Yesterday was my 23rd anniversary! No, not of my marriage. That one is in June as best I remember and will be my 22nd! The anniversary I am speaking of is my calling into ministry. I guess people don't use that word calling much anymore. Ministry has almost become cool these days, although not me, as kids continue to affirm! People choose to go into ministry as a vocation. (Something those of us in the ministry kind of snicker at!)

No, mine was a calling. My oldest daughter asked me at dinner last night what a calling was. So here goes. On February 22, 1987 I was in a Sunday School class in Blacksburg Virginia. I was out of high school three years and working in the family business. Life was pretty predictable and yet somehow not fulfilling. I had no complaints, just a sense of incompleteness.

The Sunday school lesson was on joy. I remember the teacher saying "You will never be truly happy, truly content until you are in the center of God's will for your life." Sure, being raised in a Christian home, I had heard that a 100 times before. But this day, I didn't hear it from outside, I heard it from within. In that moment, for the first time in my life, I considered the ministry. It wasn't a mental consideration as much as an inner contemplation. There was a longing in me coupled with an urging, a prompting to a level of obedience I had not experienced.

I talked that afternoon with a few close friends. I talked with God a lot! Each friend affirmed the calling in some way. "I always thought you might end up in the ministry Tom." Thoughts I was totally unaware of and would have laughed out loud if they would have said it to me prior to this day. I don't recall laying awake at night wishing I could be a pastor. I kind of thought (and maybe think) of pastors as this society's leper class. You have them, but nobody really wants to hang out with them.

I often hear people talk about wrestling at this point. Not for me. From that moment in the Sunday School class there was no wrestling, just disbelief followed by surrender. Don't get me wrong, I am a wrestler and I wrestle with God a lot. But not that day. I signed my name to the bottom of a blank page. The inner prompting was too strong to be manufactured. There were very little emotions for me, although there were some. This was in me and yet not from me. It was familiar, yet alien. My response was easy and quick. "God, I don't know what you have in mind. But I want to be part of it. So if you can use my one and only life, I surrender to you."

I made it official that night. That was back in the day of Sunday evening services. I have no idea what the preacher spoke on but I responded to the altar call and said I was answering a call to ministry. Many of the elders of Blacksburg Wesleyan Church came forward and laid hands on me. I can't explain it but when I got up from the altar, I was different. I wrote the date and the calling in the front of my Bible.

I left the family business and went to the only Christian college I had ever heard talked about, Southern Wesleyan, at that time Central Wesleyan College. Took on debt and moved to South Carolina; the suffering for Jesus had already begun.

I have been reading E. Stanley Jones. I would make him required reading for anyone serious about faith. I am so challenged by his insights. I am reading The Unshakeable Kingdom and the Unchanging Person. Yesterday, on my anniversary God sent an affirmation once again from E. Stanley.

So Self surrender is the greatest emancipation that ever comes to a human being. Seek first the kingdom of God and all things will be added to you, including your self. You will no longer be an echo--you will be a voice. You will no longer merely copy, you will create.

If you ever swing by my office, I will be honored to show you that Bible that records my calling to be a voice, to create, to surrender. This is my calling. It is plain and clear and yes, incredibly challenging. At times I kick and scream. At times I wrestle. At times I weep. But in the end, I surrender.