When I was in high school (Insert your testimony here), I decided I wanted to be a nuclear physicist and make $100,000 a year. I think I decided on nuclear physicist because I liked my physics class and it sounded cool. I had no idea how much money $100,000 was but it seemed like a lot and I wanted to be financially successful. Needless to say, God’s call to the ministry or the mission field wasn’t in there anywhere.

I worked hard in school and during my senior year, the Lord opened the door of opportunity for me to go to the Air Force Academy. My first year at the Academy, I decided I wanted to be a doctor, so I entered the Pre-Med program. Somewhere during my senior year, I decided that since I enjoyed visiting my girlfriend downtown more than I did studying hard to go to med school, I changed my major to Biology, took some easier courses to get my GPA up and fell back on the option of entering pilot training after graduation. Little did I know that this would lead to me discovering my passion in life…flying.

I worked hard in pilot training and pursued a flying career for the next nineteen years of my life in the Air Force. I became the best fighter pilot and instructor pilot I could become. Along the way, I pursued ministry opportunities as well. I was an Associate Pastor in a Nazarene Church and pastored there twice in interim between pastors. I preached just about everywhere anyone asked me to and especially enjoyed preaching at Methodist Churches in England where the Wesleys had preached on the “circuit ministries.” Everywhere we went, Cheryl and I involved ourselves in ministry opportunities while I advanced in the Air Force. I taught Sunday School classes, was a minister of music in one church, sang in choirs and used the finances the Lord provided to help numerous missionaries along the way.

In 1995, upon retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force, the Lord opened the door for me to become an airline pilot at UPS. Again, while working hard in my career to advance as an airline pilot, I also used every opportunity for ministry I could find. I have been an elder in two churches, preached and ministered multiple times as well as taught Sunday School and Bible studies, ministered in music and increased my participation in the BMA. The Lord also used us to bless scores of ministries and missions over the years with financial and prayer support. In addition, for the last 15 years of our lives we have been intimately involved in local, state and national politics in the Republican Party. Now, at 62, I am getting ready to retire from my position as an airline Captain and use the time God gives us to better bless ministries we have already invested into.

I would say that Cheryl and I have found God’s purpose and plan for our lives. But, as you might have surmised from the first paragraph of my testimony above, many times, I had absolutely no clue about where the Lord was leading me. We just trusted him and moved where He opened opportunities for us to move. Psalm 37:23-24 tells us “the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord; and he delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the Lord upholds him with his hand.” I do not claim to be a “good man” in the way our society might judge it. I have fallen many times, but I believe that I can testify that the Lord has ordered our steps.

Ultimately, I could not teach about how one can find God’s plan and purpose for his life without teaching from my life verse, Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths.” Cheryl and I have found this Scripture to always be true in leading us in God’s path and plans for our lives.



1. We have to trust the Lord and do it with all of our hearts. I have always found that, although I might not see the way ahead, the Lord has a plan. If I trust him completely, without reservation, He has always proven faithful and demonstrated His willingness to direct my path.

2. Not leaning on my understanding of where we are going was a hard part for me. My “type A” personality wants to “make” the way. It is so tempting for us to tell God the right way to go or make plans because we think we know best. Now, at this point, I have to say that God generally does not open doors of opportunity for us that we are not prepared to walk through. I would never have gone to the Air Force Academy had I not spent my high school years working hard to get good grades and participate in just about everything I could sign up to do. I could not have been given the opportunity to work for UPS as an airline pilot had I not worked hard as a pilot for the Air Force. This doesn’t mean he doesn’t miraculously open up doors we never thought would be available to us. It does mean, however, that He always expects us to work. I know that “work” is sometimes labeled as a dirty four-letter word. But I don’t see anywhere in the Bible where God tells us we can drift through life and let Him do it all for us. We are in partnership with Him for our lives and He wants us to always do our best. What this passage does tell us is that part of trusting Him with all of our hearts means looking for His leading along the way and not insisting on having it our way all the time. The time for us to trust our understanding of God’s way is when He reveals it to us. Then, we must be faithful to follow that leading.

3. In all our ways, we must acknowledge Him. That’s where the “rubber meets the road.” You can tell that I have always had a degree of pride in what I do. Unholy pride, however, does not acknowledge Him….it acknowledges me! Pride is an easy thing to get into when you are doing well. But the Bible tells us that “pride goeth before a fall” for a good reason. I have had plenty of falls along the way. And I could usually point to the fact that in whatever I had failed at, I was definitely not acknowledging Jesus at the time. Our time, finances, talents all belong to Him. When I want to use them for me, I stop acknowledging Jesus. The general test of asking myself, “does what I am doing acknowledge Jesus?” almost always lets me know if my life is going in the right path.



Samuel knew that the Lord was directing his life because he heard God’s voice. David was picked for his kingdomship while he was out tending sheep. Samson knew from his early dedication what path God had chosen for him. He didn’t always follow it, but he knew what it was supposed to be. Paul thought he was preparing through a life of dedication to God for what he was supposed to do in his life. He, unfortunately, had to be knocked off his donkey and blinded before he really found out. Peter was fishing. And although there were many lessons he learned from his occupation that later paid off in becoming a fisher of men, it was a close, intimate contact with Jesus that revealed what the Lord really wanted him to be.

As Christians, we don’t always know where we should go next or which path we should take. But it has never failed that if I trust the Lord implicitly, look for His leading and don’t rely on my own understanding to dictate what I do and where I go, and if I do everything, spend every dollar, speak the way He wants me to speak and guard my faith and trust in Him every time, He directs my paths. I have a lifetime of experiences to prove it!

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Churches and Ministries - Missions - Youth Camp - Conferences - BPH - Leadership - Doctrine - History - Doc Varnell

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