God’s Hand in Directing Me Through My Life
By
Glenn S. Niesen
As we go through our lives, we often do not see the Hand of God working at the time. However, as time passes and we look back, we see that His hand has been working to guide us to where he wants us to be. Often, He uses a crisis of one sort or another to affect the path of our lives. Sometimes those crises are major, sometimes they are minor. At every major turn in my life there has been a crisis of one sort or another that had a direct result in that turn in my life.
God first started directing my path before the age of one. At the time, my family was living in Melbourne, FL, and my father worked at Cape Canaveral (now called the Kennedy Space Center). My father was working in the control room at the time of the ill-fated Apollo I test that claimed the lives of Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee. The sound of the screams of the astronauts as they were burning up in the capsule haunted my father for months. Because of that incident, my father could no longer work there and quit by the time I was one year old.
He moved is family, without having a job to go to, back to his home state of Wisconsin. God provided him a job in Appleton, WI, with a Lutheran company. He worked for this same company until he retired. What no one realized was that this Lutheran connection would have a direct affect on my life. Our family would regularly attend the local church and my first two and a half years of education were in a Lutheran elementary school. During this early education was when I personally accepted Jesus Christ into my heart and He became real to me.
Midway through third grade, my parents moved me from the Lutheran school to a government school. About a year later, I first joined a choir. It was a choir that I almost got kicked out of because I did not initially attend practices. The Lord kept me in that choir and I kept joining choirs as I got older. I tried to join the band in middle school, but when I got braces I could no longer play the instrument. However, I could still sing and stayed in the choir. Little did I know at the time was that being in the choir was what the Lord had in mind for me.
When it was time for me to go to high school, God directed me to the Lutheran high school rather than continue to the government high school. In 1981 when I was a sophomore, I met my best friend through the choir. This was no chance meeting; it was the Lord’s work. He was involved in the "Lighting and Sound" crew. Because of him, I also joined the Lighting and Sound crew at the start of the second semester in 1982. I initially started working in the lighting area, but because of my vocal experience I eventually migrated to the sound area. That was the start of my journey into the world of "Pro Audio."
I stayed with the audio work through the rest of my high school years and into my college years. In college, I got involved with the college radio and television stations. Although I worked occasionally behind a microphone as a DJ and had some experience with the video equipment, the Lord always brought me back to running the audio.
After college, I was never able to have any contact with audio, video or lighting systems. For over a decade, I never had the opportunity to work with any of these systems. I had been so far removed from them and from the industry that I completely forgot about them and happily continued on in my career in computers. However, the Lord had other plans.
In 2002, the Lord brought another crisis into my family’s life that changed our direction. As a result of this, the Lord brought us to a small Baptist church in East Naples, Berean Baptist, where my stepson had been attending with a friend of his. We were brought into their family and it did not take long for the Lord to put me behind an audio console once again. Less than one year after starting work with their audio/video team, I was asked to be the Audio/Video Chairman.
In that role, I was given a number of trade magazines that dealt with the audio, video and lighting aspects of churches. I was amazed at how much the audio, video and lighting systems had changed since my last contact with them. I was also amazed at how much of them were in use in the House of Worship environment. Because of this, there was now a full-time position in churches called a Technical Director.
As I read the profiles on various technical directors, I realized that the Lord was telling me that this is what he had in mind for me. These people had the same background and expertise as I did. At the time, I wondered how He was going to accomplish this in my life. After all, I would not have been able to go directly from Berean to a technical director position in a larger church with the experience I had at the time. I simply trusted Him that sometime He would let me know when the time was right for me to move to get the “hands-on” experience with the equipment I was reading about.
At the end of 2004, the leadership at Berean asked me to become a deacon. With great hesitance, I accepted the position. However, after a few months God created another crisis to let me know that this was not the position of service that He had in mind for me. In the middle of 2005 I resigned as deacon and served solely as the Audio/Video Chairman. As time went on in 2005, He made it evident to me that he was not just pushing me out of the position of deacon, but that He was pushing me to destinations beyond Berean. I seemed to have accomplished everything there that I could from fixing the audio and video systems to training a team of volunteers to run those systems.
Around the end of 2005 I found out that First Baptist (FBCN) was in need of volunteers for the technical crew. I started serving on the FBCN technical crew and submitted my resignation as Audio/Video Chairman at Berean. It was my intention to remain on the Berean crew and serve at both churches, with FBCN being my primary location of service. However, God had other plans that superseded mine.
At the time, I had my doubts as to whether it was the right move at the right time. He let me know it was the right move at the right time when my wife and I had to move my daughter to another school due to some issues at her current school. After all the research the decision was obvious that First Baptist Academy was the place she needed to go. With all the schools in the area, why FBA and why then? Because He was reaffirming to me that the decision to move was correct and that I needed to make FBCN my permanent and sole place of service.
When I initially started working on the FBCN technical crew, I intended to expand my knowledge by working with the video and lighting systems. It had been almost 20 years since I had worked with some of that type of equipment and much had changed in that time. I did anticipate that I would eventually get to work with the FBCN audio system, but thought it would be quite some time before I would get the chance to even assist in its operation. Once again, God had other plans for me. Within two months, He put me behind the audio console once again.
Since that time, it has been like God put His foot down on life's gas pedal. Things are so drastically different now that they were when I made the move. He has given me the opportunity to work with systems that I never dreamed I would get to work with and to do things that I never thought were possible for me to attempt.
Where do things go from here? I have no idea! What I do know is that He has given me the experience and the confidence to step into any church as a full-time technical director. When will that be? I have no idea. When the time is right, He will let me know like He has my whole life. Will that decision involve First Baptist? Maybe, maybe not! Only the good Lord knows!
One thing I do know is that if I trust in Him, he will direct me to where He wants me to be when He wants me to be there. For now, this is where I am supposed to be.
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.”
(Proverbs 3: 5-6, NASB)
I wanted to take a moment and remind everyone that when you are supporting an event, you need to be here at least 45 min. early. The purpose in arriving early is to insure that all aspects of your equipment are checked, you are informed about the event schedule, and we have time to meet before the event. If you can not make it that early please call me on my cell phone to inform me. The number is : 239-287-3359. Also you can call upstairs directly to the video production room at 239-596-8600 ext. 407. Again, thank you all for your participation in this ministry.