Our Success Is Not In Our Accomplishments
As a preacher’s kid, I have sat through literally thousands of sermons in my lifetime, but back in March, the Lord spoke to me through one of Pastor Louis’s sermons in a profound way. It was a message about Peter who was a capable leader, but he often trusted in his own self-reliance instead of trusting Jesus to lead. In the end, Jesus calls out Peter’s mistakes and he is humbled and moved into a deeper relationship with Him. While listening to Louis’s sermon I realized that Peter and I have a lot in common.
Even though I gave my life to Jesus as a young boy, I have always struggled to stay humble and to depend on Him. Growing up in the church I quickly learned to put on a front and give the best Sunday school answer for everything. I learned to use my talent and charm to string together success after success. “If I can just impress and achieve, I will feel important and special” was my mantra.
By the time I was in my early thirties I was married, had a son, had two Master’s degrees, had sung professionally as an operatic tenor, started a non-profit organization, sang for Bill Gaither, Jerry Falwell, John Hagee, and toured as a Christian concert artist to more than five hundred churches in more than twenty different countries. Everything I had worked for and hoped to accomplish was happening.
However, under all this accomplishment my family was falling apart. In 2010 I made the sacrificial decision to get off the road to try and fix things at home. With that decision I accepted a worship pastor position at a large church. After just a few years I had built a thriving worship ministry at the church, and once again I was adored and experienced great success in my ministry. However, there seemed to be nothing I could do to fix my marriage. I had tried everything and had exhausted myself in the process.
My wife had severe emotional and psychological trauma that started in childhood. Prior to marrying her, I had received wise counsel that she was not ready, but after experiencing success after success in my professional life, I arrogantly thought I could fix her. We pretty much hid our dysfunctional marriage for the next fourteen years. In 2016 she decided to leave our family for an alternative lifestyle. I could no longer hide our reality. After she left, the church I was serving forced me to resign because divorce was inevitable. My greatest fear of failing in my marriage and ministry had come true. Devastated, my son and I moved to Florida to live with my parents. After divorce, many churches didn’t want to hire me for a leadership position. One church did end up welcoming me, but because of theological differences this did not last long. This was another failure in my heart.
Feeling as if there was no longer a place in vocational ministry for me, I decided to go to school for real estate. God seemed to shut the door on this pretty quickly. Next, I went to school to get licensed as a financial advisor. Several days after launching my business, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and eventually this path fizzled out. More failures in my heart.
While desperately struggling to find a new career path, I was also looking into my son’s eyes and seeing the hurt and loss from his mother’s abandonment. As a single father I tried to hold everything together, but looking back, I see so many ways that I failed him.
I share these things to convey that as hard as I have tried to preserve my status as a success story, the reality is that God has allowed my world to completely fall apart. I have gone from an extremely successful, overconfident person to someone who battles the voices of failure every day.
In Louis’s sermon we learned that Peter was a very capable man who failed over and over again. In one of Peter’s failures, we learn that he couldn’t even catch a minnow in his fishing nets, but then Jesus asked him to let his nets down again. When Peter trusted Jesus, his nets were so full he could not even get them into the boat!! Jesus was demonstrating to us through Peter that his success was not in his own accomplishments, but in His relationship and dependence on Jesus.
I have experienced quite a bit of failure, some of my own doing and some from the decisions of others. But the story of Peter reminds me that Jesus still loves me and has an important plan for my life. I also see how each of these so called “failures” have actually been steppingstones that have brought me to the place I am now. Through these failures God has humbled me and shown me that my identity should be in Christ alone and not in my accomplishments. He has given me wisdom, depth, and compassion for those who are hurting. He has brought me to a place of dependence on Him. While I do still experience sorrow and brokenness from all that has happened, Jesus has never left my side. I believe that He is a God of restoration!!
Amazingly, God brought Melissa into my life this past year. We instantly became the best of friends and were married this past October. It has been an adjustment, but my son loves Melissa, her three sons, and our new family. We are all bonding, healing, and growing in our relationships with each other and with Christ. Melissa has been helping me see my failures from a different perspective, and she has been encouraging me to get back into my sweet spot as a minister. God has brought us back to City Awakening where we are finding a place to serve and build meaningful relationships. We are so grateful for all that He is doing, and we are giving God all the glory for his amazing grace in our lives!!