I guess I could start off by saying that I wish you could all just get inside my head right now and understand or just even see the things that God has done over the last few years.
I grew up in the church. I grew up in the Catholic Church for awhile. I hated it. Hate is too strong, I disliked it. I vowed to have nothing to do with the church when I got older. When I became an “adult.” But then I started to go to a Foursquare church where things were all about “raising the roof” for Jesus, haha.
It’s funny though to see how vowing to have nothing to do with the church when I got older changed as I got older; you’ll see what I mean in a bit. April 9, 2008 was the first time that I inwardly rededicated myself to God. April 9, 2008 was the first time that I decided that the relationship to come with God was a relationship that I wanted to have for myself. Not one lived through my parents. Not one lived through my friends, but one lived through God and me. April 9, 2008 was the day that my life was to be forever changed.
No one told me what was ahead of me though …
Since then though I’ve had other leaders speak over me regarding leadership and that was where I was going. In fact, before I left for college someone from Living Water spoke over me and said
God is speaking through me to tell you that you’re going to be a great leader, but you’re going to want to be that great leader.
I’ll be honest with you, I freaked out because I didn’t know him and yet God spoke through him to me.
To give you a little insight in my head, looking back at that now, I realized that I had no direction in what being a great leader would look like or even mean. So I just tried to be the leader that God called of me. Better yet, I just tried to be the man that God called me to be. In other words, it was as if God had bigger things to tell me, but that I wasn’t ready to hear what he had to say.
Fast forward to the end of my freshman year of college. It sucked. Well, it was great because I had fun, but it sucked. I made great friends and had great times with them, but it sucked. That is definitely not to say that I do not cherish those friends and those memories, but I sacrificed a lot of myself, no, I sacrificed a lot of who I was and what I believed in to have fun and knowing that, it sucked.
I came home even more broken in spirit than when I left nearly a year before. I came home as someone that people had a hard time recognizing. I came home as someone that I had a hard time recognizing. It sucked. My parents didn’t know who I was. I’ve learned though that in times where we are broken is when growth occurs the most.
That’s exactly what happened Summer 2010. I grew in ways that I didn’t think I could grow. Only because when I was at school I didn’t want all of what God could offer me. God stripped me of everything that I was and knew of him to set me new before him. God put me in a place last summer where I began to realize that having a relationship with God wasn’t going to be just a fad, but that He would become my lifestyle. That he would be the one I lived for. That I would make sacrifice’s in His name.
It was last summer when God called me to live a life of Obedience. Sound familiar?My tattoo maybe? That’s what I did. I was obedient to him. In doing so I grew and was stretched even more than I imagined. There were people still speaking over me about this calling of leadership. It got old really fast at one point because I wanted to know more about this calling of leadership and simply put God said
Not now. I’ll tell you when you’re ready. Trust me. Have faith in me.
I had so much faith in him that I switched my major from Biology to Psychology. When I switched my major though I had a lot of time to think why I did it and why I felt like doing it. It started out because I wasn’t happy being Biology, but it became more than that. It came down to the fact that I want to help people. Youth more importantly. I had this calling to work with youth, but I didn’t know what that looked like. In the church? In a school? Counselor? Teacher? I didn’t know. God did though. Like always he knew.
Before I knew it I was home yet again for the summer and I did something I didn’t expect to do. That was I quit my job as a dental assistant so that I could have time to get to work with youth. Correction, that way I could have time to volunteer so I could work with youth. Yeah, I didn’t get paid to do any of this, but I was alright with that.
But yeah, I got to hang out with kids of all ages, elementary to high school. It was great. It was rewarding. It was tiresome. It was worth it. It was exhausting. It was so much fun. With all this fun though I found myself at Kid’s Camp for a week where God finally spoke.
I can tell you what I’ve wanted to tell you all along. I’m calling you to Youth Ministry.
“HOLY SPIRIT!!!” (haha) was my reaction to the whole thing. It felt right, but at the same time I was scared, as I feel I should have been. For the longest time all I knew was that I wanted to do dentistry and become an orthodontist. So to be honest, I didn’t know what to do in order to get where God was calling me to! But he’s been so awesome to bless me and surround me with Pastors that were all over me. In being scared, I had never felt so confident with a calling like this.
There’s a long story, but in short I’m called to do something with Youth Ministry and things are falling into place as I type and as you read. I’d be a fool to dismiss that this has God’s hand all over this.
Thanks for reading all of this? I love you all! I really would like to share more, so with that COME AT ME BRO!
- Rick Andrew Baleros
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