JESUS CALLING
Jesus, our Savior and Lord, is full of surprises. What a joy it is to walk with Him day by day. However, I never seem to be aware right at first when He begins to do something different in my life. I never see it coming when He calls my name and blesses me with a new direction or a new assignment. Many, if not most times I don’t catch on that He is blessing me until later. At times I’ve even felt I was under attack; and on occasion, I was. But even then what others intended for evil, God intended for me as good.
Walking with the Lord is an adventure I love; but most of my joy comes in retrospect, when it finally dawns on me what the Lord has done and is still doing even at that moment of my realization. The adventure of walking with the Lord intrigues me. I can’t wait to see what He will do next; yet I don’t do such a good job of anticipating the vistas that are waiting over the next horizon or around the next bend. I know through a lifetime of walking with Him, that a new vista will greet me and it will be magnificent beyond my imagination. Just short of a year ago the Lord gave me just such a surprise when He called me to a new task.
Rushing from my office and out the door toward home at the end of a mid-October day, I was stopped in my tracks by the sound of my name being called; “hey Clyde.” In the nanosecond it takes for the brain to register a sensory input, I was suspended between what I thought was my agenda (getting home) and the sound of a voice from somewhere calling my name. Immediately I recognized the voice as that of the District Superintendent, Reverend Tonya Elmore, in whose office building my offices are located. “Can you come here a second?” she continued. I had just waved to her and said, “good night” as I raced past her open office door on my way out. As I arrived at her door again she smiled and said, “How would you like to serve a church?”
As instantly as my brain had recognized her voice as the one calling my name I gave her my swift response. With a bit of a chuckle, but also very seriously I responded, “That’s the last thing I need right now. That would push me over the edge for sure.” I deal with disaster every day; I do not want to become one.
It has been thrilling to be a part of the The Disaster Recovery Ministry (DRM) I have directed since Hurricane Ivan in September 2004. What an experience it has been for me as I have learned of the whole disaster preparedness, response and recovery world I never knew about before. This very intense and busy ministry has continually expanded since Ivan and has grown enormously following Hurricanes Dennis and Katrina in 2005. A staff of one (me) grew to a staff of five by February 2005 and then exploded to 17 within the next year, plus hundreds of volunteers. From an office in the upstairs bonus room of the Mobile District office building, DRM spread to take over most of their building. We added a suite of offices in the Jubilee Fish Company building, a volunteer center in the Greer Shopping Center, all in Bayou La Batre; and opened a volunteer center and office in Atmore. DRM has been involved in recovery efforts with staff and money invested in all the nine counties of southwest Alabama and two in northwest Florida. To say the least, this was a fulltime job and then some. What few weekends were free I needed to refresh and take care of personal matters that needed attention. There was no time right now for serving a church on those precious weekends.
The DS and I had a good laugh at my quick response; but she assured me that she fully understood. She was in need of an interim pastor for a church in a small rural community that had lost its pastor. She thought of me and just wanted to let me to know that the opportunity was there if I wanted it. I sincerely thanked her for thinking of me; and added that in a different circumstance and time I might have been interested but it was just not possible right now. I said, “Good night” again and took up my retreat for home, thinking that the matter was concluded. Little did I know. It was far from over.
As I drove home I once again heard my name, only this time it was a different voice that seemed to emanate from deep within. “Clyde, you rather flippantly blew off that offer the DS made to you, don’t you think.” Thinking I was talking to myself, I reasoned that I really didn’t mean it that way. I was sure the DS understood where I was coming from. OK, so maybe I shouldn’t have been so cavalier; but, I argued, I’m already doing what the Lord called me to do. It has been so very obvious, to me and those who know me that God’s hand was in this assignment of disaster recovery ministry. Just look at what my life is like right now. I can’t take on anything else, even if I wanted to. For starters, when would I find time for sermon preparation? And what about a Sabbath rest for me? And I can’t even imagine what my wife, Cindy, would say if I came in from work and said to her, “Guess what honey, no more weekends for us, I’ve agreed to serve a church on the weekends?”
Now from this point on nothing that takes place makes any sense to me what-so-ever, given the world I knew at that time. I didn’t see the door, but I must have walked through it into a place I didn’t recognize.
I pulled my truck into my garage and entered my house and walked into the kitchen. There was my school-teacher wife, sitting in her usual place, doing her usual daily routine – grading her students’ papers. Everything seemed to be the same up to this point. But when I said to her, “You won’t believe what the DS asked me just a few minutes ago as I was leaving for the day.” “What,” she enquired. “Tonya asked me if I would like to serve a church.” My wife of 33 years at that point, whom I thought I knew very well, responded, “You did say ‘yes’ didn’t you?” I couldn’t believe my ears. That was absolutely not the response I expected to hear come from her mouth. But I knew instantly, with her response, what I was dealing with and I realized that I had been totally missing it. Like Jacob I now knew what I had missed, “the LORD was in this place, and I was not aware of it.” Something much more holy than I had realized was taking place all around me and I was not engaged. No, I must admit, I don’t have an intelligent answer as to why it took me so long to figure that out.
I immediately called the DS, fearing that she had already left for the day; but fortunately she was still in her office. I asked her to allow me to pray about this over night and talk with her the next morning. She was good with that; and the next morning we talked.
What happened next will be the subject of a future blog, but suffice it to say here; I served as the interim pastor of the Mt. Vernon United Methodist Church, Mt. Vernon, AL, from October 2007 to June 2008, when Annual Conference met. I am now the appointed pastor for the Conference year 2008-09. O yes, I’m still serving as the executive director of our Disaster Recovery Ministry.
Walking with the Lord is an adventure I love; but most of my joy comes in retrospect, when it finally dawns on me what the Lord has done and is still doing even at that moment of my realization. The adventure of walking with the Lord intrigues me. I can’t wait to see what He will do next; yet I don’t do such a good job of anticipating the vistas that are waiting over the next horizon or around the next bend. I know through a lifetime of walking with Him, that a new vista will greet me and it will be magnificent beyond my imagination. Just short of a year ago the Lord gave me just such a surprise when He called me to a new task.
Rushing from my office and out the door toward home at the end of a mid-October day, I was stopped in my tracks by the sound of my name being called; “hey Clyde.” In the nanosecond it takes for the brain to register a sensory input, I was suspended between what I thought was my agenda (getting home) and the sound of a voice from somewhere calling my name. Immediately I recognized the voice as that of the District Superintendent, Reverend Tonya Elmore, in whose office building my offices are located. “Can you come here a second?” she continued. I had just waved to her and said, “good night” as I raced past her open office door on my way out. As I arrived at her door again she smiled and said, “How would you like to serve a church?”
As instantly as my brain had recognized her voice as the one calling my name I gave her my swift response. With a bit of a chuckle, but also very seriously I responded, “That’s the last thing I need right now. That would push me over the edge for sure.” I deal with disaster every day; I do not want to become one.
It has been thrilling to be a part of the The Disaster Recovery Ministry (DRM) I have directed since Hurricane Ivan in September 2004. What an experience it has been for me as I have learned of the whole disaster preparedness, response and recovery world I never knew about before. This very intense and busy ministry has continually expanded since Ivan and has grown enormously following Hurricanes Dennis and Katrina in 2005. A staff of one (me) grew to a staff of five by February 2005 and then exploded to 17 within the next year, plus hundreds of volunteers. From an office in the upstairs bonus room of the Mobile District office building, DRM spread to take over most of their building. We added a suite of offices in the Jubilee Fish Company building, a volunteer center in the Greer Shopping Center, all in Bayou La Batre; and opened a volunteer center and office in Atmore. DRM has been involved in recovery efforts with staff and money invested in all the nine counties of southwest Alabama and two in northwest Florida. To say the least, this was a fulltime job and then some. What few weekends were free I needed to refresh and take care of personal matters that needed attention. There was no time right now for serving a church on those precious weekends.
The DS and I had a good laugh at my quick response; but she assured me that she fully understood. She was in need of an interim pastor for a church in a small rural community that had lost its pastor. She thought of me and just wanted to let me to know that the opportunity was there if I wanted it. I sincerely thanked her for thinking of me; and added that in a different circumstance and time I might have been interested but it was just not possible right now. I said, “Good night” again and took up my retreat for home, thinking that the matter was concluded. Little did I know. It was far from over.
As I drove home I once again heard my name, only this time it was a different voice that seemed to emanate from deep within. “Clyde, you rather flippantly blew off that offer the DS made to you, don’t you think.” Thinking I was talking to myself, I reasoned that I really didn’t mean it that way. I was sure the DS understood where I was coming from. OK, so maybe I shouldn’t have been so cavalier; but, I argued, I’m already doing what the Lord called me to do. It has been so very obvious, to me and those who know me that God’s hand was in this assignment of disaster recovery ministry. Just look at what my life is like right now. I can’t take on anything else, even if I wanted to. For starters, when would I find time for sermon preparation? And what about a Sabbath rest for me? And I can’t even imagine what my wife, Cindy, would say if I came in from work and said to her, “Guess what honey, no more weekends for us, I’ve agreed to serve a church on the weekends?”
Now from this point on nothing that takes place makes any sense to me what-so-ever, given the world I knew at that time. I didn’t see the door, but I must have walked through it into a place I didn’t recognize.
I pulled my truck into my garage and entered my house and walked into the kitchen. There was my school-teacher wife, sitting in her usual place, doing her usual daily routine – grading her students’ papers. Everything seemed to be the same up to this point. But when I said to her, “You won’t believe what the DS asked me just a few minutes ago as I was leaving for the day.” “What,” she enquired. “Tonya asked me if I would like to serve a church.” My wife of 33 years at that point, whom I thought I knew very well, responded, “You did say ‘yes’ didn’t you?” I couldn’t believe my ears. That was absolutely not the response I expected to hear come from her mouth. But I knew instantly, with her response, what I was dealing with and I realized that I had been totally missing it. Like Jacob I now knew what I had missed, “the LORD was in this place, and I was not aware of it.” Something much more holy than I had realized was taking place all around me and I was not engaged. No, I must admit, I don’t have an intelligent answer as to why it took me so long to figure that out.
I immediately called the DS, fearing that she had already left for the day; but fortunately she was still in her office. I asked her to allow me to pray about this over night and talk with her the next morning. She was good with that; and the next morning we talked.
What happened next will be the subject of a future blog, but suffice it to say here; I served as the interim pastor of the Mt. Vernon United Methodist Church, Mt. Vernon, AL, from October 2007 to June 2008, when Annual Conference met. I am now the appointed pastor for the Conference year 2008-09. O yes, I’m still serving as the executive director of our Disaster Recovery Ministry.
posted by Clyde Pressley @ 12:14 PM
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