I can remember a specific time when God used the daily devotional in “Our Daily Bread” to speak directly to me, giving me direction to get something done. It was a time in my life where I was going through a lot of changes. I was 32, had gone through a divorce about 8 months prior, and my work situation was starting to change. I was moving out from computer programming more into writing, having just finished writing up a manual for a computer project. I was working for a government research site in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Over Christmas, I visited my relatives in Waco, Texas. While there, one of my cousins handed me a college bulletin to Baylor University, which is in Waco, and asked me to send it to my sister because she had been asking for one. Out of curiosity, I opened the bulletin and browsed through the pages looking at the different programs. All of a sudden, my eyes lit upon a degree program called a “Master’s degree in International Journalism.” I reviewed through the requirements for the program, and began to get excited with what I was reading. I love to travel, and one of the requirements was to go on an internship to a foreign country for 6 months. And the idea of writing news stories as a career also excited me. I drove over to Baylor to visit the campus and just walked around, familiarizing myself with it. I would have tried to see a department head about the program, but it was Christmas break and no one was around. While walking around and exploring the campus, I became aware of God’s affirmation on me that this was the right thing to do. Somehow I just knew deep in my spirit that this was a new direction the Lord was leading me toward.
I returned to Idaho all excited about this new direction. However, upon my arrival back home, I was faced with a pile of mail to go through and errands to do that had accumulated while I was away on Christmas break. I temporarily shelved the university idea to tackle my “to do” pile.
Shortly thereafter, one particular morning, God spoke to me rather strongly. Nearly every morning for decades now, I have always started my day with reading the “Our Daily Break” devotional to get in tune with God and to start my day right. That morning, the particular scripture reading was Matthew 21:28-31 about a man who had two sons. I’ll just quote it (Jesus speaking, NASB version):
“But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go work today in the vineyard.’ And he answered, ‘I will not’; but afterward he regretted it and went. The man came to the second and said the same thing; and he answered, ‘I will, sir’; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.”
After reading that scripture, I then read what the author of the devotional had to say. He basically said that if God is telling us to do something, we need to act on it promptly and get it done, not say we’re going to do it and then not do it.
It was a mild rebuke to me. I knew that I identified with the second son who said he would go but then did not do it. So I repented, put aside my “to do” list, and started checking into what I needed to do to apply to Baylor University. As it turned out, I needed all that time (starting in January) to get ready for the fall semester of that year. I had a GRE exam to take, lots of paperwork to fill out and send off, transcripts to send, phone calls to the university to make, etc. By listening to the Lord and moving quickly at His direction, I was eagerly ready for college that fall semester, for attending Baylor to get a Master’s degree in International Journalism, a field of study that seemed like a dream come true for me.