A Good Story Comes Full Circle

Erica told me last summer that she was willing to go again as an Operation Barnabas leader. She is a great gal and led a team with us in 2006 in CA. She would graduate from college and then go on ob. A week before leaders retreat in April she came to me and said she was not going. She had been praying and asking God what she should do. She decided that ob was not for her summer. I asked Erica what godly influences she had consulted to help her with this decision. Her response was that she didn’t seek anyone else out—but was looking at Scripture and praying. I shared that God’s will is also revealed through spiritual leaders in our lives. I asked what her parents thought of her decision. She said she did not know—she had not told them of her change of plans. I ask Erica if she would do one thing: Ask for her parents opinion of her decision as God’s will is revealed through our authority figures.

Erica’s parents said they thought it was a poor decision to drop leading ob. With full credit to Erica, she decided to obey her parents and came and talked to me at our house at 10:30 that night and asked to have her position back. After discussion, Erica was back in as an adult leader on ob 2008.

Why share this story? We went to a wedding on Saturday. It was Erica’s wedding. Turns out that there was a good looking young man named Josiah Teeple who felt led by the Lord to be an adult leader on ob. Erica and Josiah were on the same ob leadership team, did ministry together and decided that they would like to serve the Lord together as husband. And now they are married.

By the world’s standards, you pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. You make your own decisions. No one tells me what to do—I decide what to do. (Hence the love of the American public with a little song that Frank Sinatra made famous, “… I took the blows and did it MY way.” Great song, horrible theology, and a lousy way to live one’s life.) Because of Erica’s obedience, she found her husband. We are thrilled for them and believe that God is going to continue to use them incredible ways in His work. I think that is an ob success story.

I would hope that if there is anything we teach teens and adults through Operation Barnabas, The National Institute and other ministries, it would be this: That God wants obedience before any sacrifice. And God's will is revealed through the authority figures in our lives. People who truly understand ministry, embrace and live out this concept.