I never doubted the call, but I really wished it was a wrong number.
Years earlier, I had made a bargain with God. Like Hannah’s prayer for a son in 1 Samuel 1:11, I said if He would send the right person into my life, I would give our family back to Him. When I met Wendy some months later and we married, it was an answer to my prayer. We attended church with our friends at Elk City UMC, our kids went to school together, we had purchased 20 acres north of town and were planning to build our dream home. Life wasn’t just good; life was great.
Then God called Wendy into ministry… let’s just say I wasn’t happy about it. I had the family and the life I had always wanted. God had held up His end of our arrangement. I couldn’t say, “Sorry, God, just kidding.” But moving so Wendy could attend seminary meant leaving behind our church, our friends, a sizeable part of our income, and the mental image I had of what my life would be. I would go wherever He led, but I did it begrudgingly.
To be honest, I reveled in my sacrifice. Lent became 365 days long. I had given up my idyllic life to God’s will. Won’t you see my suffering? And it just got worse. We told our district superintendent we hoped to be appointed to a church along the I-35 corridor to be closer to family and jobs. We wanted a town with pizza delivery and high-speed internet. Instead, we were sent to a couple of small churches near the Texas boarder in southeastern Oklahoma. No pizza. Period. And only dial-up internet. My cross grew twice as big overnight.
God, being wiser, knew better than me what we needed. The people at both churches loved on our family like no one else. Money was so, so tight, but God seemed to always give us what we needed. Sometimes it was homegrown vegetables left on the front porch; sometimes a phone call from 93-year-old Judy Chandler saying, “Come to the back fence and get this soup I made for you.” Over the course of the five years we were there, the love they showered on us took away the anger and self-pity I had carried around for so long. It was the best thing I’ve ever given up.
Chris Lambert, Director of Ending Hunger OKC
