I am the younger of two brothers, raised in a pastor's home in which music was a way of life. "Holiness unto the Lord [was] our watchword and song," but it was painfully legalistic at times. The measure of individual holiness was often akin to a continual pharisaical assessment of whether you met the visible requirements. Attire and appearance were paramount. Something was missing. Thankfully, our parents were faithful to the Word such that we knew to search for answers there first. By our teenage years, my brother and I knew Scripture opposed much of what we were experiencing and witnessing – and our parents knew as well. Our exit from that church movement was judicious, but not without some hurt feelings.

I was very self-assured and, although I was mature in some ways, my walk with Christ that began as a child seemed to never get beyond Romans 7:24. My wretchedness within demanded that I busy myself with various pursuits – even religious pursuits – that would keep me from feeling the ache. In spite of myself – prevenient grace at work – He patiently pursued me. When confronted with this Love, over and over I would repent. I sensed He was calling me to something ministerial, but self-rule always interfered. At age eighteen, I intended to attend Hobe Sound Bible College in Florida where my father and brother had attended. God allowed me to experience, for the one and only time in my entire life, depression – deep, dark emptiness. I simply could not function. Just before the fall semester was to begin, I packed-up and headed home to Cincinnati. As I left Florida, the depression evaporated like the morning fog. Back home, I decided I might as well enroll in God's Bible School so as to not be unproductive and there, in the registration line, was my future wife! Cathy and I have now been married nearly thirty-five years and have been blessed with two adult sons.

In the early years, “we were poor, but we had love”. God provided in ways that amazed us time and time again. I launched into a career in technology and pursued it with vigor. Achievement wasn't everything, but it was a powerful drug and it helped mask an ache deep inside. Self-rule continually won-out over surrender. After a couple decades I found myself with the perfect job for my career as an information security risk manager for the world's largest bank. I was careful to thank God publicly and privately through those decades for His goodness, but it was little more than religious lip-service. I even learned to assuage my guilt with shallow repentance when I really had to.

A few years into the new millennium, we found a new church home in our neighborhood. At about the same time, God began breaking through my defenses. The sins of lust and greed that had become too familiar were losing their appeal. As God revealed Himself to me, the awareness of His love grew more and more powerful. I saw what I had become contrasted with the price Jesus paid for my soul and the weight of it all was crushing me. Even my religious works at our new church home were being used by God to expose just how shallow, how hollow I really was inside. When I could no longer stand myself, I cried out to God, begging to know Him in the ways that He had revealed Himself to me.

In the words of Os Guinness, "…love seeks out the seeker – not because the seeker is worthy of love but simply because love's nature is to love regardless of the worthiness or merit of the one loved." (Long Journey Home) Love proved to me the immeasurable worth He placed upon me in spite of my unworthiness!

Oh, the joy! The peace! The love I only thought I knew! The things of this world were fading quickly. The thought of anything separating me from God's presence became bitter and painful. I found myself on my knees before my wife confessing my lust that drew me apart from her and the sin it produced in me – crushed by the reality of her pain – awakened in a new way to reality of the pain I had caused my Savior. Week by week, month by month, the Spirit continued cleansing as I humbly surrendered and obeyed. The deeper I sank in the overwhelming flood of God's love, the more I came to comprehend the most powerful impetus for desiring to be holy – simply to walk worthy (Ephesians 4:1-5:33).

The Spirit also began to renew a longing in my soul for something more. I prayed more earnestly than ever that God would show me what that something more was. This was far too important to make any rash assumptions or to be driven by my self-interests. About this same time, I was in physical therapy learning how better to manage my lower back problems. Things were improving quite well until one fateful Wednesday morning in June of 2012 as I went to get in my Explorer to head into work. As I reached back to adjust the lumbar support in my seat something went very wrong. There was so much pain I could barely breathe. Somehow I tumbled out of the Explorer, stumbled back through the front door, and collapsed on the living room floor. There I lay until the paramedics got me into a body-wrap to stabilize me as they moved me to the ambulance.

Now, there was a song that had caught my attention a few weeks prior that I even found myself praying at times: Wrecking Ball (by Sidewalk Prophets). Its message simply spoke to so many pieces of my life. In the seconds after I was loaded into the back of the ambulance, the entire song flashed through my mind and I heard the Spirit speak quietly, with perfect clarity: "I want you to preach." I wept, not for the pain, but for the joy! Soon I was witnessing to the paramedic back there with me and then praying with him at the hospital.

In the days of recovery that followed, I committed to take the next logical steps and watch for every open door God would provide. I recall listening to a message that had been delivered at "basics 2012", a speaker described something that burned within me. He spoke of the call and its irresistibility, the yearning to preach that's like a fire inside. I wept – and I knew. Furthermore, the talents I had shamefully buried were being stolen from God (Matthew 25:14-30). I had no more desire to employ my old excuses for not proclaiming His glories in word and song.

In the years since, God’s faithful love only continues to abound. In addition to many other demonstrations of His mercy and provision, although I only had a few hours of undergraduate work since high school, God made a way for me to attend Asbury Theological Seminary where I completed a Master of Divinity in 2019. Cathy and I have been blessed to serve and minister in many capacities and congregations and continue to do so as God leads and directs.

Sola Sancta Caritas!

Nathaniel Dean
imago Dei: sinner, son, saint, pastor