Beyond Ordinary: When a Good Marriage Just Isn't Good Enough Read Free Page B

Lincoln Christian College in Lincoln, Illinois, was only a temporary stop on my way to greatness. My plan was to go to Lincoln, play basketball for a year, take some core classes, and then transfer to a bigger, better school and play basketball on scholarship. I wanted to be a teacher and a basketball coach, and Lincoln wasn’t where I wanted to be for the next four years. I was a late bloomer in high school and didn’t get really good until my senior year, so my freshman year at Lincoln would serve as a nice prep year for bigger and better things.
    A few days after I arrived on campus, the local paper did a storyon Lincoln’s 1991 freshman recruits. The article described each new player, calling me “the Cadillac of the recruiting class.” That statement summed up how I felt about myself. I was the Cadillac of this little campus. My playing for them was a gift.
    My attitude toward God was similar to my attitude toward the school. I was a Christian and went to church, but my life was pretty compartmentalized. Basketball had its place, dating had its place, and God had his place in my heart. I knew what I wanted to do with my life, and God could come along for the ride, but I was in the driver’s seat. I had a plan.
    Basketball season started, and I performed as expected. Lincoln had won eight games the year before I arrived. My freshman year we won eighteen games. At the end of my first season, I expected offers from bigger schools to come flooding in. I led the team in scoring and rebounding as a freshman; I thought that should be impressive enough. No offers. My plan wasn’t working out.
    I went home for the summer feeling defeated. It seemed that I had failed and didn’t have a backup plan. I would have to go back to Lincoln in the fall. I started work a few days later as a cashier at Walmart in my hometown, Crawfordsville, Indiana.
    As I was working one afternoon, a familiar face came through my checkout line. Kurt was a few years older than me, and his dad ran the church camp I’d attended as a kid. We recognized each other, and I asked him what he was doing in town. He was a pastor at a small church about ten miles south of Crawfordsville.
    Then he said something that changed the entire trajectory of my life: “Why are you working here at Walmart when you could do something great with your life?”
    My first thought was, Dude, step off, this is only a summer gig. I looked around to see where my boss was before I answered. “I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it.”
    “You should come be my youth pastor,” he said. “I’ll pay you a hundred dollars a weekend to teach Sunday school and children’s church and to start a youth group.”
    Was this guy crazy? How did he get in my line at Walmart? I had no idea what a youth pastor was supposed to do, but a hundred dollars a week for a few hours of work sounded like easy money.
    I went through the formality of meeting with the leaders at the church, and a few weeks later I started as their weekend youth pastor. My first Sunday I had eight kids show up for youth group. They ranged from fifth to tenth grade. I had prepared a message (my first), and it covered Genesis all the way through Revelation. The message lasted almost an hour. I didn’t want to leave anything out!
    At the end of the talk, I closed by saying, “Okay, if you don’t want to go to hell and you want to invite Jesus into your heart, raise your hand.” Kyle, one of the younger teens, raised his hand. I didn’t know what to do at this point. I never thought anyone would raise their hand, so I hadn’t thought through what to do next. Awkwardly, I said a prayer with Kyle, dismissed the kids, and then went to Kurt’s house to make sure that Kyle was saved, because I didn’t know what I was doing.
    God used that moment to open my heart to his plan for me. I suddenly realized that I could partner with God to change eternity. I had never thought about that before. Over the next year,