StoriesAboutGod.org

I turned my life over to God when I was 22 years old. Three years later, at the age of 25, I felt that God was calling me to move into full-time Christian ministry. A number of other young men in the church I attended were going into the ministry at about the same time, starting house meetings in various places around the Midwest, and I thought that probably I would follow the same pattern. Full of enthusiasm, I quit my job and began spending my time praying, fasting and studying God’s Word in anticipation of the ministry I believed He had for me. I even wrote in the inside front cover of my Bible, “Called into full-time ministry,” and the date.

One month later I was broke, discouraged and working in a factory once again. I wasn’t exactly sure what had happened, but I knew I had missed God somehow. Fortunately, I was single, living alone, and had not told anyone about my little adventure, so I didn’t have to suffer the public humiliation of admitting my mistake before others. But I did have one problem. That message I had written in the front of my Bible was in ink, and I couldn’t erase it. For a long time after that I was careful not to open the front cover of my Bible in public, so no one else would see what was written there.

As time went by, I forgot about the whole thing. I determined in my heart that I would never again do something foolish like that. I was finished with full-time ministry, and began pursuing a life in the business world.