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PRAISING GOD FOR DETOURS #2

GETTING THE WRONG COLLEGE MAJOR

There's a wonderful article that appeared in the September 15, 1998 issue of Woman's Day. It tells the story of six women who, late in their lives, ended up becoming ministers. Catherine Brall is now an Episcopalian priest, Donna Young Whitley a pastor — not a priest, but a pastor — in the Catholic Diocese of Richmond, Deanna Douglas a rabbi in Massachusetts, Raedorah Stewart-Dodd a "pistol-packin' preacher" at the Faithful Central Baptist Church in Inglewood, California, Marilyn Barnard, a United Methodist minister, and — my favorite, you'll understand — Tami McGrew, who is now the senior pastor at the Riverside Seventh-day Adventist Church about a hundred miles from here.

Now, I'm sure there's some controversial New Testament theology we could get into here, but the fact remains that, in one way or another, these six women — all of them late in life — ended up with just about the most abrupt career change there is! The title of this article by Paula Spencer is this: Divine Detour. And the subtitle: "Sometimes the call to serve the Lord comes right out of the blue."

Catherine Brall was a busy executive, pulling down $60,000 a year when God called her. Raedorah Stewart-Dodd was a management consultant and former policewoman. Donna Whitley was a full-time mom, who made the switch at age 56. And Tami McGrew, a delightful young woman was, by her own admission, not even a churchgoer. She was sitting at home with her two daughters watching the soaps. Her husband, David, still can't believe that she's now booked years in advance as a speaker all around the country.

But again, the question we asked yesterday comes to mind. WHY? Why does God clear His throat and invite somebody 56 years old to become a preacher? Why didn't He get on the phone when she was 18 and filling out college application forms? That's maybe 35 years of great sermons and gospel service that just don't happen because the call came so late in life. So this is a good title: Divine Detour.

Especially when a person has ambition and gifts, including the kinds of spiritual gifts the Bible teaches us about, this has to nag at us. "Why wait? Why the delay?"

You might remember how, back in 1960, a young presidential candidate named John F. Kennedy had his two kid brothers, Bobby and Teddy, run the national campaign. He was barely 43 when he took office, and Bobby, his younger brother, was a fresh-faced lawyer who hadn't really had any substantial government experience to speak of. And after the election, Kennedy had the bright idea to install his brother as Attorney General! For the whole U.S.! And advisors were purple with worry about it — charges of nepotism, family favoritism and all the rest. But you know, he pulled it off. When one friend asked him how he was going to announce so sensitive and controversial a cabinet choice, JFK grinned and admitted that he was going to sneak down to the front door at two in the morning, peek outside, and if there weren't any reporters there, he would whisper: It's Bobby.

For the Kennedys, that kind of straight-to-the-top progress was almost expected. It was a family joke that one of the boys had actually had thoughts of going into religion instead of politics. But as the line went, "So-and-so wasn't content to be just a priest; he had to immediately be an archbishop!"

And you know, isn't this our cry too? "Lord, I don't want to wait! Whatever You have in mind for me, send me straight there!" We think enviously of the Apostle Paul, who was converted as an adult man to the Christian faith. And it says in Acts 9:20:

"At once he began to preach in the synagogue."

From all appearances, Paul wasn't just an instant preacher; he becomes the lead evangelist of the Christian era. No delays or detours for him! And it is frustrating when, for us, the headlines and promotions are passing us by as they did for Joseph during his 13-year exile in Egyptian prisons.

For a moment, let me invite you to think about your impulsive reaction to the word detour. Do positive thoughts come into your mind? Or negative ones? I'm sure most of us think right away of frustration and delays. We see in our mind's eye those orange cones set out along the freeway, pushing us off onto a winding little side road, a long ways out of our way. Flashing police lights, and we realize there's an accident up ahead, and we're going to have to take the long way home. Or we envision a flight monitor at the airport, showing us that our flight's been delayed or diverted to a different city. No, for most of us, detour is a dirty word.

But friend, let me make a suggestion. Detour is actually a wonderful word! I mean it! Let me ask you this question: Would you rather take that pothole-filled little side road, or stay on the broad, smooth highway that, half a mile down the road, drops off to certain death? Some of us here in Southern California remember with painful clarity 4:31 in the morning, January 17, 1994, when the Northridge Earthquake rattled our freeways. And one such overpass was completely knocked out. Just a few minutes after the temblor hit, a CHP on his motorcycle zoomed up that road, unaware of the shaking and the gulf that lay beyond him in the inky darkness. He sailed right off that overpass to his death. Would he have appreciated some orange cones? Some flashing lights from his fellow officers' patrol cars? Absolutely.

Would you rather have your flight diverted to Columbus, Ohio, or would you rather fly right into Chicago's O'Hare Airport, where the runways are so coated with snow and ice that your plane skids right off and explodes in a fiery ball? It's hard to accept, but friend, a detour is actually the most wonderful thing that can happen to you . . . if you trust the person who is setting out the orange cones. Isn't that right?

And when your life seems to be taking the long way home, when you got a hard-earned college degree in one field, and are now working in some other arena instead, and you're tempted to be angry, remember that for the man or woman who believes in God, who trusts Him when He "directs thy paths," as the Bible puts it, detours are not bad things.

We've told the wonderful story from the book, Pain: The Gift Nobody Wants, by Paul Brand and Philip Yancey. Brand grew up in India, the son of a medical missionary doctor. And everyone in the Brand family encouraged young Paul to follow in Dad's footsteps. "You should be a doctor too."

Well, Paul didn't want to be a doctor. Especially after his father died prematurely due to a sudden illness he contracted over there in India. Paul enrolled in college and very resolutely took things like carpentry, architecture, roofing, bricklaying, plumbing, and so on. All the practical things he could sign up for — as long as they didn't have anything to do with medicine. Follow in Dad's footsteps? No way.

Well, even after he graduated, the pressure kept up. Finally, more to get people off his back than anything else, Paul reluctantly enrolled in a kind of "mini" medical course, a one-year sampling. To his amazement, he loved the world of medicine! It was a natural for him! The clincher happened one day when he and his fellow freshmen were called on to try to revive a woman who was literally dead on the surgical table. Her heart was stopped, but with the new learning he and the other guys had, they brought her back to life. After that, Paul Brand was hooked for good. He signed up for the full program now, a complete medical curriculum, and graduated with his M.D. Soon he was in India, working as a surgeon. Hot, sweaty 12-hour days in the operating theater with no fans, no air conditioning. And he loved it! It was high adventure for him, saving lives, making a difference.

But once in a while he would look up at heaven and scowl. Why had God allowed him to waste five years taking carpentry and plumbing and metal design? What a waste! That was a useless detour for sure. The thought continued to bother him.

As his career expanded, however, he began to work more and more with lepers; in fact, he became a kind of breakthrough doctor. The natives suffering from Hansen's Disease, or leprosy, had a difficult time functioning in life, even if their disease was arrested. They couldn't handle a screwdriver or a hammer, because with dead tissue in their fingers, and no nerve endings or pain sensors, they would twist and hammer so vigorously that the flesh would simply tear off. They couldn't even wear regular shoes, because — even though you and I have such miraculous sensitivity and pain warnings in our feet that we constantly adjust our walking pattern — these lepers didn't have that. Every night they would discover huge new watery blisters.

And guess where Dr. Paul Brand found himself? In the tool shop, designing screwdrivers and hammers with special handles for his leper friends. He made his way to the leathercraft bench, where he cleverly fashioned shoes that wouldn't wear those raw places in a leper's feet. And all at once, he realized with a start that he was now using the very training he thought was a colossal waste! This was perfect!

"Ever since medical school I had wondered if I had misspent those five years in the construction field," he writes. "Now I was thankful to find a redeeming purpose to my circuitous career path."

Friend, have you been driving in circles because God set some orange cones in your way? Just keep driving! Your Navigator does know what He's doing.