Legacy

My dad got saved when I was around a year old. He was 31. He began helping in the bus ministry at a Nazarene church in Bedford, Ohio- the church he was saved in. The bus ministry was very popular back in the day. Often parents would send their kids to church each Sunday by having them picked up by the church bus. Their kids would get saved and the parents would begin going to church and get saved as well.

3 years after dad got saved, He felt called into the ministry. Dad wasn’t completely certain He was called, so he made the decision to fast and pray. He ended up fasting and praying for 3 days before he realized through the witness of the Holy Spirit that He was for certain called to preach and become a pastor.

I suppose if you are looking at the possibility of selling your home, quitting your job, and leaving your comfortable lifestyle, perhaps you’d better make sure it was a “God” thing.

We did just that. Dad left his managerial job at a steel mill, and we sold our home. We moved to the small village in Lexington, Ohio, where dad pastored his first church while going to college. We lived in the church parsonage. It’s a home owned by the church. I could tell you story after story of God’s provision and blessings over the coming years as I grew up in a “parsonage family.” I could also tell you story after story of lives changed, people saved, and God working in situation after situation.

Mom and dad taught me what it means to be completely centered in the will of God and what it took to get there.  I’m so thankful for God’s reminder today.

Thank you, Lord, for my parent’s legacy.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:1-2