Where did the time go? My mind races with childhood memories and dreams. I'm classified as a senior adult though I have no intentions of joining AARP. Where did the time go? One day I was playing football for the Lufkin Panthers dreaming about playing in college. I blink and then I'm playing for the Howard Payne University Yellow Jackets and meeting Brenda. I fast forward and I'm a youth minister at Rochelle Baptist Church in the tiny community of Rochelle, TX. Next, I graduate from college and move to Fort Worth to go to Seminary. I dreamed of serving a church and waited for a door to open. I taught youth Sunday School in the church Brenda and I attended until God did open a door at Spring Creek Baptist Church in Weatherford, TX where 30 years later we returned as pastor.
Time passes and Brenda and I get married. I started a ministry career serving at different times as a youth minister, evangelist, pastor, and church planter. There have been numerous youth camps, revivals, and retreats. We moved multiple times following God from one ministry assignment to another all over the state of Texas east, west, central and north. We enjoyed wonderful blessings of God in most of those places. We endured excruciating hardships in a few. Along the way God blessed us with four little boys who grew up into four men.
Now I sit in my office in Fritch, TX located in the Texas Panhandle 30 minutes north of Amarillo. We have been here 11 months. In that time, we found a house and secured a loan located less than 30 seconds driving time and less than one minute bike riding time from the First Southern Baptist Church where I serve as pastor. Hardly a day goes by that I do not plead with God to pay that house loan off early. We have seen numerous people saved and baptized. The church has grown modestly. The people have endeared themselves to us as we seek to bond with them and the community. I've worked hard to earn the right to be called pastor and not just preacher. Even the last 11 months is a blur of activities in my mind.
Truth be told, most of my time is spent looking forward. There are so many things I prayerfully believe God to do in the future. More salvations. Many more baptisms. Great moves of His Spirit. Transformation of lives, families, churches, and communities. There is so much more I believe God wants to do. I'm not thinking about retirement or slowing down at my age. I'm ramping up for greater moves of God. Trusting for strongholds to be torn down. Hoping for Jesus to rescue the perishing. Travailing for revival. Believing for a growing church that impacts the community.
My head is filled with many memories. Some pleasant and others not so pleasant. I'm not stuck in the past though. Dreams compel me by faith to the future. There is so much more to trust God to do. So many more testimonies of His future faithfulness to share. This is not a time to gear down and coast into retirement. Retirement is not on my radar. I'll retire in heaven. As long as God gives me breath, mental clarity, and a body to hobble up and down from the pulpit, imagination and inspiration to write, I have work to do. I believe for God's future faithfulness to empower me to be His productive servant until my time on earth comes to an end. I hope what I leave behind brings no recognition for me, but great glory for my King Jesus.
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