I was 23 years old and had just won a sales award when the call came.  It was a Wednesday morning because I called every Tuesday to check status.  I took it!

As a kid growing up my passions were many but if able, fishing and hunting topped the list.  I had a friend in high school whose father was in the hunting and fishing industry.  My dream job.  I thought!  My friend’s dad became a patient mentor to me, exposing me to business, better food, golf, fine living (perspective), entrepreneurialism and goal setting.  

I desired to work for a wholesale sporting goods distributor of hunting, fishing and outdoor equipment.  The specific place where my friend’s dad and my mentor had worked before leaving to establish his own company.  So as a young man with no experience beyond a hobbyist with a ravenous desire to learn all that I could about fishing and hunting, my mentor secured me an interview with the company.

“Myron,” the Sales Manager that I was interviewing with said, “go to work in sporting goods retail and gain 10-20 years experience, then come back and let’s talk.”  You see, the typical salesperson at this company was in their late 40’s, with years of sales and industry experience.  I did not have that long to wait.  As we ended the interview, I was told ‘there were no openings and if there were, I was well down a list of applicants desiring a job with the company.  But, stay in touch.’  Bingo!

Tuesdays at 10:00 am.

After that interview I went back to selling auto, life, health insurance and certain securities that I was licensed to sell.  I hated selling insurance and securities, but was really good at it and like so much of life, I was so focused on the future that I missed the invaluable training and preparation that was occurring within my life for ‘next.’

Then began the slog to the job I desired.  I committed with myself to call the sales manager with whom I had interviewed every Tuesday, at 10:00 am and check-in to see if a job was available.  And for the next 15 months I called.  The sales manager became so accustomed to my call that he would answer and say without asking who it was, “still not hiring.”  If he was not busy, we would chat for a few minutes during which I learned his wife’s name, his two kids names, things that his family was doing, things going on at the company.  We became friends.  I took an interest in him, the person, and he in me.

So on that fateful Wednesday morning as I prepared to receive my Gold Record award for sales, the call came from my friend, the Sales Manager.  “Myron, I just fired a guy in a poor performing territory in Northeastern, Ohio.  He earned $15,000 last year.  The job is yours if you want it.”  ‘I’ll take it’ was my immediate reply.

Now I had never been to Northeastern Ohio in my life.  And that year I had earned $43,000 with my current job.  From where I come from, that a “big haircut” going from $43K to $15K.  It did not matter because my eye was on the prize.  My confidence, albeit naive, was high.  My desire, resolute.  My passion, extreme.  My expectation, off the chart.  I had set a goal and achieved it with this one phone call.  This one phone call, the net of 60 weeks of committed calling, rewarded with a 60% reduction in pay and a 100% reward for tenacity, goal setting and vision.

Many of you know the next of my story that has been filled with amazing lows, undeserved highs and inconceivable Grace and Mercy from my Father in Heaven.  I don’t write the ‘rest of my story,’ because my story is a living organism, still emerging on a daily basis.  

I choose today to approach life with a different type of tenacity.  One that finds me mostly in situations of one-on-one with men needing hope, assurance and encouragement.  I find fulfilled contentment in what my Father in Heaven directs and provides.  I find my ‘wants’ giving way to meeting needs of brothers and sisters in Christ as we all seek to share the good news that is Jesus.  My tenacity may be more limited by my physical capacity, but my heart grows as my sphere of influence narrows.

In retrospect, I would have asked for a mentor who guided me spiritually in those early professional days.  When I confronted my father after years of prodigal living on my part asking, ‘why he did not say anything to me about the wrong road that I was on,’ he simply asked, “would you have listened?”  The answer is ‘no.’  Similarly, God knew that I was not in a season of listening when he allowed those years of wrong living to prepare me for the message of hope, grace and mercy that I share today.  The personal brokenness is such a gift in how it rewards me with gratitude and priority today.

“We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance.  And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.  And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.”  Romans 5:3-5 (NLT)

I encourage you to approach life with tenacity.  To reflect Christ in and through your life with the gentleness of a lamb and a fierceness of a lion.  To accept Ephesians 6:12 (NLT) “For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places,” as a life mantra.  Enter the fight and run the race that God has created for you.  

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race,I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.”  2 Timothy 4:7-8 (NIV)

If you’re still breathing, God’s not done using you as his vessel for his Kingdom.  And that my friend, is more than enough.

You’ve got this.