Someday I intend to write a book. Jan has been after me for years to journal ministry experiences and encounters out in the field as a law enforcement chaplain. She is fearful that the details will fade, as the years march on. She of course is right.

I am going to title this yet to be written book: Called to the Moment. I firmly believe that God has called me to each key moment of life that I have experienced. His presence is very real.

In 1981, I was a free thinking, party prone, immature college student blowing through life with little regard for the future. According to official university records, I was a marketing major at Texas Tech. In reality, I expended the majority of my energies playing pool in the university center, attending fraterntiy mixers, and frequenting the dance floor at Coldwater Country. It was the end of the disco era and the influence of another Travolta movie, The Urban Cowboy, was seen in the college night spots. Wranglers and Justin ropers were the standard attire. There were too many late nights and not enough time for real life reflection. It was one big party.

In the fall of 1981, it all fell apart. I broke off a romance that should have never started in the first place. Tech placed me on scholastic probation. The academic dean apparently did take into consideration my pool playing abilities. Reality hit all too hard. I was a bitter young man striving to cope with the loss of my father three years earlier. I lacked direction. I was confused…

My sister urged me to look into Lubbock Christian College as an altnerative since Tech would not allow me to register for classes in the spring of 1982. I envisioned LCC being akin to a monastery. But I stopped in one day to pick up an application. Sisters have a way of being fairly persuasive. I just knew that I was defiling their otherwise holy campus by my very presence.
I found the students and staff at LCC to be friendly and suprisingly normal.

God intervened. I was required to take Bible as a core course. Long story short…academically speaking I actually did pretty well that first semester. But there was one exception… I had never opened a Bible in my entire life. I was lost and confused. My sister’s husband, Rocky, is a true saint. He tutored me in Bible for weeks, and in the process shared the Gospel with me.
During that time period I did all that I could to ignore the obvious. I did not want to commit my life to God. There were things I was not about to change in my life. But, God intervened…
I was called to a moment of grace. I was baptized on Valentines Day in 1982.

This Sunday I will call on those present in worship assemblies at 8:15 and 10:45 in the morning to experience such a moment of grace. I am praying that God is intervening in their heart as Sunday gets closer…