When I got to college, I went through the grueling program to
try out for the team and, by the grace of God, I got through all the cuts, and made
a position on the team roster. The
entire process, for me, was terribly difficult - struggling to get enough air in
my lungs during uphill runs, taking body blows from guys stronger than me and
twice my size, and staying pin-point focused on giving 110% to getting my body into
better shape - something that seemed to require much more effort for me than it did for
other players. What I didn't know at the
time, and found out only in very recent years, was that I had underdeveloped
lungs and asthma from the time I was born.
I'm glad now that I didn't know this back then, when my heart was stayed
on fulfilling my childhood dream, even if throwing up blood and fighting to overcome oxygen deprivation would be an endless cost I would have to pay.
During the course of football season as a freshman, I endured
a concussion and various injuries, none of which were uncommon for players at
the college level. Then, I got what I
thought was a pulled muscle in my lower back.
Instead of getting better as I expected, it kept getting worse. It got really bad in the end, during the last
few practices and games. The pain was
excruciating and, every time it would swell, the trainer would put me in the
ice barrel and have me sit there while he would shovel ice over my back. I was constantly having to go in there. The good news was, we finished the year with an undefeated record, won the final game 83 to 3, and were awarded the national
college champion- ship title for our division.
We were elated and having a blast!
The bad news news was, after I went to the hospital and had various medical tests and x-rays, it
turned out that I had been playing with a broken back. I couldn't believe it when I saw the film
from the MRI and heard the doctor say, "Keith, I hate to be the one to
tell you this, but, if you suit up again to play football, there's a good
chance that your next collision in the game may lead you to never walk again. Son, your football career is over." All of a sudden, I was confronted with a
heartbreaking reality that the game I loved more than anything else
in life, at the time, was no longer an option for me. I immediately left the hospital, went back to
the empty football stadium, walked onto the middle of the field, and collapsed
in tears. My hopes and dreams of playing
in the next season of college were just, suddenly, gone.
I
decided not to continue in college. So, I packed up all of my things and drove back to where I lived during high
school. I remember I just felt numb
after that, for a long time.After going through that season of depression, realizing how easily our entire identity can unexpectedly be stripped from us when we become wrapped up in one specific profession, I accepted the fact that I needed to let go of my shattered dream and refocus. It was then that I realized how important it is to have a "back-up profession" just in case of a situation like I now found myself in. For me, I was a drummer, and playing rock-n-roll music was the one thing I loved, next to football. So I got together with some buddies I had played with in bands during high school, and I threw all of my passion into building on my music career... my second love.
As
the result of my playing in local clubs, parties, etc. with a few DC-area rock
bands over that next year, I began to develop a driving passion to do whatever it
would take for me to progress to the next level in music, and earn a place in a
full-time "touring" rock band.
I didn't know it at the time, but my music career, along with all that I
had already been through, is what God would eventually use as the platform for my
ministry.
After
winning a spot with a full-time secular rock band, it didn't take me but a few
years of being on the road until, I became disillusioned by that dead-end way
of life. One night, when I finally had a
"gut full" of the rock-n-roll lifestyle and everything that went with
it, I went to my hotel room instead of going to where the rest of the band
members were partying, next door. That
was the night that I fell on my face before God, and I prayed and asked Jesus
Christ into my heart to be the Lord and Savior of my life. I had prayed for salvation as a boy, when I
was eight years old, but this time I was praying to commit my whole life, and
everything in me, to Christ that night.
Then, I prayed for a second request that I just K-N-E-W was so big that
it would be impossible, even for God, to fulfill. I asked to be the drummer of a "British
Christian Rock band." Ever since I
was a kid, more than any other music, I loved rock-n-roll music that popular British
Rock musicians and bands where known for!
I wanted to represent Christ in my music and, although I never heard of
any "Christian Rock" band before, let alone "British Christian
Rock" band, my dream gig would be to join a group just like that.
As
a result of my "impossible" prayer request, I experienced a series of
miracles that led me to the first-ever British Christian Rock group to come to
America, "The Alwyn Wall Band" from London, England. God did it!
He answered my impossible prayer request... and p-e-r-f-e-c-t-l-y.
Playing
music and praising God on the road with Alwyn and the rest of the guys was a
tremendous privilege and joy; we became like family, a band of Brothers in
Christ, and always on the go. Over the
next year and a half of our touring the country, I began to have a strong
desire to put down some roots. We were meeting
one tight-knit church group after another, joining them just long enough to play
a concert or two, then we were hitting the road again to go to the next city
and state. I began to have the desire to
belong to a Christian community and church family I could call my own.
What
God was about to do next would redeem all of my constant moving from city to
city, my playing music for all kinds of crowds (many who would never grace the
building of a church), and my living in hotel rooms in locations where I had no
ties. He was preparing me to, soon, move
from city to city to help Pastors establish new churches. It all would soon come together like a well-made
plan, despite me and as only God can.
Long
story short, the passports, that Alwyn and the others had, were just months
from expiring, meaning they would have to return to England or apply for
American citizenship. They would have no
choice but to plan for their return home.
At that same proximity of time, I received a request to perform a
founding role in a new church plant, that would lead to another new church
plant, then another, and a fourth one, all of which would mean moving to four
different cities within an 11-year period.
Each
time I accepted an invitation, I gave up jobs, friends, physicians, vehicle mechanics,
and many other things that I had to work very hard to establish each time at
each location. Every move, I would wonder
if this one would be my last.
In
1991, all the moves, meetings, developing new friends and community support, and
giving everything I had to help build the new churches began to weigh heavily
on me. I was growing more fatigued each
day and, if you have ever suffered from fatigue, you know that it can evolve
rapidly into debilitating depression if you aren't careful. It takes a whole lot, sometime, to keep it in
check and under control.
As
a result of the intensity of what I was going through, I remember so clearly being
overcome with it all, and laying in the floor, calling out to God for clarity.
It
was then that I heard Him whisper to me saying, "Open your Bible to the
maps that are in the back of the book." When I did that, He whispered to me, "Now
go to the map that says 'Paul's journey of evangelism'." When I saw the map marking all of the places
where Paul had gone to, for the sake of the Gospel of Christ, I began to weep. I was immediately overcome with God's peace! For the first time, I was made aware -by God
Himself- that my life's path was laid out just as He had directed, even through
those times when I wondered. God had
been leading me, all the way, on a journey of evangelism - just as He had done
with Paul 2000 years ago.
Prophesy!
Just
about a month after God provided me with His revelation about my life journey, He
led me here to Hampton Roads, Virginia where He would bless me with something I
had never been able to enjoy before - laying down "roots." Finally, I had a home, a place where I would
build long-term friendship circles, meet new folks who came to town to visit my
community, find great contractors, mechanics, doctors, and all of the rest of
what it takes to make a place "home."
Confirmation!
Just
weeks after I began to settle into my new "home", I attended a prayer meeting with a new pastor friend, and several other Christian brothers I was getting to
know. We had been in prayer for about
half an hour when my pastor friend raised up, looked over at me, and said that
God had just given him a vision that he was supposed to share with me in the meeting,
right then. Of course, when someone says
something like that to you, especially someone who you have recently met and
have barely gotten to know, you tend to get a little uneasy. However, knowing that I had not shared
anything of my past travels, participation in church plants, or anything else
of my history with him, and discerning that he was a wonderful and trustworthy
man of God, I agreed that it was okay to share it. The vision God gave him is one I think about
often, and it went like this...
My
pastor friend said that he was hovering above a hot, arid, windy desert. When he looked straight down on the desert below
him, he saw a fellow with a shovel digging a ditch about six feet wide and five
feet deep. He said it was amazing to
watch as the man was diligently digging one shovel-full of sand after another, tossing
each one up onto the sides of the ditch. He went on to say that he watched this for
quite a while before he saw a 3-foot-deep wall of water filling in the ditch
behind the man, and following him at a distance of about 10 feet behind him as
he dug. He continued by saying how he
began to notice the banks on both sides of the ditch gradually soaking up the
water as it filled in behind the man digging.
The
pastor said that, all of a sudden, he was being raised up even higher into the
air, allowing him to have an even better "bird's-eye view" of the desert.
As soon as he looked down from this new
height, he said that the ditch he had been watching the man dig went on
continuously for miles and miles, curving and turning in a way that it didn't have
any orderly fashion, or resemblance of form or definitive direction. It was just "snaking" all across
the desert, nonstop. He said he also noticed
that there were very few straight sections the man dug along the way but it was
curved, all over the place.
What
he said next was glorious! He asked me, "Do
you remember the water that was filling in behind the man as he dug?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Well, as the banks of the ditch
became saturated with the gently, but constantly, flowing water it was soaking
up, those banks began to yield countless plants, beautiful fruit trees, colorful
bushes, and super-healthy vegetation of all kinds - all of them containing nourishment and healing
that people needed as they lived there. Most
of the plants that I saw growing, with my own eyes, were varieties of plant
life that were not familiar to me as anything I recognized or had ever seen anywhere
on earth before. They were growing and spreading
all around. All the while, every single
plant was being fed by the pure water that filled the ditch as the man dug."
The next thing the pastor told me was how he saw people, looking like they were
dying of thirst and malnutrition, begin to come from out of nowhere and start
running to the banks of the ditch. Their
faces began to have expressions of joy, peace, and happiness. "The scene was absolutely beautiful
beyond words," he said. The desert
began filling up with the nourishing fruit and vegetable plants, and lots of healthy
vegetation, and trees that gave shade to allow everyone who came to get out of
the hot, scorching sun.
As all of this was
happening, the pastor said he watched everyone as they got to the trees and
water, and was struck by how they began laughing, skipping, and praising God! Then, he said, "I felt myself beginning
to descend from the heights where I had been. As I was floating further from the sky, going
gently toward the ground, I was also drawing closer to where the man was as he was
digging. His back was all I could see as
he was digging, facing away from me.
When I got about ten feet from the man's back, all at once, he stood up
and turned around. That's when I saw
that, Keith... IT
WAS YOU!"
The reason we are sharing this message, is in hopes that, something we have gone
through, or are going through now, will encourage you to continue to persevere and
"press Toward The Mark."
There's no coincidence that we've named this ministry Toward The Mark,
Inc., based on the Scripture passage in Philippians 3. This life on earth is a race, not a wedding dress
room. Keep running! We want to emphasize to you, today, to KEEP
ON GOING! There's nothing worth you giving
up. Keep fighting! Stay on the battlefield and in the fight! Philippians 3:13-14, “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but
this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching
forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize
of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.“
We would like to
close with these words from Paul, from 2 Timothy 4:5-8, “But watch
thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full
proof of thy ministry. For I am now
ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my
course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth
there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous
judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also
that love his appearing.“
Thank
you for staying
connected with us, and following our blog every month throughout the year! We appreciate you and pray you enjoy a
wonderfully blessed week! IN Christ
Jesus,
Read and Re-read Blog: It's the GREATEST MIRACLE You'll Ever See
We INVITE YOU to... take advantage of our other Scripture-based tools to help as “We Press Toward the Mark…” of becoming "one" with our Heavenly Father:
To Show GOD BIG in a World that Sees
Him small… sums
up the reason Keith stepped out in faith to focus on reaching the lost and
strengthening believers everywhere, through Toward The Mark, Inc. Keith and Brenda's prayer is that you will be
encouraged and edified by the Secrets from God's Word that Keith recounts in
our written and recorded products. The
complete collection of original podcasts, music, blogs, books, CDs, and other
resources of Toward The Mark, Inc. are made possible by the prayer and
financial contributions of the TTM Support Family. We'd like to welcome you onboard TODAY!
We INVITE YOU to... take advantage of our other Scripture-based tools to help as “We Press Toward the Mark…” of becoming "one" with our Heavenly Father:
~ Keith Shealy's "Between The Lines" Podcast on Libsyn
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