Pivotal Points

Most of our days are filled with decisions to make that are trivial to semi-serious, but certainly nothing that we would consider life-changing. Thinking back on my own life (as short as it is) I have noticed several what I call "pivotal points" where a choice was made that directly influenced the outcome of the life that followed. Sometimes we go through a pivotal point without even realizing it - sometimes it's very obvious. We certainly see examples of this in Scripture - some good, some bad. Think of Saul on the road to Damascus or maybe Moses and the burning bush. What about David with Bathsheba or Samson and Delilah? Choices were made in a moment that changed the direction of that person's life from that time forward.

Certainly we could all name that time when we first met Jesus and He changed our lives as our pivotal point. This is a given. What about other times? As some of you know, Kim and I were married before we were finished with college. During my last year in the music industry program, Kim got pregnant with Alison. We had a choice to make. I needed an internship to finish my degree. My professor/adviser wanted me to consider Yamaha in Los Angeles or somewhere in Nashville (this was where I wanted to end up). However I did not want to move us away from our friends and family when Kim (and I) would need them the most - in the middle of our first pregnancy! So we made the decision to stay in Boone and do my internship at church. My professor was disappointed in my choice, to say the least but he agreed to it. After finishing my internship, I worked as a maintenance worker for a local company. It certainly was NOT what I had planned on doing with my life. But God had made a provision for that time, and we walked in it. Not long afterwards, I got a call from Samaritan's Purse to come work in their Broadcast department, and thus my career in TV audio was born. I ended up travelling all over the world, meeting people I never dreamed of meeting. I even got to work on several Billy Graham crusades. In fact, my picture was in an issue of Decision Today magazine as I was mixing (for TV) a Billy Graham crusade in Nashville. God had opened a door that I was not even looking for. Had I chosen a career over family and moved us elsewhere, who knows what would have happened. But I'm pretty sure we would have gone down a path that would not have been good for us.

Another pivotal point was also in college. I had a friend at ASU that I had gotten to know fairly well our freshman year, but our friendship had kind of fallen by the wayside. He had gotten into a relationship with a girl that was not healthy and was causing alot of strain in his life. He and I had simply drifted apart - it happens to people all the time. One day as I was walking back to my dorm I saw him walking up ahead of me and I had a strong desire or urging to reach out to him. So I ran up to him and we started talking. We stood in the stadium parking lot for nearly an hour (in freezing temperatures) as he began to pour out to me all that he gone through over the past many months. The pain was evidenced in his voice and his eyes. But you could tell as we talked that God was moving in his heart and that things were changing right then and there. I think we may have prayed together before he left, I really don't remember. But I do remember that from that day forward he was a changed person. It was a pivotal point in his life. He began coming to church and Bible study and seriously started walking with God after that - he even became a missionary at one point. It was awesome to see. And as I think back on it, it may have been one of the most impactful moments I have ever had on a person. We, as young Christians, were always looking for those moments where we could reach out to people and see their lives changed. We generally called them "divine appointments" and often we treated them as super spiritual events that we needed great amounts prayer for and fasting over. They were times that we planned to go out and look for and took great care to do "right". I was humbled, because all God asked me to do in this instance was to call out to this friend as I was walking home and begin talking to him. Quite honestly, I wasn't even looking for it. I didn't have to give a sermon on turning from sin and towards God, nor did I have to impress anyone with my knowledge of Scripture. But I heard God speak and acted on it. Isn't that how God works? He blows our ideas on how to do something (when left to our own devices), with something simpler and much more effective.

What are your stories of "pivotal points" that you've seen in your own life, or in the lives of those you've touched?