By Craig Terndrup
“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.” – Hebrews 11:8
I drove my red 1976 Volkswagen van down the road towards the freeway. It was spring break, and I was driving some University of Kentucky college students from Lexington, Kentucky, all the way to the heart of “Gator country”—the University of Florida. We were going to help renovate a fraternity house in Gainesville and turn it into a ministry center for University of Florida students.
Our trip was going great until we hit Atlanta.
Climbing up a steep hill, the fan belt on my van busted and the engine blew up.
We found ourselves stranded at a rusty, old Chevron gas station. We placed an emergency phone call to our friends in Gainesville, and they drove up to rescue us.
As we waited, we began wondering if spending our spring break in Florida was really going to be worth all this effort.
We finally arrived at the University of Florida and dove right in to our work. A week of painting and scraping walls, repairing drywall, and hauling away dusty junk flew by.
Before we knew it, we were headed back to Kentucky, laughing and telling stories about our week together…we had absolutely no idea of all God was going to do through our work.
About a year later, I met a young woman named Linda at a student conference. She was a new believer, and as we were getting to know each other, she began sharing her story of salvation with me.
Just a few months earlier, Linda and her roommate, Dana, gave their hearts to Jesus and were baptized at a campus ministry center. Her excitement and joy were contagious as she described the chain of events that had resulted in this new life she now enjoyed.
As she was telling her story, I began to realize that she was telling me about the very same fraternity house we had converted into a ministry center! In the very room where I scraped paint just a couple of months earlier, Linda and Dana asked Jesus to save them and change their lives. Linda was baptized in the baptismal I helped install. They worshipped at the spot where I had pulled weeds out of flower beds in the front yard. I had unknowingly been a quiet part of their salvation story.
One year after I first met Linda, I was playing basketball on the campus of Ohio State University. I had graduated from the University of Kentucky and was serving as a campus evangelist at a new church in Columbus, Ohio. Walking home with my basketball in hand, I felt a strong impression from the Lord: Do you remember Linda…the girl from Florida? You are going to marry her!
Me? Marry that girl from Florida? I had only met her once, and she lived nine hundred miles away!
Sure, I had been asking God for direction about my future, but this impression was just a little too specific and direct for me to swallow.
I proceeded to pray what I thought was a safe prayer: “Lord, if You want me to marry Linda, You’ll have to bring her from Gainesville, Florida, all the way to me here in Columbus, Ohio. You brought Eve to Adam, and I know that if You want to, You can bring Linda to me.”
The very next day, Linda drove into town!
She was moving to Boston, Massachusetts, and had stopped in Columbus to spend the night with my pastor and his family. When my pastor called to tell me Linda was in town, I drove over right away to see her. Nervously, I confided in my pastor that God had told me I was going to marry Linda. He wisely counseled me not to say a word to her and to entrust it to God. “If it is God,” he said, “it will come to pass.”
Linda went on to Boston and was soon working as a catering manager at Harvard University while helping a new church reach college students in the Boston area. Six months later, that church contacted me about moving to Boston to be their pastor.
At that moment, I realized my destiny was tied to that church and, most likely, to Linda as well.
Linda and I got married at Harvard University that same year, and together we pastored that church for seven years.
From time to time, we would plan mission trips over the summer or spring break. And whenever students would ask me if I thought their investment of time would be worth it, I’d reply with a big smile on my face, “You never know who God will save as you commit your time to Him!”
You may think salvation is simply a prayer you pray during a church service, but for me, it is so much more.
Salvation is God’s doorway into a whole new and exciting life of faith. Faith to launch into the unknown. Faith to invest my vacation time in ministry ventures. Faith to talk with God. Faith to believe Him for a wife, a family, and a future.
Salvation results in a new mindset and the belief that, with God, all things are possible.
Salvation has opened my life to a new adventure of faith I could have never imagined.
Today, I encourage you to open your heart to God’s fresh direction for your life.
One whisper from heaven can change your life forever.
What adventure of faith does God have for you?
Only He knows the lives that will be saved and changed forever as you walk out your adventure of faith with Him.
“Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all.” – Helen Keller
Memory Verse
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. Ephesians 2:8–9
