I started this blog about 7 years ago as I believe the Holy Spirit asked me to and then I just kind of set it down and walked away.  Through what would seem to be many providential circumstances and events I believe the Lord is again asking me to write on this blog.

I have many things I’d like to say, flesh out, explain; but for now I’m just going to write whatever I feel like the Lord asks me to write and just trust Him to handle the rest.

When I was a little boy the Lord revealed himself to me and preached to me then what I now know to be the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Shortly thereafter I remember the Lord telling me that I was going to go into ministry, for his namesake.  I was initially excited about the idea.  But over the years that feeling turned to anger and resentment and so I ran.

Fast forward a couple of decades and a whole lot of stories of divine providence and it appears as if that calling has come to fruition.  Last week the pastor of my church and his wife as well as another minister from the church came over to pray for my wife and I.  After talking for a while about my calling they asked me if I would accept the ministry the Lord had placed before me and I said that I would.  They laid hands on me and prayed over my wife and I and simply affirmed what I believed I had heard as a little boy, that the Lord had called me into a ministry for his namesake.

It was agreed this ministry would now be my first priority.  What exactly this whole thing would look like we don’t know yet and we’re simply trusting the Lord in the matter to reveal his plans for my wife and I as we move forward in this.  That being said, one of the first objectives was to begin writing on this blog again.  To simply share whatever the Lord gave me to share.  After that I would still have a vocation outside ministry, a “tent making” as it were but my ministry would be a first priority with everything else being subordinated to that ministry.  Again, what that even looks like apart from this blog, right now, we don’t know.  But we do feel as if the blog is a first step of obedience.

Now comes the matter of rearranging priorities.  I’m in business for my self as a general contractor and feel as though the Lord has clearly said that I am to set that aside and find other work that will allow me to truly devote the time necessary to the ministry he’s called me to.  That being said, I’m near the end of this job I’m currently on, a very complicated construction project with a lot of moving parts.   My initial thought about how to step away from being a general contractor and into my new bi vocational ministry included a professional and timely completion of my current project.

But as soon as I began to think about closing out this job before moving on to the blog or anything else ministry related, the Spirit immediately quickened in my heart, “Let the dead bury the dead.  You follow Me.”

^“59 To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” ⁶⁰ And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”  – Luke 9:59

I kind of brushed this off and thought to myself, “Well yeah, just as soon as I wrap up this project, it’s the professional thing to do.”  I would get to the blog just as soon as the project finished.  Only the project won’t finish.  All manner of things have seemed to move against me in my effort to complete what would seem to be pretty insignificant tasks and wrap this job up.  Honestly, there are too many examples to go into in an effort to explain, but things my wife and I can’t help but feel is serious resistance in the spiritual realm.

But why?

“Let the dead bury the dead.  You follow Me.”

Today I was on my job site trying to tie some things up.  Again, a proposition that’s become seemingly impossible for the last couple of weeks since we prayed together with our local body about this ministry call.

Again, I heard the Lord.  “You heard me right the first time.  Let the dead bury the dead.  You follow Me.”

I immediately left the construction site to come home, get this site up and write something.  Anything.  I don’t know if this will mean anything to anyone who reads this but I feel a great peace and purpose in simply following Jesus.  Regardless of what my intellect, my loved ones, my clients or the world may say, I know what the has Lord said.

“Let the dead bury the dead.  You follow Me.”

Yes, Lord.