October 17, 1982 is a date of near infinite importance in the life of my family and the course of our ministry. Aside from the fact that October 17 was my father’s birthday as well as being the birthday of my oldest sister, October 17 marks the day my wife and I took the first step on the journey of a lifetime – a step, I might add, that set the course for our children and their children to come, and a step that brought us into contact with the lives of thousands of other men and women we would not have otherwise known throughout the intervening years.

On October 17, 1982, I was the pastor of a three-church district located in the mountains of Colorado in the towns of Leadville, Salida, and Fairplay. I don’t think I was a very good pastor although I may be being a little hypercritical of myself; I know I was a discontented one. I was a minister in the Seventh-day Adventist denomination, which, if you don’t know it well, is a denomination with a very episcopal organization, i.e., a highly-organized, top-heavy system of bishops, archbishops, cardinals, and a pope although they call these men (and maybe a few women now) conference, union, division, and general conference presidents. My “bishop” viewed me with suspicion. I was then, as I am now, a questioner and a bit of a contrarian so I can’t really blame him. When he hired me, he told me he thought I was too intelligent to be a successful pastor! (To soften the blow to my pastoral skills just a little, the churches loved the wife and me. It was the bishopric that treated me with disfavor.) Every Saturday morning, I would preach a sermon in Leadville where we lived, have lunch with that congregation and then make the hour+ drive to Salida for an afternoon service there. And then, once a month, instead of Leadville-Salida, it would be Leadville-Fairplay where there was a tiny church of one extended family. Anyway, I was an unhappy and discontented pastor who saw no exit from his discontent. God had called me to be a preacher of his Word, and only God could let me off the hook.

My father had died on October 10 and I had flown out to Oklahoma to be with my sibs and to conduct his funeral. I flew back to Colorado on the 17th and met up with an Army Reserve chaplain in one of the Denver churches. There on the 17th of October, 1982, I raised my right hand, took the oath of office to become a Chaplain (First Lieutenant), United States Army Reserve, and signed the document accepting the commission and pledging my fealty to these United States.

The following summer, I attended the Chaplain Officer Basic Course at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. In a mere six weeks I was transformed from being a civilian to being a fully-qualified Army chaplain! Then on September 15, 1984, my wife, three sons, and I drove from Colorado to Fort Hood, Texas where I became the chaplain for the 1st Battalion, 77th Field Artillery Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, and my life and the lives of my wife and children were set upon the course for which God had chosen us to travel and a one far different from one I’d have imagined even a few years earlier..

We know little of the futures decisions made early in life determine for us. I chose to enlist in the Naval Reserve in November 1963 as a 17-year-old high school senior. I chose Submarine Division 12-11 to be my drilling unit because it drilled one weekend a month instead of weekly in the evening. I chose to enlist in the Regular Navy while still 17 after graduation. The Navy chose Submarine Sonar as my rate (job) and the USS Darter and Charleston, South Carolina as my first stop after school. Then after many decisions, both good and bad, God tapped me on the shoulder (or slapped me upside the head) and called me to a life with Jesus.

That call to discipleship brought me into a life of service and into 50+ years of marriage. That marriage, besides giving me the stability of a loving wife and a whole lot of fun, gave the world and the church three wonderful Christian men in strong Christian marriages with growing Christian children. And that decision to raise my right hand on the evening of October 17, 1982 took us to places where our sons embraced Christ, to places where they met and married the fabulous women who are now members of my clan and the mothers of the world’s greatest grandchildren, and to the soldiers and churches and families we have been blessed to serve over the years since.

If you are a youth or young adult, know that every choice you make now will determine the course of your life. Every person befriended, every romance, every career choice or educational endeavor, every choice however insignificant it seems now, are what fixes your future happiness and usefulness to the rest of humanity. Remember my October 17 and choose wisely.