A young woman entered pharmacy school after college. From time to time she came home and worshipped with her parents.
One Sunday evening, after one of her visits, the minister at her family’s church received a telephone call from her father. The father was quite upset and he reported that his daughter had just called with the news that she had suddenly decided to drop out of pharmacy school.
When the minister asked what could possibly have precipitated such a decision, the father confessed that he had no idea and asked the minister to call his daughter and to “talk some sense into her.”
When the minister did call the young woman, he expressed shock that she would decide to forfeit all of her hard work and that she should think long and hard before throwing it away. “How in the world did you come to this decision?” he asked her.
“It was your sermon yesterday that started me thinking,” she replied. She went on to describe the theme of the sermon, that God calls everyone to a ministry, that God has some service for every Christian to do.
She said that she realized that she was in pharmacy school for selfish reasons, to enter a lucrative career rather than to serve God. She had remembered a wonderful summer spent working as a part of a church program teaching reading to the children of migrant workers and how much she had felt that she was truly serving God then.
So, after hearing the sermon that morning, she had decided to dedicate her life to working with underprivileged children.
There was a long silence on the minister’s end of the line. “Now look,” he finally said, “I was just preaching.”
Thanks to Thomas G. Long for sharing this story and to Mitchell Leach for the photo.
When was the last time YOU walked out of church and thought to YOURSELF, “Well, he was just preaching!”
WE AREN’T CALLED TO BE LIKE OTHER CHRISTIANS. WE’RE CALLED TO BE LIKE JESUS!!
