The Heavenly Invasion

John 14:27
Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

I need to back up in this time line I have been sharing with you over the past three days.
1964 --- I was 12 at the time and was a part of Gallant First Baptist Church. We were having our summer revival and Brother Hugh Chambliss was the visiting pastor. It was Vogue in those days for revivals to last an entire week. On the last night, Brother Hugh preached on God's call upon our lives. As I sat there listening, I knew that God was calling me to be a pastor. It frightened me to death. "I'm only 12! I don't know how to pastor." Didn't matter, God has imprinted on me a call that would not be fulfilled for 33 years.

I remember talking to others about "How do you know if God has called you to ministry?" I received so many different answers that it only confused me more. They ranged from "You will just know" to "God will give you signs." All I wanted was a simple yes or no. I tried to push this call to the back of mind, but it remained ever present all the way up unto 1997.

During the dark period (1972-1979) I had finished at Gadsden State Junior College. Vicki and I moved to Hanceville, Alabama where I was to take a job with a local radio station. It fell through. I would up working at a poultry processing plant just to keep food on the table and the lights on. It seemed that what ever plans I tried to make never came through. Why? Because I was in "Jonah" mode. I was running from God. I tried to convince myself that God had not called me to pastor, but that thought never went away. So over the next few years, I had a series of jobs. Never a career, because God was letting me run knowing all the while that eventually I would return back to the call.

I worked at the processing plant /  Radio Shack / Independent Life Insurance Company /  Took on a job as Assistant Manager of Pizza Boy, a local restaurant. Pizitz /  Radio Shack part II /  Pizza Boy part II / Assistant Manager of Western Sizzlin' /  Malone and Hyde ( local merchandiser for grocery stores)  /  Handy TV as a sales associate /  Western Sizzlin' part II /  Mid-South Electronics....and in 1998...full time ministry.

On the day of my ordination, my brother, Wayne, told me a story that I had never heard before. My grandfather was a preacher and my mother had prayed that she would have a son who would be a minister. When my brother was born, she knew that Wayne was not the one who would become the answer to her prayer. Let me back up just a moment. My  mother had been told by doctors that she would never be able to have children, so the birth of my brother was an amazing thing to everyone who knew my mom. 9 years later, I was born. Wayne told me that on the day the nurses brought me to her, my mother looked at me and proclaimed, "This is the answer to my prayer. Michael will be a preacher." This story was never told to me all the time I grew up and like I shared, I did not learn of it until the day I was ordained into the ministry.

What does all of it mean? That God's plans are yes and amen. They are true and he will carry them out.
I write these things not to boast. What do I have to boast of? I ran from God. I ran for 33 years and here, at age 59, for the first time in my life, I know what it is I am to do. If you take anything away from my story, please take the simple fact that God is a faithful God. What He says He will do, He will bring it to pass.

More later.....
mb