In case you didn’t know, last year (to the day) I got the honor of picking up my ministry partner | roaddawg | fellow Linkboy | BFF from prison... the infamous Austin (Boogey) Carey!!!!
It was an experience that I cannot sufficiently put into words.
And I’m not even jokin... think about this... to be locked away in prison for years, deprived of most everything that makes us social humans; confined to an atmosphere of crooked cops, bitter staff, and societies most problematic group of people (hints to why they kicked us out of society).... to live in these conditions for years with only a faint hope that things are going to be different this time...
Well it was in the middle of this madness that I got to experience the life changing Power of Jesus Christ! Who, meeting me right there in a prison cell, right there in the midst of all my hurts, habits and hang ups, began transforming my life from the inside out... until one day what I developed on the “inside” got “out” (what a beautiful day that was)!!!
A few years into my transformation, and following a great revival of sorts at our institution, I had found myself in a year long... desolate boneyard... that composed one of the most exhausting and discouraging years that I had faced in ministry.
I had been the youth Pastor there for a while at that point, and had experienced a lot of internal wars, refuting legalism, and one treacherous display of division...
That year SUCKED... no other way to put it...
I wanted to quit so bad so many times that I KNOW, WITHOUT A DOUBT, that it was only due to the sovereign power of God that He sustained me through it all... and kept me in position...
But for what????
Along come Austin (Boogie) Carey!!! My Timothy, for those of you who know the scriptures, and for those of you who don’t, he is quite amazingly that one student that the teacher will never forget... he is the one student that always did his homework, payed attention in class, remained pliable to the Teachers correction, and somehow took root and blossomed into a beautiful tree that has provided good fruit for entire villages!!!
Austin and I have been in sooooo many battles together, along with a few against each other; yet our friendship and brotherhood has miraculously withstood it all, and has become more solidified because of it!!!
Austin has come so far from where I found him AND EVERY SINGLE OUNCE of this success comes solely from the Power of Jesus Christ... not me.... not him.... not you... but solely through the Sovereign Lord Who has orchestrated His entire story.... the One Who has masterfully created each one of us in a unique way, so that when He weaved us into Austin’s story, He was able to braid us into his areas of weakness!!!
And that process, is ultimately what fortified him into the Man of God that you see today....
We all have played a part, but it’s important to note that we are merely instruments in Gods grand orchestra.... and that without Him, we are merely tuneless hunks of wood and metal collecting dust on a shelf!!!
