When I was working as a manager of a Dairy Queen, I began to think about entering the ministry full time. I was given an opportunity to go to Minnesota as a Music and Youth Director, and about the same time was approached with a very tempting business deal.
My boss offered me a position as manager of three of the Dairy Queen stores. If I took the offer, he would give me a substantial increase in salary, and the salary would continue to increase for two more years.
After that I would have an opportunity to buy part of the business. That was good money, especially since I did not have a college education at that time, and it was not an easy decision to make.
But an experience years before helped me enormously in making the choice between these two opportunities.
When I was a young man I went to my pastor, Brother Leonard Wood of the First Assembly of God in Garland, Texas, and told him that I wanted to "do something for God."
I offered to clean the church or mow the yard, to do anything to help. But Brother Wood told me he already had people to do that work and instead asked me to start a choir.
That is not what I had in mind. I had no formal training in this area. I could not even read music.
I could sing and I had a good ear, which means I could tell when someone was singing the wrong note. But I could not tell someone else what note to sing, only whether to go up of down!
My natural feeling told me that I had nothing to offer, but because I esteemed the wisdom of my pastor and knew that he would not ask me to do something that I could not do, I agreed to try.
I prayed that God would help me overcome my lack of knowledge and inexperience, and I took on the job of starting a choir with a mixture of uneasiness and enthusiasm.
During rehearsals we would fish for a note until we had it, and we kept working at it until we would get the harmony. Not only did the music come together, God's Spirit began to move in our choir rehearsals.
Teenagers were saved, others were filled with the Holy Spirit, the Gifts of the Spirit began to operate during practice. These were not your ordinary, everyday choir practices. You see, I had placed great value upon serving God, and God honored me in return.
One evening during a service one of the members of the choir, a boy named Bob, sang the old song "I'll Meet You in the Morning." You could almost reach out and touch the anointing on his singing.
It seemed like it came down and stayed with us as we returned to the choir room to hang up our robes. I looked at Bob and said, "I love you, man!" At that moment everyone became quiet and still.
Then praises to God started to rise up like a musical crescendo. A young Methodist girl who was visiting raised her hands in praise and began speaking in tongues as she was filled with the Holy Spirit.
The power of God swept through the room. Teenagers were crying, laughing, and praying in the spirit all at the same time.
I became concerned that the excitement and commotion in the choir room would disturb the church service.
Hurriedly re-entering the sanctuary through the side door I whispered to the pastor, "Brother Wood, something has happened in there, and I didn't start it!" He smiled at me and said, "I know it...I know it; now bring it out here!"
"Now what am I going to do?" I thought to myself, "How am I going to get that in there out here to the sanctuary?"
I knew what was happening in the choir room was spiritual—that it was from the Lord—still I knew of no way to walk in the choir room and pick up the Holy Ghost! But again I believed that my pastor would not ask me to do something that was not possible, so I returned to the choir room.
As I entered, I saw the pastor's nephew, Jimmy D., standing with his eyes closed and his hands raised, singing in the spirit and worshipping the Lord. It was as though he and Jesus were standing miles away from anyone else.
Since obviously he was filled with what Pastor Wood had told me to bring back, I simply nudged Jimmy D. through the side door back into the auditorium. Still worshipping the Lord, he walked through the church.
He reached over and laid his hand on a teenager who immediately ran to the altar to be saved. At the same time other teenagers piled out of the choir room and started praying and laying hands on members of the congregation who also ran to the altar. Four were saved that night; 13 were filled with the Spirit.
Draw on Your Past Experiences
Now as I was faced with choosing between a promotion with Dairy Queen and going into full time ministry; choosing between thousands of dollars in increased salary and going to another place where I still could not read music. I was able to draw upon my past experience.
I knew that I had reached a place where I valued and treasured God's promise to provide for me, a place where I could rely on my trust in God and not be led astray by fear of my own inadequacy.
It was a place where I was more excited about what God would help me accomplish than the comfort that extra money might provide.
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers