From the time that I was a teenager, I knew that I was called to some form of full-time ministry.
I left home to attend a YWAM school and afterwards was involved in ministry for almost eleven years. Suddenly, I found myself without a job and for a time, my pregnant wife, our two small children, and myself were all crammed into my in-laws’ house.
I found a new job doing construction work (haha, can you imagine?) but I wasn’t making enough money. Beth had to find jobs on the side in order to supplement our income. At the time, the church we attended needed someone to clean for a couple hours per week and she was hired for that role.
Once I came to finish cleaning so that she could go home to prepare dinner. Shortly after she left, the senior pastor saw me picking candy wrappers off the floor and said, “Hey, cleaning boy! You missed a spot!” I knew that he said it in jest, but it didn’t feel funny to me in that moment considering the difficulties we were experiencing.
I felt the weight of shame: I was unable to provide for my family to the point that my wife had to clean in order to make ends meet. In the quiet of the sanctuary, I began to ask questions: “Is this what it has come to, Lord?” Is this the culmination of all of the those years of fasting, prayer, and seeking your face? Is my destiny to be picking up candy wrappers off of the floor?”
Soon I was able to get a new job at a juvenile offender facility, which required me to drive almost an hour each day. Before taking this job, a woman of God gave me a word: “The northern winds have to blow and you’re going to experience a really hard season. The quicker you embrace the hard season, the quicker you’ll get through it.”
I questioned the Lord on how to apply this prophetic word. I wondered, “How am I supposed to embrace this hard season? How do I give a hard time a hug?” I didn’t feel that He answered me, but I came to the conclusion that even if I didn’t know what it meant to embrace a hard season, at least I knew that if I was embracing what He had for me that I wouldn’t be complaining.
The realization: I needed to give thanks in everything, as Paul commanded to the Thessalonians. I decided to use my daily commute as a time of prayer and worship. I made it a goal to practice His presence and allow the Lord to speak, heal, and evangelize through me within my workplace.
I surrendered to the Lord “my right” to be in full-time ministry and was prepared to never enter into “occupational ministry” again, but it turns out this was a season that lasted less than a year. I look back on that time as a period of trial and testing.
It was a precious proving ground of God showing His faithfulness and teaching me how to hug the hardships of life