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When God tells us to do something, we should do it. Seven years ago I felt the Lord strongly prompting me to start my year off by reading a book of the Bible. After a little of research I was able to find that Proverbs was the perfect book to read. There are 31 days in January and there are 31 Proverbs. Problem solved. Except that wasn’t the end to what God was calling me to do. He called me to invite friends to read Proverbs with me. As one of the more famous Proverbs states, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” God knew I needed the accountability and the encouragement. Not because I lack self discipline. It was because I’m a team player. I work best in teams and God was telling me that I needed to build a team to help. So I invited some of my closest (and safest) friends to read Proverbs with me, and many of them did. It was a great way to start the year, and a nice way to have a conversation with my friends about what we were reading. We would send the occasional text back and forth about a verse that stood out, and catch up over lunch about the most recent chapter. I thought I was done. God asked. I did what God asked. God continued to stir my heart and mind during the proceeding months. One of the guys who read Proverbs with me asked me a simple question when we were done with January. What’s next? I didn’t have a next…yet. I gave some thought about moving forward with the group of guys God had assembled and read another book of the Bible. That wasn’t the sense of where God was leading me. Then October and November came. I started to remember how exciting it was to invite friends the previous year to read Proverbs, and how much of a blessing it was to me. It was good once. Could it be better the second time? Remember, when God tells you to do something, you do it. This time as I was inviting friends to participate, I got a little bolder. I scrolled through my list of friends in my contacts and started to ask those I didn’t know so well. To my surprise, the number of people saying yes began to grow. There were approximately 50 that second year. There were closer to 75 the third year, and then my wife got involved. If it was good enough for the guys, why couldn’t it be good enough for the ladies? She began to invite her friends and the list exploded in years 4-6. We consistently had more than 125 people reading Proverbs with us. We even added a completion event to the end of the month, gathering in the coffee house at Northside Christian Church. Then Year 7 came. God opened some incredible doors. It was more of a family affair than ever. My daughter Lauren created a website (you can visit it at ProverbsPledge.com) with resources and a pledge page. Those wishing to join the January reading signed up on our pledge page, received weekly content from pastors at Northside, Eastside, Graceland and the Indiana State House (the chaplain). With the help of long-time loyal supporters and a few new ones, ProverbsPledge.com grew to 1000+ people this year. One of biggest joys is when I run into someone I know or have never met, and they tell me how much Proverbs meant to them. One long-time Sunday school teacher at a local church confided in me that it was the first time he had read a book of the Bible from front to back. Good for him! Another individual drove all the way from Tennessee to participate in our month-end event at Graceland. He shared with the group how he had grown in his faith during his time on the word of Proverbs. Another gentlemen recently said, “Hey, aren’t you the Proverbs guy?” Wow, that’s really cool. He sees me as a Bible lover…not a financial advisor, soccer coach, husband or dad. He sees my identity tied to God. God gets all the glory! Through this journey, God has revealed several truths to me. We must listen for God’s calling. We are called to be obedient. We must get outside our comfort zone. When we do, we glorify God.
We must listen to God’s calling “Trust GOD from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for GOD’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he’s the one who will keep you on track.” - Proverbs 3:5-6 (The Message translation). When I think about this verse it reminds me of the old cell phone commercials. You know the one with the quirky, bespectacled guy walking around saying, “Can you hear me now?” The point of the commercial is that the company’s cell coverage is stronger than all the others. Did you know that our cell phones have a stronger signal when we are closer to the tower? The further away we are from the cell tower, the more our phones are working to try to connect with the tower. Isn’t that the same with the Lord? Proverbs 18:10 says, "The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.” God, the strong tower, is sending out a constant signal. Are we close to Him? Have we wandered? Get closer to THE Tower and you can hear more clearly. We must listen, because when God calls us to do something, we should do it. We are called to be obedient “Whoever heeds discipline shows the way to life, but whoever ignores correction leads others astray.” - Proverbs 10:17. When we hear God’s calling, we are required to be obedient. Four years ago I heard such a calling. I sensed that God was asking me to run for the Indiana State Senate. A good friend and mentor was planning to retire and he reached out to me with his full support. He decided to retire a year early which left a door open for me to serve the remainder of his term in office. During that year, God gave me an opportunity to support a pro-life agenda, the first state in the country to vote for a pro-life bill after the Dobbs Supreme Court decision. All was going well in the Senate with one exception. The General Assembly had redrawn the Senate district which resulted in new counties to my district. I was a virtual unknown in those counties, which made what seemed like a fairly easy election turn into a dog fight. The long story short: I did not win. What does this have to do with being obedient? I asked myself that same question for months after the election. I was confident that God had opened a door wide open for me to run and win a seat in the Indiana State Senate. What I missed in all of it was that God had indeed wanted me to run. He just didn’t want me to serve a full term in office. If He can call us into a season, then He can call us out. He was asking me to be obedient. That obedience was truly humbling. I don’t like to lose, and to lose in a very public way could have been a real blow to my ego. However, through the wisdom I received from my reading in Proverbs, and from Godly men who surrounded me through it all (including our very own George Ross), I learned that it was never about me. It never is. It’s about our obedience to God, which ultimately glorifies Him. When God calls us to do something, we should do it. We must get outside our comfort zone “The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.” - Proverbs 29:25 About 20 years ago I received a call from George Ross. George explained that the church was organizing a drama series that would take the congregation on a journey through the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. He was looking for someone to play the lead role of Richard. My mind raced to several people I could recommend for the role, but that wasn’t the purpose of the call. George asked me to play the part. That was about three zones past my comfort zone, but because it was George I said I’d pray about it. We all know what that means…that gives us time to think about how we can say no! In true George fashion, I ran into him in the hallway at church about two weeks later. I had already told my wife that I wasn’t going to play the part. I wasn’t qualified and besides I didn’t have the time. I had about 10 other reasons in case I needed them. George, before I could get a word out, said, “Hey Kevin, I heard you’re going to jump in and play that part we discussed. I’m excited to see you.” The whole time Kristen, my wife, is giving me a slight elbow in the ribs to remind me that I was planning to say no. But how could I say no to George? I didn’t want to let the big guy down. So…deep breath…I said, “I’m looking forward to it too.” For weeks I rehearsed with some truly talented people. My counterpart had starred in a few local television commercials. I had been a back-up dancer in the Fiddler on the Roof in high school. No lines, and lots of bad dancing. After my stint was over, I asked a blunt friend about how I did. He said, “you were basically Kevin.” Not a ringing endorsement for someone who was trying to be “Richard.” Just this past Sunday I was at church and ran into someone in the Living Room who said, “Hey Richard!” We reminisced with each other about the series and I laughed at myself for my mediocre (at best) performance. She told me how touched she had been by the series. The truth is, I was too. God used me in a way I could not have imagined. As we all know, God equips the called. He gave me just enough talent to fake my way through something way outside my comfort zone. Again I learned when God (or God through George!) calls us to do something we should do it. When we do, we glorify God “In all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” - Proverbs 3:6 The older I get the more I contemplate my why and my what. Why am I here? What am I here to do? Both the answers are the same. We’re truly here to glorify God. Make him the center of all that we do. I recently had the chance to speak with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes at Floyd Central. We worked through two exercises. I first asked for two volunteers to button up a shirt we had placed on them. They had to do it with eyes closed. One person already had the top button in place before he started. The other had a button further down buttoned. They both had one button fastened. We counted down and they both started to feverishly button their respective shirts. The one who had the top button fastened finished first. That was the point of the exercise. I asked him why he thought it was easier. He said he thought his shirt was easier because he already had a point of reference with the top button and everything else fell into place after that. That is the way it is with God. If we have that button fastened, everything else falls into place. We have to get him first. Secondly, I had two students approach the white board. I asked both of them to draw a graph with the percentage of their lives devoted to Jesus, others, and then them. We had been discussing the JOY acronym (Jesus Others You). They both proceeded to show a pie chart that gave a generous portion to God, and a smaller one to “others,” and then a much smaller one devoted to themselves. I was truly impressed that they seemingly were living their lives that way. However, I had tricked them. I drew another circle, and instead of a pie chart, I drew the chart like this one.
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