When I was a teen-ager, laying on a hospital bed with a broken second vertebra of the neck, hearing skilled surgeons agree that it was a miracle that I was alive and not paralyzed, I had just enough spiritual background to know that if I was alive by miracle, it was God\u2019s doing. In school, I had recently been introduced to the Classic Communication Questions, who, what, where, when, why, and how. I also had been learning how to pray.\u00a0 So, I prayed, \u201cLord, because you have spared my life, I am Yours.\u00a0 I am willing to follow Your will as it relates to who, what, where, when, why, or how.\u201d\u00a0 That was seventy years ago. The \u201cwho\u201d is obvious.\u00a0 The \u201cwhat\u201d includes pastor (twice), interim pastor (30 times), collegiate minister (15 years on 3 campuses) National Evangelism Consultant (3 years, NAMB) professor (22 years, one seminary), writer (27 books plus one weekly post on social media with several thousand followers).\u00a0 \u201cWhere\u201d includes all fifty states, every Canadian province, and fifty-nine countries.\u00a0 \u201cWhen\u201d I retired from my full-time faculty position, the call continued. This week I begin my twentieth year as an adjunct professor with fifty-six students in an online class, \u201cPrayer and Global Ministry.\u201d \u201cWhy\u201d (I\u2019m waiting until I get to heaven for that full answer).\u00a0 \u201cHow\u201d (\u201cTo this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily\u201d or The Living Bible paraphrase, \u201cThis is my work, and I can do it only because Christ\u2019s mighty energy is at work within me\u201d (Colossians 1:29). Be careful what you pray.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I was a teen-ager, laying on a hospital bed with a broken second vertebra of the neck, hearing skilled surgeons agree that it was a miracle that I was alive and not paralyzed, I had just enough spiritual background to know that if I was alive by miracle, it was God\u2019s doing. In school,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"default","_kad_post_title":"default","_kad_post_layout":"default","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"default","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"default","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-morning-manna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4078"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4079,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4078\/revisions\/4079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}