Hey, welcome back. The saga continues.

In my previous post, I went back in time to 2006 and began to describe some of the events that occurred that year, things that would make a huge impact on my spiritual life. However, I failed to mention one very important event which profoundly affected every area of my life. On August 4, 2006, my mom died after a lengthy bout with cancer. She left this world in peace, surrounded by family and friends, and most importantly, Jesus. I could write long and hard about everything I learned and experienced through that ordeal, but the main point that’s germane to this conversation is what I learned about servitude.

When a person you deeply care about becomes utterly dependent on you for their needs, physically and emotionally, and you have the responsibility to take care of them and serve them unselfishly, sacrificing your own desires for their well-being, your outlook on life shifts. Your perspective changes. Your heart softens. You realize that the most important thing in the world isn’t to make yourself feel good, but to do good. The universe no longer revolves around you. Instead, you have an obligation to give of yourself — your time, money, resources, and capacity to love — because there are people counting on you. It’s no longer about what you can get out of a relationship. It’s not a transaction. It’s a sacrifice. And you do it willingly because unconditional love is the only thing that really, truly matters.

Putting this all into context, that fateful year of 2006 was the school of hard knocks for me. I learned about mission and divine purpose from those crazy photographers. I learned about servant leadership from helping my mom in her last days. I learned about being on fire for God and seeking the atmosphere of heaven from Infusion. I learned about laying my life down to follow Jesus when I was baptized, when I was filled with the Holy Spirit.

All this was leading up to a decision I knew I had to make, and on December 20, 2006, I wrote this in my diary:

It’s time. I can’t continue to deny what I know the Spirit is telling me. I’m being called to full-time ministry.

Wow. Now full-time ministry is a loaded term, and I was the first to admit I didn’t have a clue what it would look like. You need to understand that it had only been a few short years since I had been living in the state of mind that the Church in the West was dying, that evangelism was something only a few die-hard Christian fanatics were into (certainly not me), and that my main obligation to God was to fulfill my ambitions to become a famous musician/artist and computer entrepreneur. Even though I believed all the “right stuff” about God, Jesus, and Christianity, I felt my calling was 100% in the secular arena. Church was for dorks. A bunch of boring people sitting around in ugly buildings singing mediocre pop-ripoff songs and talking about going to heaven someday. I found life right here on earth far too interesting to fixate on all that rubbish. I’d fellowship with a few Christian friends here and there, and hang out with my family, but basically, I was all about working on the projects I wanted to accomplish so I could make my way in the world.

Thus, if someone had approached me back in, say, 2003, and prophesied that I would be dedicating myself completely to God’s service and contemplating entering into a life of ministry, I would have thought they were certifiably insane. I was about as cut out to be a missionary or a pastor as a cat is cut out to lay eggs. It seemed ludicrous. Dammit Jim, I’m a creative geek, not a church minister!

But none of that matters. When God tells you to do a thing, you do it, lest you ignore Him at your peril. I had come too far down the road to spiritual awakening and blessing to turn my back on Him now. So I accepted the call. I began to align my life in such a way that, when the time was right, I could enter in the full expression of the destiny that God had placed on my life.

That was almost two years ago. What has happened since then? What about right now? I’m still working in the computer industry. I’m still an artist working on music. Why didn’t everything just go “poof” and all of a sudden I’m wearing a clergyman’s collar and preaching on the hidden meanings of Leviticus? Well, in case you hadn’t noticed, God doesn’t work that way. Yet, while He works in mysterious ways, He does work in tangible ways if you have the eyes to see and ears to hear. So I’ve been on a journey of discovery throughout 2007 and so far this year, a journey that has led me to some very exciting discoveries and some very interesting conclusions. And they are…? Well, you’ll just have to tune in next time for Behind the Curtain: Present Unveiled. Until then, be blessed in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ!