The phone rang. "Gary, it's for you. I think it's the church secretary." My heart skipped a beat—and not in a good way. I knew what she wanted. It was the third time she had called.

I had agreed to preach the sermon for our pastor who had been called out of town. I wasn't a preacher and had only preached one sermon in my life. That was the summer we worked in Philadelphia with Doug and Carole Kilcher. That had been nine years earlier.

Fresh out of college, Maryann and I were given the opportunity to serve as the receptionist and media director for the Better Living Center and the youth ministries coordinator for Bucks County—positions that were in line with our long-range career goals and for which we both had experience. Doug and Carole were wonderful mentors, but after five months of seeing ministry close up, and from the inside out, we decided it was not the life for us.

We left Philadelphia to return to Ohio, where Maryann continued in administrative secretarial work and I pursued my interest in television as a producer/director. My experience of being one of the first medical reporters for a local news broadcast gave me confidence in public speaking. Now, as the president and CEO of a television production company, recording studio and advertising agency in South Florida, I thought, How difficult could it be to preach a sermon?

The secretary was on the phone, for the third time, and I still didn't have a sermon. I lied and told her that I hadn't quite finalized on the title to my sermon yet, and would call her first thing in the morning. It was Wednesday night, and no sermon. Not even an idea of a sermon.

I had been thinking about what to preach for the past two weeks, but had yet to pick up the dusty Bible on the table at the end of the couch. Since my own imaginations had come up empty, I brushed the dust off the black, pure-grain cowhide and flipped through the pages during commercials. Sometime during one of the late night shows I realized the urgency of the situation and turned off the TV.

For the next several hours I turned the pages looking for a sermon—page after page of strange stories and hard to pronounce words, and nothing—not even one idea. The blank half-page at the end of Revelation glared at me like a whitewashed billboard waiting for a new ad. I had literally turned every page and found not a single sermon in the entire Bible. How could that be?

By 2:30 in the morning, I realized my inability to accomplish this simple task with my own resources. I was desperate and offered up a quick prayer.

"God, Your people are going to be at church on Sabbath expecting a sermon. I don't have one. I know we haven't been very close, lately, but if You want them to hear a sermon, You're going to have to give me one. I'm going to open the Bible again. Show me what to preach. Amen."

I held the Bible in my hand, the dry leather absorbing the moisture from my sweaty palms. Cautiously, I let my thumbs overlap on the golden edge of the pages and slowly pulled them apart. My eyes immediately fell on the words, almost as if highlighted by a mysterious light.

"Stand at the crossroads and look: ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But you said, 'We will not walk in it'" (Jeremiah 6:16).

Instantly, a movie clip appeared on the big screen in my mind—the image of my granddad sitting in his favorite chair by the window, Bible opened in his lap. His gnarled and calloused carpenter's fingers gliding gently across the page—his eyes following slowly line by line. He'd stop and gaze out the window as if savoring every thought. After some time, his eyes would drop back down to the page and he'd read it again, or move on as the Spirit directed.

I could see my granddad sitting there every morning, noon and night. He wasn't just reading through his Bible; he was having conversations with God—intimate, deep and unhurried. His closeness to God and his devotion to time and word stood as an indictment on my own life.

"But you said, 'We will not walk in it.'"

'Tis I! Not that I had actually said it! I just lived it.

I realized I was standing at a crossroads. I was troubled and conflicted. My faith and my work were in constant tension—compromise for cash. You have to make payroll, right?

"Ask where the good way is and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls."

Rest! That's what I needed. That's what I secretly longed for. Relief!

The rest of the night, we just talked—God and me. Going over some old paths—some not so old. It was an arduous journey, but by morning I was feeling at rest—not my eyes, mind you—my soul.

I called the secretary at eight and blurted out, "I have my title! 'Consider the Ancient Pathways.'"

Sabbath morning I stood before God's people with a sense of euphoria—like one feels after a good cry, fresh and clean on the inside. It was the easiest and simplest thing to share my 2:30 a.m. encounter with God a few nights before. And I didn't just share it with the church, I called family and friends, too.

That night at the crossroads, I made a turn. Who would have thought, certainly not I, that a couple of years later I would be giving a sermon to God's people three times every Sabbath—before lunch?

My family and close friends had come up to our district for the weekend to kind of initiate our ministry. It was a long day—full of emotions. I was sitting alone on the family room floor, reflecting on the path my life was now taking. Mom was still up, and she came in to join me.

We talked a bit about the day, the people in our churches, and how good God was. Then she asked, "Do you remember that time you had to preach, and couldn't find anything to preach about?"

"I sure do," I replied.

"Do you remember when that was, exactly?" I wondered where her question was going.

"Sure." I reached for my executive calendar book on the shelf in front of us. Flipping through the pages, I landed on the date with the notation, "preach," and pointed it out to her.

"I thought so," she said with a smile.

"Why?" I asked.

"Well, the Lord woke me up one night and urged me to pray for you. I didn't know why, or what to pray. So I opened my Bible (her Bible was never dusty) and when I came to Jeremiah 6:16, I got the strongest message, 'Pray this for your son!'"

Gary Burns is the communication director of the Lake Union Conference.