After I was ordained by my church in Oklahoma and the church in Marysville, Michigan started meeting, I began to see more clearly why the Lord had led me there. Yes, it was good for those families to be in church each week. It was good for those families to bring their children to hear the Bible stories. But the reality, I was a young preacher. I was learning how to preach and learning how to teach the scriptures. All the families in the church were older than me. They had more life experience. But they were very gracious to come and encourage me by their attendance and kind words. But I was not able to lead them to where I was nor was I able to lead them to where I was going.
And God had many other lessons for me to learn. He began to teach me some very important principles from His Word through other older men who knew much more than me. I was open to these new lessons because I began to experience what many do when they leave familiar surroundings.
I began to feel the loneliness that can come when you leave home for the first time. And that loneliness began to weigh upon me heavily. To combat that loneliness, I began some activities that previously had not appealed to me.
I became interested in learning about the lives of other men who had served God in times past. I found a small Christian bookstore that was located on the way to my university. And in that bookstore I discovered stories about the lives of many significant Christians that had served God.
I had always enjoyed reading, especially biographies. In that bookstore, I found many new “friends,” as I began to purchase their biographies and read their life stories. I met D.L. Moody, George Mueller, Hudson Taylor, C.T. Studd, Jonathan Gofourth, William Carey, Adoniram Judson, Fanny Crosby, Ira Sankey, David Livingstone, John and Charles Wesley, and George Whitefield. I read about John Huss, John Wycliffe, William Tyndale, Martin Luther, and other men who lived during the Reformation.
These people who had served God in the past began making a great impression on my life. They gave me a vision that God could use me if I was willing to follow Him.
I also began an activity that I had previously not practiced – Scripture memory. God allowed me to begin to learn many verses in the Bible and commit them to memory. This had a great impact on my life.
And because I was a “pastor,” I was allowed to go to pastors meetings. A church in Florida sent buses to Michigan and paid for church leaders to come and spend several days at their church at a conference for pastors. A particular speaker there really impressed me with the lessons of life he had learned. He was about 70 years old. He told how he almost died in his 50’s from cancer, but during his sickness, God had taught him about how our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit and we need to follow good principles of health and right living. He recommended some books and I bought them. And after reading them made a commitment to honor God by how I lived in the area of healthy living.
Later, I attended a meeting for ministers in Michigan. The speaker spoke very candidly about how the church was focused on so many outward goals; and that the church was using worldly methods to try and reach the world. He challenged traditional programs that the church used, such as youth programs, Sunday School, entertainment nights, and sports programs in the church. He shared how the church was borrowing money to do the work of God and how this was such a poor testimony. His message so impressed me that I still have the notes today. I went away from that meeting committing myself to following the Scripture in how the church should be structured.
At other meetings, I heard messages on righteous and holy living, especially in the areas of sports, entertainment, music, and dress.
Sports had always been a big part of my life. But during this time, God impressed me to put it aside. So I made the commitment that playing organized sports, and watching sports on television would no longer be a part of my life. I also made the commitment to put away the television. I saw for the first time, the worldly influences these activities had on my life.
Music had always been an important part of my life. Listening to worldly music was acceptable in my Christian circles growing up and contemporary music was beginning to be accepted into main stream Christianity. So I had listened to these styles of music. But after hearing a minister speak about the dangers of music with a rock beat, I made the commitment to put aside these music styles.
So my life began to change significantly in all these areas. I had come to Michigan thinking that serving God and others was my primary objective. But when I left, I realized that maybe God’s main objective in bringing me there was to teach me more about Him and the importance of living more fully for Him.
Over the years I have reflected back on that time in my life. I have come to more fully realize how dramatically my Christian life changed during those 20 months I lived there. So it was with anticipation that Nathan and I were returning to see what was now taking place in the city where I had come as a young man.
