I didn’t come from a household of preachers. I also didn’t come from a particularly religious family. But God reached down and called me to preach. I told my folks and everybody I knew what He had done.
One night, I remember my father and a friend of our family sitting out on the patio talking. The friend was a man that I admired and respected very much. He said to my father, “What’s Adrian going to do when he gets out of high school?” And my dad responded, “Well, he wants to go off to college and study to be a preacher.”
That man just laughed and said, “He won’t make it. He’ll never stick it out. He’ll quit.” That went into my heart like a poisoned arrow. I almost felt like crying. The words reverberated in my ears, “He won’t make it.”
You know, that hurt. That’s what the world says, “They won’t stick it out. They won’t make it.” You see, the devil hasn’t changed his tactics. Not at all! He’s still mocking. He’s still laughing. And if you do a work for God, you might as well get ready. You’re going to face some ridicule.
2 Corinthians 4:7-10 encourages us, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.”
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