A Shoe Salesman

As I look back over the last 16 years as a Christ follower, I’m realizing how much my beliefs and views of our Lord has changed. As a young follower, my ideas of a model believer, worshiper and pastor were defined by man. Those beliefs have been dramatically changed as I’ve read His word, listen to the messages of many godly men and followed His leading for my life.

For many years I believed there was a separation between the secular work that paid my bills and provided for my family and the sacred work of the Lord. Yes, I could host chapel services as a series chaplain, but having impact for the Kingdom outside of that realm seemed impractical or implausible. I could not have been more wrong.

I stepped down as a series chaplain in the fall of 2008. I wrestled with the decision and sought other sacred work to fill the void I felt in my life. Nothing worked, I simple did not fit in to the church environment even as a volunteer. My efforts seemed flat with little impact. It was during this time the Lord showed me the depth and breath of His calling on my life. We would start a new business that would lead to greater impact for the Kingdom than I had ever seen or understood as a chaplain. Through the blending of the secular and the sacred, I had found His calling for my life, marketplace ministry.

We are all called into relationship with our Father. Through that relationship, He will show you what He wants you to do that glorifies the Kingdom and points others to Him. There is no better time to start that relationship than today, I guarantee you will not regret it.

Blessings

A Shoe Salesman
by Os Hillman

“Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’” Matthew 19:26

Dwight L. Moody was a poorly educated, unordained, shoe salesman who felt God’s call to preach the gospel. Early one morning he and some friends gathered in a hay field for a season of prayer, confession, and consecration. His friend Henry Varley said, “The world has yet to see what God can do with and for and through and in a man who is fully and wholly consecrated to Him.” Moody was deeply moved by these words.

He later went to a meeting where Charles Spurgeon was speaking. In that meeting Moody recalled the words spoken by his friend, “The world had yet to see!…with and for and through and in!…A man!” Varley meant any man! Varley didn’t say he had to be educated, or brilliant, or anything else. Just a man! Well, by the Holy Spirit in him, he’d be one of those men. Then suddenly, in that high gallery, he saw something he’d never realized before. It was not Mr. Spurgeon, after all, who was doing that work; it was God. And if God could use Mr. Spurgeon, why should He not use the rest of us, and why should we not all just lay ourselves at the Master’s feet and say to Him, “Send me! Use me!”

D.L. Moody was an ordinary man who sought to be fully and wholly committed to Christ. God did extraordinary things through this ordinary man. Moody became one of the great evangelists of modern times. He founded a Bible college, Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, which sends out men and women trained in service for God. Are you an ordinary man or woman in whom God wants to do extraordinary things? God desires that for every child of His. Ask God to do extraordinary things in your life. Begin today to trust Him to accomplish great things for His Kingdom through you.