In my company, when we need to hire someone to come and work for us, we put an ad in the newspaper. Many respond. They have to pass different tests according to the position available. We will choose the one that we believe to be best equipped for the job. Yet, we don’t do this without first evaluating certain conditions: for example, his or her capacity to perform the job and that person’s experience.
In general, when it needs a minister, a servant, a coworker, or an assistant, the church looks for a theologian who knows the Scriptures really well, someone with wisdom, skills, and experience. But, what does God look for in a servant? His only requirement is a life entirely surrendered to Him. God doesn’t look for a theologian or a wise man or woman or a dogmatic. God not only looks for abilities or wisdom, but also for consecration and a total and complete surrender to Him. This isn’t something easy to achieve. It’s a struggle that demands our constant, total surrender, and it will require many other things that are hard for us to do.
I remember when God called me to the ministry. The first year I struggled with God because I had only surrendered 90 percent of my life to Him. I had received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, had been going to the hospitals to pray for the sick (who were being healed), had been preaching, and people were being converted; but in spite of all this, there was a part of me that wasn’t totally surrendered to the Lord.
I remember that many had prophesied about the ministry that God had given me. They told me that He was going to send me to other countries, that I was going to be an international evangelist, that all America would hear my voice, and many other things. Yet, I did’t sense a complete freedom in my life to develop this ministry.
One day, God showed me a shantytown in a dream. I asked myself: Could it be that God wants me to go there and preach? My immediate reaction was, “No… I’m not going there.” Once again God showed me a shantytown in a dream. Again I said, “I’m not going there. How can I go to the shantytowns?” That was my struggle — I thought I was going to preach to the rich and famous, but God wanted me to preach to the poor.
I was feeling pretty bad when I realized what God was showing me and how I was responding. One day I told my wife, Maria, “If I decide to give everything away to go to the north of Argentina to preach the gospel with only what we have on our backs, would you follow me?” She answered, “If this is what you sense God is telling you to do, I will come with you. I will follow you wherever you go.”
I really thought that was what God wanted, until I finally understood that His will was for me to preach Christ in those places, to those people. I soon realized that I wasn’t interested in my material possessions any longer. I had lost the unhealthy love I had had for my company, which, until that moment, had been my life. When I removed the I and changed the priorities in my heart, He sent me to evangelize the poor.
We preached in the most outlying sectors of the city, under the rain, in the middle of the mud. That’s how the ministry started. There I held crusades among thieves, perverts, in the midst of every kind of sin. Maria and I had rain boots in the car for the rainy days when we had to walk in those streets full of mud. But, we preached with such joy!
God needed my total surrender. That’s the first step. If there isn’t a total surrender, He can’t use us. It’s not about our conversion or the baptism of the Holy Spirit; God wants a life entirely consecrated to Him. He is looking for one who will say, “Lord, wherever You send me, I will go.”
(From the book Listen to Me, Satan! By Carlos Annacondia in 1998, pg 21-23)