Is This Your "Corner Day?"

Who knows when those days will come that I call "corner days." A "corner day" is one of those days where a definite turn in life takes place, a sentence spoken that stops one dead in his tracks, they can either be positive or not so positive in nature.

Last night I walked into a room where an event occurred 8 years ago that allowed me to make a turn...a "corner day." The room was much the same as I remember it from 8 years ago. A rectangular shaped place with games and books on shelves filling one short wall, windows on a long wall, a huge, exposed, deafening air conditioning unit on the other long wall and I really can't remember even today what was on the other short wall....that short wall was where the "corner day" occurred. Short term mission trips in the Rio Grand Valley have started in this room for years, but this was my first time back in the confines for all these years.

Like last night, 8 years ago, I was with a group of interns preparing to start their summer of service with Mission Discovery here. A lot of laughter, prayer, great lesson from scripture and then I shared my story, how I had given my life to Christ when I was 19 and found the courage to start Mission Discovery following a question from my pastor, "Maury, will God call you to do God sized things, or Maury sized things?" The next day the ministry started. Months earlier I and all of the others in the room (staff and interns) had completed a personality profile test some call the DISC test. Stan Horrell who is on our staff now was the one who administered the test and had the results printed and in his briefcase.

Stan began to hand out the results and as he pass me he leaned over and whispered, "I'd like to talk to you about your test after the meeting." I'm thinking, "Great! I failed a personality test!" The mood continued to be festive in the room as people share the results of the test with the others and commented about how accurate it was. My palms were sweating.

After everyone left, Stan pulled me over behind a portable chalkboard on that other short wall. "You not supposed to be here are you?" he said. "The test showed that?" I thought? "Maury, your test shows that your idea of a good time is to be alone, to work in secret", and the test hinted that people scare me. He waited for my response. "Stan, the test is correct. I am the archetype of the person I invite on our trips." My sister will tell you that I was so shy in high school that I took my first date home at 8:45 pm. I had run out of things to say. It was one of the longest nights of my life! I failed many test in school, not because I didn't know the content, but because I was afraid of test! (I know you are not believing that!) I was a lifeguard in college, 19 year old and my pool manager knew I had never kissed a girl so he offered to have his girlfriend, Sonya, teach me how to kiss. What guy in his right mind would turn that down, no commitment, just one kiss. I turned it down.

It is true that when my pastor Richard Bowden posed his "God sized thing" question, I knew that God had been preparing me for Mission Discovery all of my life. I have stood before thousands of people and spoke, I have performed weddings, led chapel service for the Los Angeles Dodgers, and in every setting my palms sweat, my heart races and sometimes I feel nauseated. "Maury you can't tell by looking at you with people that you are this way. You look comfortable." Stan said. It's not that God has taken me out of my comfort zone, as much as He has taken me out of my preference zone. I prefer weekends along with Ann my wife. As God would have it, Ann prefers weekends out with our friends, parties, any event, any size.

The "corner" that day was a better understanding of how powerfully God had worked in my life. That day Stan opened a door for me to open my eyes to another way God revels himself to me powerfully.

This is not the end of my exploration of this journey of mine. I find it truly amazing how God has used me in life. Friends from school who knew me, my personality, remarked how amazed they are at the work of Mission Discovery. What they are saying is, "Are you sure you started this?" My answer is, "No, I am positive I did not start Mission Discovery....God did! Because I experience His power in my life every day!"

So, ready to take a corner? Will God call you to do a God sized thing or a you sized thing? Take the question for a test drive!