue preaching the Gospel. That journey has taken us to places we never dreamed and it was all one day at a time. Somehow we knew that the journey would never end and it hasn’t. However, it came to a screeching halt in 2005 when I suffered a major heart attack that took two years to recover from. By then most of my formal opportunities at ministry were over. Doctor’s said I had to avoid the stress that being an active full time pastor entailed.
It was then that God opened another whole knew venue of ministry and one that would help meet my financial needs. For the next several years I served as an unofficial chaplain to the travel industry while working officially as an Independent Contractor with two travel agents associations. Again, God provided just enough to meet our basic needs and allow us to take the Gospel into uncharted waters. I still function in this capacity, except without income, to this day.
It has been a great journey with the Lord. Truth is, life is always good even when it is hard if you are where the Lord wants you to be doing what He wants you doing. However, as I assess my life there is one thing I wish I had understood better. I wish I had known more about preparing for the day when I would not be a pastor or teacher. To be sure I did a few things right: First, I am glad that I made a decision at the very beginning of my ministry to remain in in Social Security. It has proven to be a major source of income for us. Back in the 1960's ministers had to opt in or could opt out of Social Security. . . . . it wasn’t mandatory. I opted to stay in.
Unfortunately, my retirement, necessitated by a heart attack I mentioned earlier, came at a downturn in the economy my retirement fund was just a shadow of what it had been. As a result my total income placed us below the federal poverty line. As stated earlier, during my ministry Susan and I raised our family and survived financially on the generosity of God’s people and prayer . . . . . . . The same is true today. God is still enabling us to survive and serve and He is still doing it through the generosity of God’s people. We stay financially afloat on the gifts and generosity of God’s people who give to “Mission:Dignity.” Could we use more? . . . . sure we could; . . . . . . do we sometimes still struggle with finances? . . . . . of course we do . . . . . but then that seems to be the way life has been from the beginning and yet God has always met our needs. Never too much; never to little; always just right.
Oh to be sure there have been heartaches and I've seen my share of troubles; I have bruises and I have taken my lumps. I've had my share of loneliness; I’ve been about, lied to and deceived; I’ve carried burdens, both my own and those of others . . . . . I’ve had to bare burdens and weather dark days that often brought disappointments . . . . Life has not always been easy but God has always been good to me. It's by the grace of God, that I'm still here today. He was always there, no matter what came my way I felt the His presence in my time of need.
So as I draw closer to the finish line of the race He has called me to run I offer nothing but thanks for the things He has done and in which I shared. I have preached in high places and low, at home and around the world, met and moved among the mighty and walked with the humble. I have seen lives changed, families restored, and watched as He called others to preach, teach and minister in His name from the flock over which I shepherded. So much has he blessed me with the fruit of my labor that what I have outweighs what I do not have. I do not have much in the way of this world’s riches but I am blessed beyond all measure.
So I say with the Psalmist: “I once was young and now I am old, but I have not seen a righteous person forsaken or his descendants begging for bread. Every day he is generous, lending freely,
and his descendants are blessed.” When God called me to preach as a teenage boy in Pasadena, Texas I had an assurance in my heart that if I was faithful to His calling He would see to it that my needs would be met. I can say from the depth of my soul that I have tried to always be found faithful to my calling in whatever form it took and I can add that He has been faithful in meeting my needs and those of my family. God is good all the time; all the time God is good!
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