Indiana - The Call

"You're a Ronin." I didn't know what that was, he'd been a missionary in Japan and his conversation was peppered with Eastern references. I took a bite of my eggs and looked around the little diner, I knew he was expecting me to ask what he meant but I didn't, I really didn't care, I wasn't on the best terms with him. "You're a man without a master." he went on, the crux of the matter, my freedom galled him. I didn't realize at the time that he'd taken it upon himself to master me. "You can stay here on three conditions." I wasn't planning on staying, I was going back to school to be a preacher, but when he said that I knew I wasn't leaving.

It began in a small town in Texas, a man had a vision, a revelation that ministry was a calling, not a profession. The word spread and the called flocked to his little church, my uncle among them, men who believed God had a higher purpose for them, a special anointing. The word of God as their guide, they trained themselves to lead the sheep and went out to start churches. Formal education was unnecessary, the Bible had the answers for everything if you knew how to look. Bible study was the foundation of their churches and it appealed to many disaffected church-goers who were unused to hearing Bible-centered teaching. Little home Bible studies led by men with a vision popped up all over the nation where they searched the scriptures to see what God had to say about things. What they found they tried to practice, living lives of sacrifice, trusting God to meet their needs. God commanded the crows to bring one of his prophets food when he was starving, God would do the same for them. God heals, so they didn't go to doctors, God empowers, so they healed one another, and that had its draw, too. Laying on of hands, speaking in tongues, visions and prophecies are heady stuff, many sought it out. Miracles were for now, God was alive and so were they. They sang, they danced, they raised their hands in sheer joy and that was the most intoxicating thing of all.

It wasn't my uncle's words that kept me in that Indiana farm town, I had no use for a master, it was the vision, it was the power, but mostly it was the joy.