When we say yes to God’s call, it is not a yes to a life of certainty but a yes of entrusting ourselves to him moment by moment come what may.
That was certainly the case for my father-in-law, Keith Drury.
I knew Keith first as a preacher and then as a teacher and then as a father. Certainly, this last role was my favorite.
What began with a yes to God’s call to vocational ministry in the church grew and changed to become a vocation of pouring into the life of others by noticing God’s movement and calling in them.
Keith’s confidence was not in his genius, though we know he was very smart. It wasn’t in his wit, though he was hilarious. It wasn’t in his own wisdom, though I’m not sure I know anybody wiser.
His confidence was in the goodness of God. He knew that God loved him. He truly believed that God was for him and not against him.
Back in 1995, Keith was between jobs. He didn’t know what was coming next. He went off to Brown County, Indiana, for a week of solitude, simply trying to listen to the Lord. While he was there, he believed that he heard instructions from the Lord.
Soon after his death, the family found some of his writing from this retreat while cleaning out a closet. I think it’s appropriate to share some of this with you. Without knowing what job was going to come next, this was what he heard from the Lord:
I have placed you in a strategic spot. You are not where you are as an accident. I know what I’m doing. I’ve placed you where you are now, to enable you to raise up younger men and women.
Find them.
I have anointed them, selected them, laid a burden on their hearts. I have called them. They just need you to incite them to action. To encourage them into battle. To provide them places from which to lead, platforms from which to speak, pages on which to write. This is what you can do for me. I’m ordering you to make a way for them. Provide for them a means of doing what I have called them to do.
Watch for those I have selected. Keep your eyes open. Be careful to not use your own criterion in anointing others. You may look on the outward things while I look on the heart. When you hear me say, “This is the one,” anoint these younger men and women.
Take them aside.
Set them apart.
Incite them to go to battle.
Provide a place on the front lines for them.
Lift them up in prayer.
Encourage them to keep their boldness.
Offer them your wisdom.
Follow them. That is right. Anoint them, then follow them.
Perhaps I will want you to be the first of the baby boomers to step aside and become a follower of the younger generation.
I have few men who are willing to anoint others. Most of my servants want to anoint themselves. They want to charge into battle. They want to lead the forces.
I have 100 Davids for every one Samuel. I’m calling you to be a Samuel. Fill your horn with oil and be on your way.
I have chosen men and women to lead my people into battle. Private men and women. Quiet men and women. They are in the wilderness taking care of sheep.
Find them. And when you do, anoint them for me, for I have chosen them.
Keith took those words from the Lord and continued to walk in humble obedience to God’s movement and call in another direction. “I see in you” — calling out ALL God’s gifting and gracing in others — became the center of his ministry as he poured into a younger generation by mentoring, teaching and anointing them for the Lord’s work.
When I compare the instructions that Keith received from the Lord and compare it with his obituary, the two documents are identical. So much so that I have no doubt that when Keith saw Jesus, he heard the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
