By Tom Claycomb III
God has a way of cutting to the chaff in a minimal amount of words. So to follow His suit, hence the title. I dropped my consulting deal, where for five years I flew out for three weeks and then home for a week, then the last five years flew out for two weeks and home for a week.
So consequently, I now have a more flexible schedule. So it hit me: I want to be used more by God than ever before. I mean come on, if we’re going to be Christians then why halfway do it? When I got my life right with God I told Him I didn’t want to go to church on Sunday and that was it. I wanted a relationship with a God that sent fire down from heaven and blew up stuff. You know, like a red-hot relationship that was on fire. (Turns up, that’s also what He wants.)
I want to be used more. You know, hit another level. Don’t get me wrong, things are great; but once you’ve tasted the things of God, you always want more. I wanted more Christian writing/speaking opportunities. I get to give a lot of outdoor seminars around the country. By the time you’re reading this I’ve probably conducted over 20 seminars this year, mostly at the big shows.
But now I had a more flexible schedule and a desire to do more. Well, suddenly out of the blue I received an invitation to do a two-day Zoom call in which I’d be taught how to hit a new level, have a bigger outreach and more witnessing opportunities. Great! Just what I’d been praying for!
The Zoom call started off with the lady giving her testimony but shortly thereafter it turned into a sales pitch to pay a monthly fee for her software — then I’d become rich, which would give me a bigger platform and have more money and then God could use me more.
What? I’ve missed a lot of witnessing opportunities because I was ashamed of the gospel because of a bad lifestyle, but I’ve never not gotten to witness because I didn’t have enough money. After 1½ hours I hung up.
Shortly thereafter I received another invitation to an upcoming event at the Boise basketball stadium. There was going to be a lot of big-name speakers that I’d heard a lot about and respected.
They told me that they’d help my ministry hit new levels. I’d have a bigger platform and be taught how to be a better and more effective witness for Christ. This one really sounded good.
D-day finally came. Whoa, the first few speakers started off basically on how they did this, that or another and made a lot of money. This event was totally about making money. They had totally misrepresented the purpose of their program. They spoke a little Christianese to make it sound Christian but it was all whitewash.
The veil was torn wide open by noon though. This one guy told how if you bought his software to make good real estate buys — not for the normal $1,099 per month but for a special deal. We’d get rich and could give more money to God’s work, have more money to travel, have more free time and could leave more money for our kids and, oh yeah, be used more by God as a side note. Then he said, come down to one of the designated areas right now and sign up for only $99.99 per month.
There was one speaker that I was really wanting to hear but by now I was up to here and could handle no more. I looked at my buddy and said something about filthy lucre. He didn’t say a word but handed me his cell phone which had a pertinent verse of the same manner pulled up on it. I got up and left, regretting wasting half a day and paying $20 to do so.
I don’t care if you want to do a seminar on how to make money. That’s why we work. But don’t use God’s name and your ‘being a Christian’ to do so. Someone needs to pull the sheepskins off the backs of these wolves that have infiltrated the church!
A month later a marketing firm contacted me. They said they hunt for people they can do something with. They said they could help me get more publications, speaking engagements, etc. They had various levels you could do. At one level they’d fly me to New York and I’d be on five TV shows and get in Forbes magazine, etc.
They were good, no doubt.
After 1-2 Zoom calls, one of their reps asked me what I wanted. I said well, sure, I’d like to write for more outdoor publications and get more outdoor speaking engagements, but what I really wanted was to write for more Christian publications and have more speaking engagements but… I didn’t want to get paid for the speaking. Maybe if I had to fly somewhere they could pay for the plane ticket but I could stay with someone in the church.
This group sounded good but suddenly I got thinking. You know, if Eve hadn’t have eaten the apple, the devil would have come back with a caramel apple! Was this third deal just a watered-down version of the first two? If I want more money I’ll just go back and do more consulting. I don’t want a lot more money. I want to be used more by God.
So I’ve come to three conclusions if I’m going to be used by God.
For more information about anything in this column, contact Tom at tomclaycomb3rd@gmail.com.
