Daily Devotional

Our seminary days were a real financial strain. While he studied full-time to seminary, I worked full-time. Besides living expenses, the tuition for seminary put our budget to the test. Jim worked between semesters and during the summer to supplement the full-time income I earned.

Close to the end of Jim’s second year, he asked to chat about our summer plans. Much to my surprise, he told me he felt led by God to donate his entire summer as a volunteer at our church. He felt he needed to get more pastoral experience. My first response was, “We cannot afford it!” Then I got really frustrated and rather unkind:

“I am working full-time, all year round, and you want the summer off!”  

We finished the conversation cordially and agreed to pray about it. A few days later I told my husband,

“Fine. You go ahead and volunteer at church for the summer while I keep working full-time but I still do not agree with you!”

Jim once again insisted that God had pressed upon him that he should volunteer. A couple of weeks later, I felt God’s conviction heavy on my heart. After much prayerful confession, I also sincerely asked Jim to forgive me for not being willing to follow what He sincerely believed was God’s leading. I was not convinced.

Every day in the summer, Jim dressed up in a shirt and tie and “worked” all day in the church office. He counseled people and did the duties of “The Pastor on Call.” Very early in the summer, I could see evidence that God was using this experience to develop and grow Jim into the pastor he hoped to one day be. Toward the end of summer, Jim was receiving affirmation from the pastors and elders of the church for his diligence and commitment. I was so proud of him!

In September, Jim was informed by the elders that they had decided to pay for Jim’s entire last year of seminary as a gift for his service to the church. There was no way we could ever have earned that much if he had worked a summer job! Not only was I thrilled for my husband, but in a quiet moment of praise to the Lord, I was deeply humbled. I was so thankful he had listened to God’s leading even though his wife did not. He had also won the church’s respect as well as mine.

I also learned a personal lesson in the words of the apostles:
Acts 5:29 “We must obey God rather than men.”

For Parents and Grandparents:

1. Talk to your kids about why it is so important to follow God’s lead.  Sometimes friends can lead us to do wrong things—against God’s plans for us.
   
   
2. Memorize Psalm 25:4-5. Write it on a card and post it on your fridge or bathroom mirror.
   
   
3. Play the game “Follow the Leader” and talk about how God wants us to follow Him.

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.