A Baptism of Fire

To every shepherd considering laying down their staff, every teacher thinking of closing their Bible for good, every leader whose wounds whisper “quit”—this is for you.

Sometimes God doesn’t ease you into your calling. Sometimes He throws you into the deep end, not to watch you drown but to show you that you can swim in waters deeper than you ever imagined.

That’s what happened to me. Twenty years old. Faith as fresh as morning dew. Still figuring out which books of the Bible required a table of contents to find.

The phone rang on an ordinary afternoon. My friend Doyle’s voice carried an urgency I hadn’t heard before.

“Ron, my good friend is at the VA hospital in Detroit. He’s dying. No relationship with the Lord. Will you ride with me? Maybe we can share our testimonies, lead him to Christ?”

I said yes without hesitation. Not because I was spiritually mature or particularly bold. I said yes because I didn’t know enough yet to be afraid.

Little did I know God was about to baptize me with fire.

The Room of Divine Appointments

The early 1980s. VA hospital. Four beds to a room. The antiseptic smell that belongs only to hospitals. The quiet beeping of machines tracking fragile lives.

Doyle led me to the first bed where his friend lay. For two hours we talked. Shared scriptures. Told stories. Pleaded. The man was as resolute in his rejection as we were in our invitation.

“Please,” we begged, “the doctors say you won’t survive this. There’s still time. Jesus loves you.”

Nothing.

We were so focused on this one man that we didn’t notice what was happening around us. So intent on our mission that we missed the movement of God in the room.

Until I looked up.

In the bed to my right, a man wept silently. Not the quiet dignity of a private grief, but the unmistakable tears of a soul recognizing its need.

We went to him. Spoke a few verses. Led him in a prayer of faith.

As we finished, another sound—same tears, different location. The third man in the room. Then the fourth.

One by one, they invited Jesus into lives that had perhaps never made room for Him before. One by one, hospital beds became altars of surrender.

But God wasn’t finished.

The Men in the Doorway

As we walked back toward Doyle’s friend, something caught my peripheral vision. Two men in the doorway, watching. A tall white man standing. A frail Black man seated in a wheelchair.

Both weeping.

I stepped into the hallway, this rookie evangelist suddenly thrust into a harvest I hadn’t planted. The tall man immediately responded to the invitation, words of acceptance tumbling out between tears.

The man in the wheelchair couldn’t speak at all. His tears were too pronounced, his cries too passionate. Words failed him, but his eyes spoke volumes.

I simply prayed over him, and as I did, the Lord gave me words I hadn’t planned:

“My son, I have not forgotten you. You are my child, and I love you with an everlasting love. I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. You are mine, says the Lord.”

The man wept harder. Minutes passed. Finally, gathering himself, he looked up at me with eyes that had seen decades of life and ministry.

“Son, you don’t know me,” he began, “but I was a Baptist pastor for forty years.”

His voice broke, then strengthened with confession.

“Then I was stricken with cancer. I was so angry with God. After all these years of service, that You would allow me to get sick with cancer!”

His next words pierced me. “I said, ‘God, if You’re going to treat me like that, I want nothing to do with You. You have forsaken me. You have left me!'”

Then came the words that have echoed in my soul for decades since:

“But today, the Lord has sent you to me, to remind me that I am still His own!”

The Shepherd Who Left His Post

Pastor, church leader, faithful servant who’s thinking of walking away—I want you to see this man clearly.

Forty years of ministry. Forty years of hospital visits and midnight phone calls. Forty years of funerals and weddings and baptisms. Forty years of sermon preparation, budget meetings, and counseling sessions.

Forty years of faithfulness.

And then—cancer. The body betrayed the spirit that had served so long. The pain that makes no exceptions for those who preach healing. The diagnosis that doesn’t care how many others you’ve comforted in their illness.

Can you blame him for his anger? For feeling abandoned after giving his life to the One who seemed to have forgotten him in his hour of need?

Perhaps you understand his disappointment too well. Perhaps you carry similar wounds:

The church split that wasn’t your fault but bears your name. The family that left without explanation after years of investment. The budget that won’t stretch no matter how creative you get. The marriage that’s wilting under the weight of ministry expectations. The criticism that comes from those you’ve poured yourself out to serve. The depression that visits on Monday mornings and sometimes stays all week.

Like this pastor, you’ve considered walking away. Hanging up your calling like an old coat that no longer fits. Telling God that if this is how He treats His servants, you want nothing to do with the arrangement.

I understand. More than you know.

But I need you to see what happened next.

The God Who Wouldn’t Let Go

Two weeks after our hospital visit, I returned to check on everyone. The tall white man was there. The frail pastor was not.

“Where is our brother?” I asked.

“Son, he died that night.”

The night of his restoration. The night God sent strangers to remind him he was still loved, still claimed, still held.

God could have let him go. Could have respected his resignation. Could have allowed him to exit this world believing he’d been forsaken.

But that’s not who our God is.

Instead, He orchestrated a divine appointment in a VA hospital. Positioned a young convert with no training in the right place at the right time. Put specific words of restoration in my mouth that I could never have known to speak.

All to bring one shepherd back to the fold before calling him home.

This World Needs You

Pastor, look around. Really look.

In a world suffocating on sarcasm, your sincerity is oxygen. In communities fragmented by division, your gathering is healing. In families crumbling under pressure, your counsel is foundation. In lives haunted by shame, your message of grace is liberation. In a culture of disposability, your commitment to stay is revolution.

The harvest isn’t just ripe—it’s desperate. Souls fill hospital rooms and grocery stores and school drop-off lines. They sit in your pews and avoid your gaze. They’re asking questions no algorithm can answer and carrying wounds no prescription can heal.

They need you.

Not because you’re perfect. Not because you have it all together. Not because ministry is easy for you when it’s crushing for everyone else.

They need you because you’ve been called. Because your name is on a heavenly document next to a specific assignment that no one else can fulfill quite like you can.

They need your particular voice speaking eternal truths. Your unique hands offering tangible grace. Your specific story illustrating God’s faithfulness.

Don’t You Dare Quit

The enemy wants nothing more than to thin the ranks of kingdom leadership. To whisper that you’re ineffective. That you’ve been forgotten. That the cost is too high and the fruit too sparse.

He specializes in mid-career exits and end-of-ministry regrets.

Don’t give him the satisfaction.

Don’t throw in the towel when the fight is fiercest. Don’t abandon your post when the night is darkest. Don’t silence your voice when the truth is most needed. Don’t close your Bible when its words are most powerful.

Set your face like flint. Stand firm in the calling that claimed you. Plant your feet in the promises that haven’t failed yet and won’t start now.

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” (2 Corinthians 4:7-9)

You’re not finished yet.

The Fire Spreads

Remember how this story began? With a reluctant dying man and two earnest young believers?

After all the divine interruptions—after three men in hospital beds and two men in a doorway found or returned to Christ—we went back to Doyle’s friend.

And he accepted Christ too.

Seven lives transformed in one afternoon. Six salvations and one restoration. A holy epidemic of grace sweeping through a VA hospital in Detroit.

This is how God baptized me with fire at the beginning of my ministry journey. Not with careful instruction but with extravagant demonstration. Not with theory but with evidence. Not with a map but with a push into the deep end of His purposes.

If this was the beginning, I wondered, what would God do throughout the years?

I’m still finding out. Still being surprised by grace. Still watching Him pursue the lost and the found with equal passion.

And you can too.

The Pastor Who Almost Walked Away

I often think about that pastor in the wheelchair. What if he had died believing God had abandoned him? What if he had crossed from this life to the next carrying forty years of ministry and one bitter conclusion?

But God wouldn’t allow it. Wouldn’t let His servant depart without a reminder of covenant love. Wouldn’t permit decades of faithfulness to end in perceived abandonment.

“I have not forgotten you. You are my child, and I love you with an everlasting love. I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. You are mine, says the Lord.”

Those words weren’t just for him. They’re for you too.

The God who tracked down a disillusioned pastor on the eve of eternity is tracking you down today. The God who healed his wounded heart before calling him home wants to heal yours while there’s still work to be done.

The Lord sees your exhaustion. He knows your disappointment. He understands your temptation to walk away.

And still He says: Stay.

Stay because the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Stay because someone needs precisely what you have to offer. Stay because you might be one divine appointment away from the breakthrough you’ve been praying for. Stay because the One who called you is faithful, and He will do it.

The world doesn’t need more ex-pastors with cautionary tales. It needs faithful shepherds who endured when quitting seemed reasonable. Who persisted when progress seemed impossible. Who believed when doubt seemed justified.

It needs you. At your post. With your staff in hand. For such a time as this.

Don’t walk away. Not now. Not yet.

There’s a wheelchair in a hallway somewhere with someone who needs exactly what you have to give. Even if—especially if—what you have to give has been refined in the fire of your own pain.

Stay.