Is God Calling You into Full-Time Ministry?

With career success as a corporate trainer, a beautiful wife and young son, a church plant in Canada, and people to shepherd, Viji Roberts was living life to the fullest. And while he loved serving the Lord, he had strong convictions against full-time ministry for himself.  He wanted to remain bi-vocational.

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So when God started nudging Viji to serve him full time, Viji kept dismissing it. However, in 1997, he started writing down verses that surfaced in his daily Bible reading, wondering what it was God was trying to tell him. He would ask missionaries he met about their call to ministry, desiring mostly to conform his bias against full-time ministry.

But then God intervened in a painful way.

The Cost of Disobedience

Viji was driving in Toronto in December 2003 when a drunk driver struck his back driver’s side wheel at 90 miles per hour, totaling his car. “If I had been a split second earlier, he would have hit the driver’s seat. That would have the final call (pun intended),” Viji recalled. By God’s grace, he walked away without a single scratch, thanking the Lord and proclaiming it a miracle.

But within two years, debilitating pain set in, and Viji’s “myth of invincibility” crumbled. Forty medical tests yielded zero results: no diagnosis, no solution. Finally, doctors concluded by exclusion that it was fibromyalgia. Viji was soon put into a pain management routine (40 nerve blocks every Tuesday for close to five years). He accepted chronic fatigue and pain as his permanent companion. On particularly draining days, he’d head to bed before sundown—not ideal for a man in his 40s, but what else could he do? However, the call to step out in faith did not cease.

A Wake-Up Call

One weekend night, there was a knock at Viji’s door around 9 p.m. Red-eyed and stupefied with sleep, Viji cracked the door open, and two young men barged into his living room holding Slurpees® from the local Tim Hortons®. One of them was a new believer in Viji’s assembly who was leaving town the next day to get married—he had come with his friend to be with Viji on his last night as a bachelor.

“Guys, I’m not young like you anymore,” Viji said, holding the door open. Embarrassed, the young men sauntered out and drove away.

The next morning, Viji told Joyce what had happened. “She was mortified—and so was I,” he recalled. The word got around and everyone had a laugh. Thankfully, all was forgiven with no hard feelings. However, another young man commented, “Here this young man was about to get married, and instead of partying with his young friends, he came to hang out with an elder from his church.”

“That was convicting,” Viji said. “I knew things were getting real bad. This and some other incidents should have knocked into me an urgency to obey, but I stayed defiant.” In the spring of 2012, he was in so much pain that he began to bargain with God.

“Lord, if you really want me to step out in faith, just lay me off so I can start to figure this thing out,’” Viji prayed. “I knew I’d have some severance pay I could depend on while I figured out what God wanted me to do. God answered my prayer, and I got laid off—but instead of obeying him, I picked up freelance work as a private consultant. I was that typical male who runs faster when he learns he is heading in the wrong direction.”

Surrender at Last—and a Miracle

Finally, on October 23, 2012—after more than 15 years of striving with God—God had his heart:

“It wasn’t like I ran into God’s arms; it was a call of grace. God had chipped my resistance away. That day I was praying, and I felt, This could be the last time God will so urgently call me. I then prayed, ‘You can do what you want; I’m yours.’ After prayer I went and told Joyce, and she said, ‘It’s about time! She then said, “So many people are praying. We believe that God is calling you, but we didn’t want to influence you in your decision.’ But here’s how stupid I am—the next day I learned that my former boss was looking to hire someone with my skillset. I asked Joyce if I should call her.  She simply said, ‘When will you stop running? Why don’t you realize you have the opportunity to serve the greatest employer in the universe?’”

Just three months later, in January 2013, Viji’s church would commend him to the Lord’s work full time—and Viji would experience a miracle:

“I wasn’t able to go to the pain clinic since my prayer of surrender. Too many things were happening, too quickly. However, the Tuesday after my commendation, I went in for my nerve block treatment like always, and I came back in terrible pain. The doctor said, ‘That’s interesting. That kind of pain happens only when you’re healthy. You don’t need these treatments anymore.’

“God could have used me as I was, but he healed me—no fatigue, no pain. I still have a five-page printout in a binder of every medication I was on, and I’m so healthy now that unless people see the binder they think I’m making it up. I used to go to bed early and tell people, ‘I’m not as young as you anymore.’ Now, because of God’s healing, I’m active till 11 or 12 p.m. some nights, and other people will say to me, ‘I’m not as young as you.’”

Since his 2013 commendation, Viji has served as a full-time teaching elder at New Life Bible Chapel in, Mississauga, Canada, where he was part of the church plant team. The Lord has also given him opportunities to play a key role in developing BER’s resources, to contribute to Christian radio, and to serve on a Canadian mission board. Viji has a shepherd’s heart, and it is his joy to serve the Lord full-time by shepherding his people.

“Looking back now, I feel so stupid that I didn’t step out in faith earlier on,” Viji said. “I lost the opportunity to serve God full-time earlier on, but God is gracious! He allows for the latter fruits to be good, and he doesn’t dock us for delaying. I’m so thankful.”

Next week, Viji will share his advice for discerning God’s calling. Stay tuned!