Don't waste your trapdoor

There are many famous trapdoors in the world. Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre had two that delivered actors up from “Hell” and onto the stage. Palais Garnier, the great Paris Opera House, is said to have many that were used by the infamous Opera Ghost. My old tree house had one that was perfect for escaping robbers and monsters when they broke through all of my defensive barriers. God’s will for my life has been like a trapdoor. I’m walking along, when out of nowhere, fwoop, “Ok, Lord, I guess I’ll go this way now.”
This began when I was 10 and my parents divorced. At the same time Saddam invaded Kuwait and my dad was in the National Guard. Not only had my family split, but I was sure my dad was going oversees never to be seen again. Sometimes divorce brings out the reflective side of people and my father encouraged me to read the Bible when I was sad. He suggested reading Samuel. I misunderstood and read Song of Solomon. So, being utterly confused and slightly turned on, I flipped to the front of my Gideon Bible and found where it said to read for “Love.” Trapdoor one: fwoop-start reading Bible. I memorized 1Cor. 13, then chapter 14, and may have kept on going had we not started going to church. Trapdoor two: fwoop-attend Bible church and on one January Sunday after no remarkable sermon respond to invitation accepting Jesus as my Savior. My trapdoor filled with light.
We moved and stopped going to church. Dad never got called up. Three years later I, fwoop-join a diving team, meet a girl, and go to her church. This little Bible church was where much of my Spiritual foundation was laid. It was at a retreat with this youth group that I heard Mike Manor speak and ask a group of 500 teenagers if any of them felt called into full time Christian service. Fwoop-my hand goes up. I pray with a fella and he reads 1 Cor. 15:58 “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”
Armed with a verse and desire to serve the Lord I follow that girl to Pensacola Christian College. Fwoop, we broke up. Ah, well. I’m a Pastoral Ministries major and Missions minor-nope Math minor-nope Speech minor. After three years I look around and notice—I don’t fit in with these preacher boys. I don’t want to be an angry fundamentalist. Someone gives me a copy of Desiring God, fwoop, now I’m a Calvinist. Fwoop, switch my major and minor, now I’m a Speech/ Theatre major, Bible minor. (Hey, who’s that beautiful girl in my speech class? Her name is Kelly.) I stay and get a Masters in Interpretive Speech, and marry Kelly. Fwoop-I’m teaching high school and college classes at PCC. Fwoop-I’m a Youth Pastor in North Carolina for 4 years. Youth Pastor? That can’t be right. Fwoop-I’m at seminary finding out what in the world I’m supposed to be.
Through all of this I’ve not felt discouraged about our trapdoor relationship. Being a superb procrastinator, what good would it do to know ahead of time? And I understand that God’s will for my life is much more than jobs and circumstances. It is holiness, purity, conformity to Christ, fellowship with Him. So I'll keep traveling this road until I reach that country of which He will tell me.