Called to Live

By Billy Coleman

God's call for each of us is to live every day of our lives…every moment…for His glory. "Called to Live" is about serving Christ through relationships while placing our own relationship with Him as the top priority of our life. In his heart, Billy Coleman is a storyteller, and he brings many of his stories to this book. As an athlete, a teacher, coach, principal and superintendent of education, Billy brings a unique challenge to each of us to serve Christ "in the world", wherever we are. "Called to Live" is for all ages in all walks of life. In Christ, one person can change the world, and it is our prayer each of us can become that one person! As we live each moment of our life, may God richly bless your journey with Him!

"Called to Live" is the true account of Billy Coleman's response to Jesus Christ. It is one thing to write a book, quite another to live it out in a day to day relationship with every level of society. Anyone seeking a closer walk with the Master will find Billy's book to be a spiritual road map. I encourage you to find time to live through the real life experiences of one who has and continues to hear and answer the "call to live". Bert Goodwin Minister and Spiritual Director- Walk to Emmaus Community of the Mantle and Spiritual Academy Forum

I started reading "Called to Live" one Sunday afternoon and finished it the next day. I could not put it down. What a great book about real life. I thought the chapter on "Living the Moment" was right on the money. The journey is the real learning part the Lord wants us to focus on. "Called to Live" is about our journey with Christ!

H. Russell Lester III, National Board of Directors, Youth for Christ

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098099145

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Called to Live

Billy Coleman

Copyright © 2021 by Billy Coleman

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Called to Live

Relationships

The Better Way

Emptied to Be Filled

Building Bridges at Home

Building Bridges with Others

Who’s to Blame?

Being a Priest

Living the Moment

Seventy Times Seven

Bumps on the Road

Never Too Late

Called to Live

Chapter One

Called to Live

And He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.

—2 Corinthians 5:15

I made a commitment to accept Christ as my savior and to serve Him when I was very young. And while there were certainly strong emotions surrounding that commitment, it was just as much a practical decision that pointed my life in a certain direction. Here I am many years later, still going in that direction. Of course, there have been times when I have gotten offtrack for a while—where my priorities have gotten out of whack. But Christ has always been there, always close enough to keep me moving in His direction, regardless of how slow I might be going. His love has always been strong enough to pick me up and not allow me to quit. His grace is always enough to overcome my faults and failures. His forgiveness is always enough to deliver me from captivity. I’m not as close as I’d like to be, but I think I’m closer than I used to be, and that’s something. He has provided purpose and strength the entire trip and a whole lot of joy and excitement.

I must admit, however, that there are and have been other loves in my life…like sports.

I have always loved all kinds of sports. When I was in high school, I participated in as many as I could, which were three. I played football in the fall, basketball in the winter, then came spring training football, then tennis in the spring, and then spring practice in basketball. Of course, during the summer, I practiced my sports as well as fished, and during the winter, my dad and I enjoyed hunting together. My parents quickly found that my love for sports was great insurance that I make good grades. Their expectations for me were very high, and all they had to do was mention, No As, no play, and I was well on my way to the honor roll.

As a Christian, I found that sports provided an opportunity to witness for Christ. I wish I could say that spiritual goal was always foremost on my mind. Too often, the game took over first place, but sometimes He really used my life, and when He did and when He does, that is the ultimate victory. Coach Tom Calvin, my football coach and a legend in Alabama high school football, let me do a couple of devotions for our team when I was a senior. I was the chaplain of the Sylacauga High School letterman’s club. I began speaking in churches when I was fifteen and preached my first sermon, if you could call it that, when I was sixteen. It was during this time that I began to think about what God wanted me to do with my life, what He was calling me to do.

After high school graduation, I went to the college of my dreams, a member of the powerful Southeastern Conference. And of course I would walk on and contribute to one of the sports teams, right? Well, sure. At 145 pounds soaking wet, I would certainly make a glorious addition to some varsity team. I first went and talked to the football coach. I had been told that I was very fast, but I found out that in the SEC, there were guys who were very fast who were also very big! And on top of that, they were very mean. I went to check out basketball practice, and to my dismay, SEC basketball players are very tall. Besides, at the practice I attended, two guys went after a loose ball in the stands, got into a fight, and one knocked the other’s front two teeth out. My mom had spent a lot of money on me in high school for braces, so I felt led to go out for the tennis team. I practiced with the tennis team my freshman year and really enjoyed it. But like so many other times in my life, God’s blessings would come through people. My decision to play tennis began a lifelong friendship with Reg, another walk-on, that never would have occurred otherwise.

College life was great. I was making good grades, things were going pretty well in tennis, and I got to go watch all the great sporting events. I was rooming with some of my closest friends from high school. My parents would come down on football Saturdays, and in the South, it just doesn’t get any better that that.

However, spiritually, there seemed to be an emptiness that to this day is very hard to describe. It’s not that I was doing anything wrong; Christ was very much a part of my college experience. Because of Him, my love for sports, and the guidance of my parents, I had never been exposed to the kinds of temptations that many young people fall into. But sometimes I think we too often consider sin as things we do, maybe bad things. Many times, the sins of omission are the ones that slowly move us away from Christ. I just didn’t think I was actively doing anything for Him. I was going through the motions of being a Christian, not really being His person.

Between studying and practicing tennis, I began reading the book In His Steps, a story about a group of people who decide to base all the decisions in their lives on the question, What would Jesus do? I was fascinated by the impact this decision had on their lives and felt that I needed to somehow respond to the emptiness I was feeling. I decided that I would take one year of my life, and to the best of my ability, I would try to make my every decision based on what I thought Christ would do.

To help hold myself accountable, I decided to keep a diary of each day’s decisions. Each night, I recorded the events of the day. After the first couple of weeks, my list of decisions was not very impressive. Today I was getting beat pretty bad in tennis. I decided that Jesus would not get mad. Or how about, Today I decided to park farther away from class so someone else could have the closer parking place. I mean, those are certainly positive things, but something inside of me wondered if I was just playing a game with God. You know some of us are pretty good at that. On a Thursday night, I wrote, In my heart, I believe that God is going to put me to the test. He is going to find out how serious I am about my commitment.

Friday morning I got my answer. The phone rang.

Hello?

Yes, hello, is this Billy Coleman?

Yes, sir.

Hey, Billy, this is Jack Edgar, district superintendent. How are you doing?

Fine, Dr. Edgar. I’m surprised to hear from you. I knew Dr. Edgar when I had been the youth pastor of a church in his district while I was I high school. He was a wonderful Christian man.

Well, I’m a little surprised to be calling. Listen, we’ve got a church just south of Birmingham whose minister left three weeks before the end of the conference year, and we need someone to fill in these last few weekends. I thought of you. I know you do a lot of speaking, and I think you could really help us out. You could come up on Friday nights and go back after church on Sunday nights. Would you consider that? Hello… Billy?

My silence lasted a few more seconds. It wasn’t the request. I was more than willing to do that. After all, it was only three weekends. More than that, it was the awareness that God was active in my life and very much aware of the commitment I had made. God, the maker of the universe, was really interested and involved in my little insignificant life. I thought about what I had written the night before and thought, Hey, I even have it on paper!

What would Jesus do? I was excited. I know it was only for three weekends, but I was going to give it everything I had. I remember walking into the parsonage on that first Friday night. I mean, it was a whole house, with a kitchen and two bathrooms and everything! On Saturdays I would visit in the community and conduct the services on Sunday. The people at Mount Tabor United Methodist Church were great. They seemed excited that I was excited. It seemed that the last few years had been difficult at the church, and they were just glad to have me there. We had Sunday school, morning and evening services, and then I would go home. The three weeks flew by.

Then came the second phone call.

Hello?

Billy, hey, Jack Edgar again. Listen, I’ve met with the pastor parish relations committee, and they want to know if you would consider being their pastor for the year. They feel God has led you to their church. Would you consider that? Hello, Billy?

This time, the silence was longer. I mean, those three weekends were great, but wait a minute. All my life I had dreamed of attending this college. What about the tennis team? What about rooming with my friend Reg? What about having the family down to my apartment on football Saturday? These and other questions slowly disappeared, and only one question remained. What would Jesus do?

I was the pastor at Mount Tabor for four wonderful years. At nineteen, you are everybody’s adopted son. Your faults and failures are overlooked, and your new mommas and daddies would fight to defend you. I was welcomed at everyone’s breakfast table…and lunch and supper too, for that matter. We shared our lives together, even took vacations together. And through my imperfections, God used our love for Him and our love for one another to help our church grow and to help our spiritual lives to grow. I met my beautiful wife and her family there. I have lifelong friends at Mount Tabor and in the Westover community. I had to change colleges and didn’t get to play sports, at least not in college. I did teach tennis lessons and played on a pretty mean church softball and basketball team. I commuted to school for four years but didn’t mind it at all. My priorities had shifted. Life was forever changed, and my walk with Christ was growing. By the way, at the end of my yearlong commitment to What would Jesus do? I had to make an adjustment. You see, for a year, I picked up every hitchhiker I saw, and my mom was about to have a nervous breakdown. I look back and think that God was protecting me in my sincerity, but I did promise my mom that I would use more common sense. I regularly thank God for leading me in a decision that forever changed my life.

Through those great four years, I continued to search for God’s call on my life. I felt strongly that He was leading me into a coaching and teaching ministry, and that is what I prepared for in college. In 1978, I graduated from college and prepared to take my first coaching job. Things had gone really well at Mount Tabor, and several good friends in the