By Pastor Dan
From the outside looking in, it may appear that I’m a bit crazy. But, this decision is another link in the chain of this faith-walk that the LORD has led me on since I began following Him in January 2007.
Since becoming a Christian, I’ve always been enraptured with the faith-walk of our Patriarch—Abraham. His walk of faith and obedience to the LORD has always been before me as the way I’m supposed to walk with Him as well. This has led me to walk by faith with the LORD in ways that have been ‘outside-the-box’.
In 2007, I obeyed God’s call to leave my dream job working with race horses in Auckland to instead begin studying for the purpose of preaching and teaching His word to others. In 2009, the LORD led me to the OAC School of Evangelism in Hawkes Bay, and consequently a role as a Trainee Evangelist. During this year I withdrew the last dollars from my bank account and came to know what it was to truly only have the LORD, and for Him to be enough.
In 2010, the LORD led me to study at Pathways. At the end of 2010, God called me to study at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. Many told me I needed a backup plan. Many dissuaded me from taking this step. But I knew the LORD was calling me to go there, so I trusted Him. When I received my acceptance letter in February 2011 after an extensive application process and three months of waiting, I was encouraged afresh that I do indeed hear the LORD’s voice in my life.
I then trusted God to provide the finances to cover my first year so that I could get a visa. I was diligent to do all I could to get what was required. I didn’t ask anyone for finances because I knew the LORD would provide what I needed to be where He wanted me to be. One day after prayerfully-seeking the LORD much like I had each day beforehand, my Grandad came to me out of the blue and told me he wanted me to know my bill was covered — I was taken aback — and not just for one year, but for the four years. God exploded my understanding of who He is and His provision as — in an instant — He provided for my entire Undergraduate education.
In 2012, I obeyed the LORD’s call to enter into a relationship with my now wife, Lizy. It’s been a challenging road for us, but in the might of our great God, we were married in May 2016 and we’ve since celebrated 2 years of marriage and the birth of our firstborn son, Isaiah!
In 2015, we obeyed God’s call to leave an offered pastoral position at our church in Chicago where I’d served for two years and completed a pastoral internship, to instead return to New Zealand, specifically Palmerston North, where we had no church and knew no believers, we would have the LORD alone. Despite not understanding the exact ‘why’, and consequently upsetting many, we obeyed. Although Lizy got detoured to Turkey for 1 year due to NZ visa issues.
After providing me with a job at Massey University at the end of 2015, the LORD then called me to leave in 2017 to instead volunteer in a full-time pastoral/discipleship capacity at our church in Palmerston North. In 2018, I was blessed with the privilege of accepting an official role as an Associate Pastor. And now, as 2018 draws to a close, I heed the LORD’s call to leave this current role and follow Him in joining this RELOVUTIONARY church plant.
In all of this, I hope to communicate that this isn’t a one-off spontaneous decision. This is a lifestyle of walking by faith and obedience to God. I/We want to be where God calls us to be. I thank God for giving me a wife who loves Him and trusts Him in the same heart that I do. If Lizy didn’t trust God in this way, then I couldn’t walk with Him the way I’m supposed to. And so, the Schwamm family walk in this fresh step of faith and obedience, trusting that the LORD will accomplish His will in and through us — whatever that may be. We wear no rose-tinted glasses as we follow our King.
This journey will be what He’s determined it to be. Whatever He has planned for us will be for our good, whether it feels good or looks good outwardly, or not.
And so we trust Him; and so we walk with Him.