"My purpose is too high. The calling is too great to be preempted even by family. Father, mother, wife, children, brother or sister -- or even one's own life may never be put above this calling."

I don't remember how long after my conversion to Christ this was, but it seems it was soon. I felt a strong compulsion to enter the ministry. It was irresistible. I felt that to deny this call was to deny the Lord himself. I went to a Christian college and became a part of 800 other young men who felt the same call. From there to seminary, and from there to ordination and the pulpit.

My sister pleaded with me not to go into the ministry. Our father, a Baptist minister through the depression, was impoverished due to the hard times. My dear sister, a teenager at that time, concluded that it was because he had answered the call to ministry that the family was so poor. He died when I was an infant. I never knew him. I have his Bible. I have his picture and they are precious to me.

Did my father put his calling above his family?

I have no idea. I never knew him.

Later, much later in my life, a man I thought was a close friend, who had also trained for the ministry in a sister seminary, avowed that "there is no such thing" as a call from God to ministry. It would seem, however, that his being a part of a movement that did not believe in a "paid ministry," may have influenced his thinking. Besides, he was himself, functioning in a "paid ministry," in what is called a "para-church" organization.

I was in a quandry because I had been offered a secular position which paid exceedingly well. But I had gone to Bible college, then to seminary, and to another seminary after that. I had spent many years as a pastor and church leader. I had taught seminars designed to generate spiritual formation. Should I abandon my call to ministry for a six-figure income?

It so happened on a day that I was driving on the freeway through the neighborhood of this old friend, that I thought to seek his opinion about it. I took the next exit and drove to his home. Probably a foolish thing to do. But I thought that maybe another, less involved opinion might help me with a clear decision.

His advice? "Take the job!" In no uncertain terms.

So, following his input (and maybe -- just maybe -- because of the attraction of the money), I took the job, and the salary. I don't know anymore how good of a judge I am of my past decisions, but I lived to realize that this was one of the biggest mistakes of my life.

What does one do with the mistakes one makes in life? I left the "call" to full-time ministry for financial security for me and my family. I lived that way for seven years. That's a pretty good chunk of one's life. And it's funny when I think about it. I thought we were being "blessed" with prosperity. Turned out to be a curse. What does one do with the mistakes in one's life?

It is not a mistake I wish to repeat.

Of course, one's "call" may not be to "full-time ministry" at all. Meaning, working, spending one's "professional life" in a secular field, does not mean that one is not in "full-time ministry." But if God "calls" a person to serve him by training him in theology, in Biblical truth, in the original languages, in the study of his Revelation, for the sole purpose of bringing others into intimacy with God, then one must be ready and eager to do that.

No matter the cost.