Charlie... One Year Later... I'll Never Be The Same.

I remember exactly where I was standing when I heard the news.

For a few seconds, the room didn't move. The words didn't fit together right. Charlie Kirk, a husband, a father, a man who spent his short life trying to get young people to think biblically about the world, was gone. Murdered. In front of a crowd. In front of cameras. In front of a watching nation that would spend the next week arguing about him instead of grieving with his family.

I sat with that for a long time. I still do.

But I want to tell you what that day did inside me, because I don't think I would be the man writing this to you right now if it hadn't happened.

Before that day, I was content. Not lazy. Not drifting. Just content. I had settled into a rhythm as an Associate Pastor that fit me well. I supported the men above me. I preached when I was asked to preach. I built systems, helped people connect, kept things running. It was good work, and I don't regret any of it. But if I'm honest with myself, it was also safe. Comfortable. I had quietly decided that "supporting" was going to be the whole shape of my ministry, and I had made peace with never stepping into anything more. I told myself that was contentment. Looking back, some of it was fear wearing contentment's clothes.

When Charlie was killed, something in me broke open that I didn't know was sealed shut. It wasn't just grief for a man I never met. It was a sudden, overwhelming clarity about how short life actually is, and how much of mine I had been spending managing my own comfort instead of chasing the calling God had already placed on me. I watched a man who used every single platform he had to point people to Christ get cut down in an instant, mid-sentence, mid-mission. And I remember thinking: what am I doing with mine?

I had been on mission before. I want to be clear about that. I loved Jesus, I served His church, and I meant it. But after that day, the mission stopped being a part of my life and started being the lens for my whole life. Every decision, every meeting, every sermon prep session, every conversation with my kids, all of it started running through one filter: does this give God glory? Does this make Him known? I wasn't just working for the Kingdom anymore. The Kingdom had become the thing I couldn't stop thinking about.

Then the following days happened. I watched churches, entire congregations that claim the name of Christ, say nothing. Pastors who wouldn't even acknowledge that a brother in Christ had been murdered for speaking truth in public, because it might cost them something. Might cost them comfort. Might cost them a few members. Might cost them their platform.

And something in me broke a second time, in a different place. I realized I had been sitting on a calling I kept rejecting, dressed up as humility. God had built me, through every strange and broken and redeemed season of my life, for exactly this moment. Not to sit safely behind someone else. To lead. To stand in front of people and tell them the truth about Jesus whether it costs me something or not.

Genesis tells the story of a man named Joseph, sold into slavery by his own brothers, forgotten in a prison cell, and eventually raised up to save the very family that betrayed him. When he finally stands face to face with the brothers who tried to destroy him, he doesn't return their evil with evil. He tells them the truth: "You planned evil against me; God planned it for good to bring about the present result: the survival of many people" (Genesis 50:20, CSB).

I am not comparing myself to Joseph. I am telling you that I serve the same God he did. The enemy meant Charlie's death for evil, and I believe with everything in me that God has used it for good, in more lives than I could ever count, mine included.

I wish Charlie was still here. I wish his wife wasn't a widow. I wish his kids still had their dad tucking them in at night. That grief is real, and it doesn't get resolved just because God brought good out of it.

But I also cannot deny what has changed in me over this past year. I am a better husband to Tanja than I was before. A better father to my kids. A better worshiper, because I stopped treating worship as a Sunday event and started treating it as the posture of my whole life. And my commitment to the mission Christ gave His church is deeper than it has ever been, because I finally understand that it was never mine to walk away from.

That deeper commitment is why our family is where we are today, pastoring a church family in Earlham, Iowa. Every step that led us here was placed in front of us so clearly that we couldn't call it coincidence. We didn't manufacture this. God built the road, and we simply had the courage to finally walk it.

Here's what I don't want you to miss. You don't need a national tragedy to wake you up to your calling. You don't need to watch someone die to finally take seriously what God has already asked of you. I hope it doesn't take that for you. I hope this story is enough.

Because somewhere in your life right now, there is a calling you've been rejecting and calling it humility. There is a mission you've been managing instead of pursuing. There is a version of comfortable you've mistaken for content.

It is not about what makes us comfortable. It has never been about what we want. It is about what brings Him glory and makes Him known. Charlie Kirk spent his last breath in that pursuit. What are you willing to spend yours on?

I'm thankful today for the impact his life had on mine. Let us never forget him, and let us never forget what he was willing to lose for the sake of the name of Jesus.

Be on mission. Not someday. Today.