Worth It All for the Call
by Melanie Hemry
Shaun Gustafson took the steps to his meeting two at a time. That’s the way he lived his life—with such zest that he embraced each new day like a long-lost friend. His face alight with good humor, he was the kind of guy who liked to have fun. He loved sports, had been the high-school homecoming king, and was known as the life of every party.
That’s not to say he didn’t have a serious side. Even as a child he’d known he wanted to go into business. He’d made a plan and stuck with it through attending business college. Now working for a mortgage company, he was a rising star—already one of the company’s top employees.
Shaun walked into his cousin’s office and looked out over the St. Paul, Minn., skyline. The snow-wrapped city shimmered in the morning sun like diamonds. As much as he loved his life and enjoyed his job, something on the inside of him had changed. It felt like one minute his life had been a speeding train on a fast track. Then it had come to a screeching halt, backed up and was lumbering to change course.
He could trace the changes back to the day he’d had a radical experience with God. The Lord’s presence had been so powerful that he felt as though electricity had coursed through him, making it difficult to stand.
Shaun looked at his cousin and told him he was leaving to go back to college for ministry.
“Are you kidding? Look! This is my paycheck for two weeks! You’re next in line for promotion.”
The check was for $11,000.
Shaun glanced at the check and then to his cousin’s face.
“I want to minister the gospel.”
Changing Course
“In 1998, I enrolled at a Bible college in Minneapolis,” Shaun recalls. “That same year I married Amy. The Lord told Amy to take a part-time job and invest most of her time praying for our future ministry. This was a hard step of obedience because she had just received her bachelor’s degree and had a full-time position waiting for her. Instead, Amy worked doing makeup for a modeling agency. Our total income that year was $8600.
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BVOV : 15
