One Call
A recent question by one of my boys gave me yet another reason to reflect on the eternal significance of the seemingly daily grind that doing ministry can appear to be.
“Dad,” the question began, “doesn’t it get boring to sit at your desk for so many hours just looking for something to say to people?”
I thought of the people I meet in my travels. I thought of the emails we receive from all over the world. I thought of specific people and their stories. I told my son about some of them. Just thinking about the ability to connect with other human beings through the unbreakable bond of the Gospel gives me great strength, encouragement, and enthusiasm in this journey of faith. What can we give in exchange for the joy of witnessing the power that God’s Word has to change the lives of other human beings in real and tangible ways?
Take, for instance, a voicemail that I received about five months ago. It is the kind that makes your heart beat a little faster when you walk into the office and see the red light blinking on the phone.
The caller’s name was Haron. He is a 23-year-old man who grew up in a relatively well-to-do home in Kenya. But his father, in spite of his success as an attorney, had struggled much with meaninglessness in his life. His struggles translated into alcoholism and frequent violence in the home. Haron’s mother was constantly on the receiving end of the verbal and physical abuse that accompanied the father’s temper, especially when he was drunk. On many a night, Haron would listen helplessly as his mother cried herself to sleep.
In the first week of January 2006, Haron and his father had a nasty argument. Two weeks later his father committed suicide, a tragic event that sent Haron into depression. Wrapped with guilt and burdened with the thoughts that he was the cause of his father’s untimely death due to their most recent argument, he became suicidal and on a couple of occasions even tried to take his own life. The fact that he now lived in the US—thousands of miles away from the geographical location of his painful experiences—could not ease his pain.
On a night he had planned to be his last one on earth, he happened to be listening to the CD "Jesus Among Other Gods" by Ravi Zacharias. He felt compelled to call the ministry and left a message with me. I remember the voicemail. How can I forget it? In the beginning, it sounded like just another routine phone call; until he started explaining the reason for the call. He wondered if there was really any hope for someone like him. Oh, how utterly exhilarating it is to be able to say “Yes” to such a question and know that that answer is true!
“Getting my thoughts out on the voicemail and a subsequent call from you encouraged me,” Haron later wrote to me. From that one phone call and subsequent follow-up with appropriate resources, he is now thinking of ways in which God can use him to spread his Word.
So, does it get boring to sit at my desk asking God to speak to me so I can speak for Him? Well, sometimes it does, but the reality of the need and the incomparable power of the solution God offers have always proven to be inexhaustible sources of spiritual rejuvenation.
And so as I sit, read, ponder, and write, the prayer of my heart is that I will not miss the point of what I do. The discipline of study and the acquisition of knowledge and better arguments are all worthwhile pursuits, but when push comes to shove, serving God’s people in his name is my calling. And sometimes it has to be done one soul, or one phone call, at a time.