First Speech

So I'm going to share my first speech that I shared with my public speaking class. Read if you wish.

William Arthur Ward, a prominent Christian writer, once wrote, "We must be silent before we can listen. We must listen before we can learn. We must learn before we can prepare. We must prepare before we can serve. We must serve before we can lead." Who am I? It’s a question the plagues people from the early stages of life and for some into the later years of their life. It took time to come to this realization that my life’s calling was to be in service to God and in turn be in service to His people. When I was eight years old I walked up to my dad after a church service and told him I wanted to be a pastor. I remember feeling this pull on my heart that I was to be in ministry. That moment in history has governed and changed so many choices that I’ve made in my life.

My entire time on this earth has been a journey of discovering how this was going to happen and if being a pastor was something that God called me to be. In High School I was challenged to figure out my career in life, what was I going to become to the world? I was faced with decisions of whether or not I was going to be a graphic designer, or to study film, or perhaps become a computer programmer. I wasn’t going to take this decision lightly, so I decided to go to Bible College while I traveled in another part of this world. Though it has been a life time of learning, I believe my time spent at Hillsong College in Sydney, Australia from January to December of 2007 has been the most challenging and life changing period of my life. Through that time, I discovered just a glimpse of who I am in Christ. In order to become the greatest in His kingdom, I must become the least. Throughout my year there God was consistently speaking to me about my heart and where it stands with him. God wanted me to be a servant, a servant to Him and His people. While I was in Sydney, He presented opportunities before me that may have looked boring and mundane, but in doing these, it helped bring glory to His name. It took awhile for me to take a step down and be the least and it is still a challenge to me even today. How am I going to put others before myself? Each day I pray that God will give me an opportunity to glorify His name with the people around me by how I act, talk, and relate with others. It’s important to me for people to feel accepted and loved, especially in the community of Christ. We should be a community of believers that aren’t afraid to love and serve the least of these in our world.

Discovering who you are as a person I believe is one of the most important things that can be revealed to you in your life. Understanding the gifts, talents, and even the quirks that God made you with and the fact he wants you to excel in everything you do. It might take days, weeks, or even years just to find out the basics of who you are. The pursuit of finding out who you are, is a journey that will always be in progress, always changing, and ever exciting. In knowing who I am as a person, it has allowed me more freedom to live my life without worry or guilt than I could have ever possibly imagined.