Why I am a Student Pastor, Part 3

“So take a new grip with your tired hands and strengthen your weak knees.13 Mark out a straight path for your feet so that those who are weak and lame will not fall but become strong.” Hebrews 12:12

The doctor had just left my room in the ER after giving me the update on my condition. I was told that if my heart didn’t respond to the current treatment, they were going to move forward to Plan B by stopping my heart and restarting it.

Right.

Now, I may not be the sharpest toothpick in the box but my thinking was “A jacked-up heartbeat is better than NO heartbeat.” I mean, what was my guarantee that they would be able to start it back up again? Just sayin’.

My own mortality was never more in focus than it was in those following moments in the ER.

I think my story is a lot like Jonah’s. Jonah found himself having to cozy up in the digestive tract of a fish for him to realize he wasn’t fulfilling God’s purpose and mission for his life.

It’s hard to run from God when you’re in a fish.

It’s also hard to run from God when you’re on a stretcher in the ER with your heart doing flip-flops.

As I laid there, all I could do was monitor the monitors hooked up to me. The machines were keeping perfect score and were giving me and the doctors a play-by-play with their beeps, digital readouts and line graphs. I really needed some help from the bench because at that moment I was losing the game in a bad way.

I’ve since noticed that when there’s a real crisis, there is normally a strong sense of helplessness and fear accompanying that crisis for those who haven’t been fulfilling God’s mission and purpose for their lives.

What I mean is, we really like being in charge until we’re unable to be in charge. It’s a scary feeling to think God won’t take our collect call when we need bailing out.

I decided to make the call anyway and take my chances on Him answering.

I prayed out “God, if you will give me a second chance, I will do whatever it is you put me on this planet to do…Amen.”

No longer my will but Yours, God.

Within moments it was as if someone hit the ‘reset button’ on my heart. My condition went from grave to great within an instant.

I knew God heard me. I knew that I was given the 2nd chance I was asking for.

The machines stopped beeping. The line graphs and numbers slowly left the high triple digit territory and in the 4th quarter, God won the game for me.

In the days and weeks to come, I was very weakened by this episode.

It took me close to a year to fully recover from this event. With that said, any hope of keeping our music career going officially died.

Sarah and I saw our musical career take a drastic nose-dive and I became a professional cubical dweller taking orders for hair care products.

I suspected God’s big plans weren’t for me to fill orders for conditioner and hair dye so I began to sincerely seek God to discover what He really spared my life to accomplish and fulfill. Of course, the idea of being in ministry never crossed my mind.

One evening, while driving home with Sarah and Dave, we were on Hwy 16 going through Pipe Creek. There was this church to our right that had just let out their youth group. There were students running around in the front acting like, well, kids.

I looked at that scene and made the passing comment to Sarah: “You could not pay me enough to be a youth minister, ugh!”.

I meant that too.

Question: Are there limits you’re setting when it comes to doing God’s will?

Are there conditions attached to your obedience and willingness to follow Him?