Looking Back Over Jesus’ Life
I went to college planning to major in Animal Science and become a veterinarian. Those career plans had been emerging in the midst of my studies over the years, and I had chosen to attend the University of Florida in large part because they had their own Vet School. I filled my first year with all the work involved in pre-med/pre-vet courses. And my leisure hours found me reading my Bible. By the fall of my sophomore year, I was losing interest in the sciences, and feeling a calling to work more intentionally in the Gospel Ministry. By Christmas break, I had decided to tell my parents that I felt God was calling me into the ministry. Each night of that Christmas break, I hung around the house, looking for the right moment to declare to my parents, and then the world, my new vocational direction. And each night, I couldn’t quite put that into words. One night, however, a few days after Christmas, as I went to my old bedroom and picked up my Bible to continue on from where I had stopped in my reading the night before, I came to these words:
Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
Matthew 9:37-38
I was immediately convinced that Jesus had spoken to me. I went back out into the living room and told my parents what I had heard. I then told my pastor, my peers, a professor friend, and in due time a committee at the presbytery. That was forty years ago, and I am still certain that Jesus speaks to us as we take the time to listen.
God, thank you for speaking to us through Your Word. Help me to take the time each day for the holy conversation that awaits me as I prayerfully ponder the scriptures, allowing the story of Your love in Jesus to shape my life. Amen.