Discover Your PurposeSample

God will always test you for the big things by looking at the little things. I knew at eighteen years old that God wanted me to preach. But, I started out on street corners and bus stops, not churches. I would go to bus stops and I would stand in front of the bus stop and there would be people waiting on buses and I’d go at it. I had an instant and captured audience of ten to twenty people at any given time.

There was no pay involved. There was no notoriety involved in that. In fact, I looked rather strange sometimes pacing back and forth on the street corners preaching in (what some people say is) my loud voice. But I was walking in what He wanted me to do.

The church came later. 

I’ll never forget one time in particular when the street corner morphed into a moment of decision. There was a man standing across from me who looked very angry. As I continued to preach, he approached me and placed his hand inside his front coat pocket and then he said, “If you keep preaching, I’m going to shoot you.” His eyes glared into mine with a hatred I’d not seen anywhere else before. 

I knew that preaching was my calling but I began to question if a busy street corner in Atlanta in the late 1960s was my location. While questioning that, I prayed, “Lord, I believe you have called me here to preach. I also believe that when I prayed before I came out that you would guard and protect me, that you heard my prayer and will do just that. Yet, Lord, if I perish – I perish doing your will.”

Just as I finished the prayer, an overwhelming confidence came into me and I continued my preaching yet with even more passion and volume than before. The man who had threatened me became more irritated and glared at me, but he eventually walked away. 

A lot of us are waiting for a big blessing without being willing to be obedient in the small things. God has since granted me a large church and a national platform, but it didn’t come without years of investment as I obeyed Him in the steps He had asked me to take. If God can’t get you to do little acts of good works, why should He entrust you with greater opportunities for good works?

Always be faithful in the small things. God is watching, and He will reward your obedience to Him. 

Prayer: 

Dear God, I want to be faithful to you in the little things. I want to honor you in all that I do. Show me where and how you are wanting me to take steps toward my destiny each and every day and always keep in my mind that you are leading me on the perfect path to my purpose.