Good day! I hope that this day finds you and your family well – in good health and good spirits! Today is no ordinary day. I believe it’s been years in the making and with great excitement I am so pleased to welcome you to the Word Life Connection blog.
I do not take lightly the privilege of having the “voice” to speak into your life through this medium. It’s one which I hold dear. Regardless of how you’ve landed on this page, I welcome you heartily and trust that through what you read on this and future posts, you’ll sense the Spirit of God at work and in turn, you will be challenged to seek the glorious pathway that He has for you. Let me give you a bit of background on what led me to launch this blog and this organization and where I envision it going.
I have been a Christian since 1992. I grew up in a loving Christian home. My mom was the church organist and my dad, though not ordained, was a preacher. His daily vocation was a school principal but his involvement in the church was one constant that I knew. Still, it wasn’t until my 20s in the early ‘90s that, as a struggling college student, that I recognized the need for a Savior. I knew that, on my own, I was bound to fail. I wanted to experience for myself the reality of Philippians 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
Without taking you through the entire experience, the Lord Jesus Christ revealed to me His omnipotent power and I accepted Him as Savior. It didn’t happen overnight – it took a couple of years, in fact. But the journey led me to give my life to Him completely. I really didn’t know all that I was getting into but I was thoroughly convinced that He long had a desire to walk with me and give me a life worth living. Almost instantaneously, I began to experience a degree of joy I had never known up to that point. It’s not that everything became perfect but life started to make perfect sense.
My life began to have meaning for the first time. The challenges and the obstacles were still there but now I had an advocate in heavenly places to walk with me. Things turned around for me scholastically and I began to achieve consistent success. My improved grades were simply an indication of something greater that was at work on the inside of me. The Lord Jesus Christ had now entered into my heart and began leading and guiding me, transforming me in the process. My perspectives changed and I had a total revolution in my outlook on life. I was on my way to the path that was laid out for me from before my life even began!
Now this next part that I’ll share with you is the single most important point I can make in this entire post. In late 1993, I got baptized. The week before the baptism, I had just returned home from church and while in the house by myself, I decided to rehearse my testimony that I would share before the congregation the following week during the service. I stood in front of my mirror and began thinking of the entire 23 plus years that I had lived up to that point. I reflected on issues that you’ll read in future posts on this blog – such as my struggles with low self-esteem, low self-worth, loneliness, regretting the fact that I was born and hoping I would have died young. Such struggles that for such a long period were the norm in my life were now simply experiences of the past. I knew there was no turning back.
I reflected on it all. Then, as I looked at my life at that moment, I saw an inflection point beginning in late 1990 when I began a 2 year quest to know this Jesus whom I had always heard about. I desired to know Him for myself. In the couple of years since the inception of that quest, I saw a radical change in my entire outlook on life. I had just graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in May 1993 with a degree in accounting. I had just finished my 2nd month on the audit staff of Deloitte, one of the Big 4 accounting firms. All of this would have been unheard of before the Lord entered into my life; but there I was – living the dream.
As I stood before that mirror and had these many thoughts about the total 180 degree turnaround in my life, with tears streaming down my face, I said, “Lord Jesus, I don’t know why you saved me but I know that you saved me. My life is no longer my own; it now belongs to you; therefore, I hereby relinquish the right to plan my future. It’s entirely in your hands; do with it what you will!”
I still remember the feeling of that moment. I was saved before but in my view, that day, Sunday, October 31, 1993, was when I completely and totally surrendered my life to the Lord. Since then it’s been a journey of a lifetime – many highs and many lows. But through it all God has been and continues to be faithful in all things.
About a year and a half after this experience, in early 1995, I got what I believe to be my life assignment from the Lord. As I received it, I saw the assignment to be somewhat multi-faceted and much of it is beyond the scope of this organization and this blog. Still, a significant part of it relates to the words I’m sharing here; so both on this post and on future posts, you’ll see the vision unfold through words and then ultimately through deeds.
The specific assignment that I received that led to the launching of Word Life Connection is this: empower believers to take the Word of God and apply it to their daily lives to enable them to have success in the World. Hence our slogan, Changing Your World With The Word.
That’s it in a nutshell! Empower believers with the Word and when it’s rightly applied, they will have good success in the world. Sounds simple, right? Well, it is simple but practical application of it isn’t always so simple. Still, those words that first came to me, as a young believer over 20 years ago, have proven true in my own life and in the life of everyone who has applied them with consistency. The Word of God is alive and well and it’s loaded with power to enable us to live the John 10:10 life – life more abundantly. I’m not even talking about material things here – more about the quality of life that is marked by the peace of God in every area.
Much has occurred since then but the timing was never right to launch this project before. Well, I believe that it’s a vision whose time for fulfillment has come. This blog is simply one step in the implementation of the vision. From here on out, you will see it continue to unfold.
The name Word Life Connection is one which I believe tells of the experience that one has when he or she begins the ultimate walk of a lifetime – the walk with Jesus. Our lives are always changed for the better when we yield to Him and let Him lead and guide us. Remember I wrote earlier that my degree is in accounting, right? Well, I’m still an accountant – a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), in fact. But my life’s calling isn’t limited to accounting – it’s far beyond that. I enjoy accounting but what I love even more is imparting the Word of God into the lives of others and seeing that Word take root and bear long-lasting fruit. There’s no price tag I could put on the feeling of fulfillment that that gives.
You see, here’s the thing – many Christians are in church on a weekly basis and they hear the Word of God preached from the pulpit and taught in their small groups. But then they live their daily lives and there often seems to be a “disconnect” between the Word that they receive and the lives that they live. They do not learn just how to use the Bible and all that’s within it to enable them to live victoriously day by day.
So the purpose of Word Life Connection is to enable them to make that connection and cross the bridge between the knowing the Word and living in the real world. You’ll notice that you see a bridge in our logo. That’s strategic because when we are able to effectively bridge the gap between the Bible and our daily lives, then we begin to become more than conquerors, as St. Paul writes in Romans 8.
The implementation of this vision will be through conferences, seminars, webinars, podcasts, CDs, DVDs and more. These are simply “vehicles” through which God can draw His people to His Word and to Himself. It’s just something I know will be effective in ministering to the hearts of people the world over. In 1 Corinthians 2: 9-10, we read, “Eyes have not seen, ears have not heard, nor has entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for them that love Him. But God has revealed it to us by His Spirit.” D.L. Moody wrote, “The world is yet to see what God can do through a life that is yielded to him.”
It’s with great joy and excitement that I share these words with you. I believe that in the coming weeks, months and years, we’ll look back at this post as a catalyst for great things that God in our lives. Be sure to keep up with us here on our website, our blog and our social media outlets.
My primary desire in the launching of this organization is that believers will be empowered with the Word of God and that non-believers will learn of the matchless power that there is in the name of Jesus. We shall accomplish much and I eagerly anticipate all that shall be done by God through Word Life Connection.
May God richly bless you!
Rodrick Walters