Many months ago, when my departure date seemed infinitely far away, I was completely preoccupied with my preparation. Between the support I had to raise, the shots I had to get, and the logistical odds and ends associated with taking a year away from college that needed tending to, I was very future-focused. Now that I have pretty much knocked out every last bit of practical preparation, I can more clearly appreciate my past. It has been awe-inspiring to see the tapestry God has woven in my life and the mentors he’s used to get me to where I am today.
There are two major schools of thought on God’s will for our lives as humans. The first argues that God has no plan for our lives – He has given us commands throughout scripture (“Go and make disciples of all nations…”, “Love your neighbor as yourself”, etc..) and as long as we’re abiding by those commands, we are living life as God has willed. The second school of thought argues the opposite; namely that God does have a very specific plan for our lives and we should pray intensely to discern it.
David Sills, in his book The Missionary Call, argues beautifully that both schools of thought are partially correct. God does have a specific plan for each of our lives, yet we can only realize it in hindsight. God had a very specific plan for Abraham, yet all Abraham knew initially was that he was supposed to leave his country and follow God. It was only in hindsight that Abraham would be able to see God’s exact plan for him and it was only in hindsight that the apostles were able to make references to God’s use of Abraham as if God had premeditated his steps.
Now that I can clearly see God’s work in my life, what has stuck with me most is not the geographic locations He’s placed me in, nor the pristine timing He’s used (though both are apparent), but the people He has placed in my life to lead me to salvation, and to disciple me thereafter.
I thank God for my ex-girlfriend who had the courage to lead me to Christ, despite my characteristically stubborn personality and despite our being knee-deep in the midst of religious differences that had already been escalating. I specifically remember one of her texts the first night I agreed, with unsettled words and a rebel heart, to “learn” (I classified it this way in my mind, because it allowed me to gain objective religious knowledge without religious affection) about Christianity: “He knows the number of hairs on your head,” she said. “Stop.” I responded. “When you’re teaching somebody the basics about anything, you don’t scare people with details like that.” Such an unstrategic slip of the tongue on her part, in the presence of a person already at odds with the Christian story, is evidence of a heart enamored with Jesus Christ.
I thank God for my mentor, Gary “Coach” Cramer, and the raw amount of hours he spend discipling me and answering every last apologetics question I had. I think he must have spent as much time on dinosaurs (complete with a PowerPoint presentation) as he did on the Gospel, because I stubbornly demanded it. When I add up all the times we met, we probably spent days “talking Gospel.” It’s funny how, in the heart of the Deep South, God placed a man from Pennsylvania – my neck of the woods, who was a former unbeliever – my background, who was an Eagles fan – my team, with a specialty in Christian Apologetics – my area of concern, to first talk to me about Christ- my need, over a relaxed game of ping pong – my hobby.
I thank God for my brother Heath Wilson, who invited me to lunch with him after my second church service at First Baptist Tuscaloosa. Heath had (and still has) an intentional eye for disicpleship opportunities and a heart for the unevangelized. I could have just as easily, if left to my own judgment, been grafted into a spiritually dead group of believers intent on watering-down, contextualizing, and downplaying the importance of the Gospel, but I thank God for Heath’s contagious efforts to stand firm on Scripture and ignite a Christian fire on campus.
I thank God for all of First Baptist Tuscaloosa. They have provided me with a loving and engaging church
family, a vibrant college ministry, and a whole host of mentors more mature than me. I am thankful that First Baptist Tuscaloosa takes the word of God seriously, and has not fallen victim to the type of pick-and-choose “buffet line” Christianity that rears its ugly head in so many American churches.
I thank God for my former bosses, Sherry Pointsett and Justine Logan, who hired me, as an eight-month-old Christian to work with kids in Wyoming. To this day, I still don’t know why they trusted me without having even met me, but there is always a trace of brilliant lunacy in every God-fearing believer. Sherry and Justine modeled what Biblical stewardship of resources looked like and what unconditional love looked like as well.
I thank God for Jimmy Carter, Adam Porter, and Ian Fowden, who modeled true Christian manhood forme. Inaddition to having the blood of true western cowboys, they always understood their unique roles as males and constantly pressed me to realize mine. Though easy-going in personality, their pursuit of spiritual growth was relentless, and it left me too with a desire to be closer to God today than I was yesterday.
I thank God for my supporters, who have now fully funded me! They have responded to God’s tug on their hearts and poured out incredible amounts of money and prayer on my behalf. It is often trite and cliché to say “I couldn’t do it without you” – but in this case, that phrase applies literally. I thank God also, for my greatest supporters, my family, for understanding my passion and being willing to lovingly acclimate to the logistical nightmare it created.
This extreme use of people seems almost stilted, but then again, this has always been how God has worked. We are saved by the works and qualifications of another (Jesus). We learn Biblical truths by the writings of others and we are led to salvation by means of other people. When the Ethiopian official was converted in Acts 8, it was because God sent Philip to him. When Cornelius was converted in Acts 10, it was because God sent Peter to him.
Once I fully recognized how indebted I was to other human beings, it was not so much a burden I felt, as in a burden to repay them, but a freedom I felt – a freedom from the disappointment of self-worship. To meditate on what others have done for us is a beautiful excuse to forget about ourselves, and, in my experience, forgetting about myself has always made me happy.
Isaac Newton once said, “If I have seen a little further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” I thank God for the many Giants He has placed in my life.
