At every turn, I have not always responded to God’s leading. I reflect on the passage from Isaiah 48:17 (CEB), “I am the Lord your God who teaches you for your own good, who leads you in the way you should go.” I believe that God had to do a bit of pushing and shoving because I was too stubborn to be led easily.
I lived a sheltered farm life, enjoying the idyllic countryside. My surroundings were my family’s 1,200-acre ranch in a small valley in western Colorado. I felt blessed to have grown up in such a beautiful place, even though my worldview was somewhat limited.
After a year of college, my father had to give up the farm due to his poor health. Lacking funds, I had to give up my college deferment, deeply disappointed. I was drafted into the military in the fall of 1953, and I found myself on an overnight train to San Antonio, Texas. With an early morning arrival and meal vouchers, a small group of us went to a nearby restaurant for breakfast. Time for my first lesson. We were denied entrance. Why? Because one of our train companions was a person of color. My idealism was torn apart in the face of reality.
After completing basic training, I was assigned as a medic at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. For extra cash, I worked nights as a car hop at a drive-in in Virginia. We were allowed to serve people of color, but only in the back of the parking lot. Again, this hurt my heart.
Fast forward, I married and returned to college with my high school sweetheart, Roxie. It was great to be back in school but was discouraging to be a sophomore and “much older” than my classmates. Discouragement and impatience led me to accept a teaching job at a one-room school in Wyoming. With me holding a teacher’s salary and she not having a degree, Roxie took on housekeeping jobs to help us make ends meet. That was hard for me to take.
After two years in Wyoming, my father, who was doing better and living in Southern California, helped me secure a part-time job in Riverside. This led us to La Sierra College.
My two years at La Sierra started to open my eyes and my heart to a less rigid and conservative Adventism, but I still felt like I didn’t belong in liberal Southern California. I submitted teaching applications to every Adventist Conference in the western United States. Not a single response. My ego was bruised, but I now realize that God must have been guiding (or nudging) me. It appears that God had lessons and work for me in Southern California.
Meanwhile, our family grew with the birth of our son Brian, born with cystic fibrosis, a serious lung disease. Surely, God would now want us to leave Southern California. Smog is bad, right? But his doctor said, “Better to live here where he can be outdoors year-round, than in a cold climate.” God, what now?
Being a slow learner, I next decided God wanted us to be missionaries, to leave this Southern California cultural and religious climate for the mission field. We quickly learned that with a cystic fibrosis child, missionary life was out of the question. Talk about discouraging! Surely to go to the mission field would have pleased God. What did God still have for me to learn? Was He nudging or just putting up stop signs?
Ok, I am a slow learner. Perhaps, just perhaps, Southern California is where God intended us to be. Indeed, I spent over 40 years in Adventist education in Southern California. It was not easy to discard the culture of mid-20th-century Adventism. Despite my rural, small-town, conservative upbringing, I was enriched by my experiences in education in Southern California.
Shortly after retirement, I became involved in the church’s community service. Me? I thought that was just for the ladies. But God had not finished teaching me.
This experience brought me to a new understanding of what true Christianity is. I met individuals and families with limited resources and wondered, “What brought them to this point in life?” I encountered elderly ladies pushing their carts a mile with two bags of groceries. I thought about my nice car, my fine home, and my comfortable retirement. I questioned, “Who really is the least?”
My early Adventist experience, with its emphasis on theology and being the “true” church, needed rethinking. I now realize that Jesus welcomes our worship, after we have learned to think of others, especially those in need. I see that my early discomfort with racism was God’s nudging to care for those placed on the margins.
So, yes, it required more than just leading; it required a little pushing now and then. However, I am grateful that God invested the time and energy to bring me to this place where I could learn and serve. I believe Isaiah 48:17 (my version) speaks to me with its description of a God who leads, nudges, and puts up stop signs—whatever it takes. “He is the Lord my God who teaches me for my own good, who leads, pushes, or shoves me in the way I should go.”
Norman Powell is a retired educator and professor of education at La Sierra University. He is the husband of Roxie, father of Brenda, and grandfather to Tyler, Cortney, and Gabriel.