God once asked me to give up something I thought He had given me. It meant more to me than anything else. I had desired it for years. It was to work for a particularly well-known evangelist, one I dearly loved.

My wife and I had been offered positions on staff as assistants to this man and his wife. Not only did I love this man, but I also saw it as God’s opportunity to bring to pass the dream He had implanted deep within me-that I might preach the gospel to the nations of the world.

I fully expected God to say yes to this wonderful offer, but He made it clear that I was to turn it down. I wept for days after refusing this offer. I knew I had obeyed God, yet I did not understand why He had asked such a hard thing of me. After weeks of bewilderment, I finally cried out, “God, why did You make me put this on the altar?”

He quickly answered my cry: “To see if you were serving Me or the dream.”

Only then did I understand that I had been tested. In the midst of it, I had not realized what He was doing. The only things that kept me from going my own way was my love for God and my fear of Him.

Excerpted from The Fear of the Lord by John Bevere, Charisma House 1997, p. 175. Www.charismahouse.com  Used with permission.