How I Started My Ministry – A Lesson for Us All
“According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Philippians 1:20-21
How did I start Walk by Faith Ministry? Short version? God called. I answered. YES. It was NOT my dream. NOT my desire. NOT my plan. NOT my hope. NOT where I was headed. NOT my background. NOT my education. NOT others’ dream for me. NOT my vision. NOT my idea. My life was BROKEN and HOPELESS for DECADES. God wooed me. In my brokenness, I wandered into churches, usually empty, and said the name Jesus. I had no idea who He was. I was spiritually lost and dead in my sins and headed for hell. I was drowning in the aftermath of childhood sex abuse, the loss of my family when I talked about it, post-traumatic stress disorder, major depression, alcoholism, a life-threatening eating disorder, self-mutilation, and what would become over 15 years of wanting to END MY LIFE. Hospitals, counselors, psychiatrists, self-help groups, recovery programs, medications, more, to no avail. In a bathroom at a beach one day, I sobbed, “Please God help me.” I walked back to the beach and found a piece of crumpled up paper. It was a prayer. I said that prayer on my knees that night, received Christ, and God saved me. Life got harder. It’s been harder since, full of seemingly relentless trials.
God didn’t save my life to live for myself. He saved me to live for Him. When I started rescuing dogs, I wandered into people’s yards and weaved in and out of people’s lives and talked to them about Christ. Nobody told me to do it. I couldn’t help myself. It was as natural to me as my next breath. Nobody talked to me about evangelism. I didn’t even know what an evangelist was. God was calling me. Evangelism was in my bones, in my blood, in my heart, in my mouth, in my writing hands. When my 2nd husband left, the ministry unfolded. No plan. No agenda. Nothing other than the call was so strong I just followed. Him. I was at the start of what I would finally come to understand is living a life on fire for following the Lord Jesus Christ. Nobody trained me in evangelism, nor in ministry. Nobody told me how to be a follower. God’s Spirit drew me into His Word, led me to repentance for false teaching I had been under, and began to teach me His Word, one on one, drawing me into a breathtakingly phenomenal relationship with Himself. I would ultimately come to see what it means to forsake all for Christ and to follow Him at all costs to my flesh. God didn’t want me just in ministry. He wanted me to Himself 24-7 and to forsake all else to live to love and glorify Him as His daughter and servant in ministry.
Jesus died for us to live for God forever. Are you?