Growing In Faith and Knowledge

Growing In Faith and Knowledge

After I gave my life to Jesus, I enrolled at Trinity College and Seminary in Illinois, met and married a beautiful girl and we moved to Steamboat Springs, Colorado in 1983.

It’s important to pause here and make a point about something. School changed something in me. You’ve probably heard people make fun of seminaries by calling them cemeteries. I think they make a valid point. Many produce functional church managers who know very little about the God of the Bible or life. They leave school with a degree but little faith or love of the church.

Let me say that my experience with seminary was quite different. I learned a lot but I also grew closer to God. I had wonderful teachers that challenged me to think, pray and learn. My friends were believers and we encouraged each other in our faith and in our walks with Jesus. I suddenly became very anxious to get out into the world and start doing something. I had been in school for 6 years. I wanted to get out of the classroom and go do the work!

We moved to Colorado with hearts on fire but without my degree. Over the next 30 years, I did whatever my church needed but I never really found my place. It was extremely rewarding yet hard and frustrating. I loved God and the church but I began to realize that I was doing what I wanted instead of what God wanted. I was dabbling at ministry, not fully all-in.

That doesn’t work well for preachers. God has a way of tearing down what we build to make room for His will. He had to tear me down, humble me and move me back to my Ohio roots where He would show me how He could use anyone if I put Him first.

Coming to grips with that truth was life changing for me. When I finally learned to put myself aside, Jesus showed up in a way I never imagined possible. I suddenly found myself working with broken men who had no hope or purpose in life, preaching a message that I had to learn the hard way: “Your life is a mess because you are doing things your way instead of God’s way.”

How did that work? You’ll learn that tomorrow.

Proverbs 16:25

“There is a way which seems right to a man but its end is the way of death.”