I’ve heard it said that we can never receive the full blessings that God has for us until we’re willing to let go of the lesser things we tend to hold so fast. The past month, since my announcement that I am leaving the newspaper business, has been a long lesson in letting go.

Letting go of control.

Letting go of position.

Letting go of pride.

At times, it has felt as if God was prying my fingers loose from these things, and I haven’t always handled the changes as well as I would have liked. Pride is a powerful thing, and I never realized until this past month how much pride I had wrapped up in this position as editor of my hometown newspaper. Releasing control of all that position entailed has been a hard thing.

But my identity is in Christ, not in newsprint. My greatest calling is for His kingdom, not my own. And my love for Him and His kingdom requires me to adopt a new and complete spirit of humility and service.

Those are the things that I have begun to understand through this season of transition.

When I began the application process for Dallas Theological Seminary almost a year ago, it was with the full realization that there was very little chance of my being accepted into the school. My incomplete and abysmal college experience left me without one of the primary prerequisites for pursuing a master’s degree: a bachelor’s degree.

But God kept drawing me back to the process, and by His grace, I was accepted into what I later learned was one of the best seminaries in the nation.

I am overwhelmed by His grace and mercy, stunned at the things He can accomplish. “With God, all things are possible.”

So here I am, one week away from leaving behind a newspaper career that has defined much of the past 32 years, and I’m looking ahead in wonder at the possibilities.

A month from today, I will be in Haiti, beginning a six-month period of service with Supply and Multiply, a ministry that serves the elderly and others in Montrouis, Haiti. My wife and mother will remain at home — we are thinking of this as a sort of deployment — and I will take my classes online for the period while I’m gone.

While I am in Haiti, I will serve our elderly residents, our staff and people of the community. I have taken off the Boss Hat, and I am putting on the servant’s cloak. I seek for God to continue to humble me through the process and to prepare me for a future ministry position in which I can serve Him and others in a way that just wasn’t possible as a journalist.

For many years, I have shared good news with people around Virginia. Now, I am excited to be able to devote my life to sharing the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Having let go of those things I held so dear, I now find my hands cannot contain the blessings God is pouring out.