SPEAKER Gary Purtee, (Former Missionary with Y.W.A.M (Youth with a Mission) and current employee at Fuller Theological Seminary)
It is difficult to put Gary’s words into different categories or even a systemized type of thinking. In order to attempt to do so, I will simply share how Gary’s words spoke to me. Gary basically shared His personal testimony with us which was a moving and powerful display of honesty and vulnerability, based on the experiences that he has had in his life. I am not sure of some of the chronology of the events of Gary’s life, but some of the important details included dedicating his life to overseas missions with YWAM in several asian countries, especially in the Philippines. It was during Gary’s early ministry that he went through a divorce from his first marriage and began to suffer from depression and anxiety in his time as a missionary, and eventually was forced to leave the mission field.
Imagine being so excited to dedicate your life to God for overseas missions and full-time ministry, only to have to give it all up and come back home after having others tell you that you weren’t good enough or weren’t doing a good enough job. Imagine the loss in self-esteem and self-worth that would come with this! Gary shared with us that this was a big struggle for him, and it added to his struggles with depression and self-esteem.
Gary entered Fuller Theological Seminary upon being called back from the mission field and began a process of healing and recovery with hopes of an eventual return to full-time ministry and the mission field. It was during this time that Gary realized that the biggest reason that He was sovereignly removed from the mission field by God was that He had not developed a personal intimacy with God. It is this personal intimacy with God that Gary needed to carry Him through the depression He faced in His life.
In Gary’s humble presentation of this testimony, the message that He wanted to share with CCM is that God loves you and wants to have an intimate relationship with you. Often times we are quick to ignore this idea of personal intimacy with God, but in Gary’s experience, it is the ONLY thing that can get us through our lives and our difficult experiences. Many times, we are quick to ignore God, we are quick to forget to pray, and we are quick to make ourselves busy. I know I am so often so guilty of this. God works in amazing ways in my life, and yet I am so slow to thank Him by taking the time to spend with Him and to grow in my intimacy with Him.
Gary referenced Galatians 2:20.
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
God loves us and wants to live in us in every experience of our lives. Gary had to learn this hard way by being called back from something as Godly as the mission field. It does not matter what we do with our lives, careers, gifts, and talents. The truth of this life is that without a relationship with God, none of it will satisfy us, and we will not ever be fully capable of all that we can be unless we make God a part of everything in our lives. For this reason, we are to discipline ourselves in our own personal times with Jesus in Scripture and in prayer. The biggest message that I took from Gary’s testimony was that without this relationship with God, we can miss out on something very important to us in our lives, no matter how Godly it might be. For me personally, this was an important and necessary reminder in my life, and I was extremely blessed by Gary’s testimony and His message to us in regards to intimacy with the Lord.
