TURNING POINTS STUDY
BY DAVE PETRESCUE
JUNE 15, 2003

TURNING POINTS PROFILE
God has chosen to bless and as I cooperate the blessing flows. Everything in my public life has been the direct
overflow of what has taken place in my private life.


PATTERNS IN MY LIFE
• Key people have spoken into my life at strategic moments.
• Key Occupational Life Gates take place every 11-13 years.
• Ministry success wherever I go
• Relational health prevails


TRENDS IN MY LIFE
• I have been placed in positions of leadership beyond my ability.
• I respond well to input, rebuke, counsel, correction and direction.
• My life, ministry and vocation seem to unfold rather supernaturally.


THEMES IN MY LIFE
• God’s sovereignty and overwhelming grace
• God fulfilling the desires he built into my heart
• Gratitude – Mucho Grande!


SPIRITUAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY FOR DAVE PETRESCUE
Grace. Pure grace! I have been overwhelmed by God’s amazing grace. My journey from ruin to riches, from simplicity to significance, from barrenness to bounty can only be understood as a work of sovereign grace.

The seed of my faith sprouted from the ground of God’s mighty transformation of my family. From a supernatural and radical intervention rescuing my father from the brink of suicide, to seeing major miracles in bodies, nature and finances, to the healing of our home life, I was privileged to observe God at work in powerful and significant ways. This context of dynamic encounters with God combined with family characteristics, values, ethics, and pursuits to create the spiritual soil from which I grew. Unfortunately, the pages of my teen years were scribbled over with the wild and dark random lines of my reckless rebellion. The picture was painful for all to view, myself included. While still displaying the profound ugliness of my sin’s consequences, Jesus came and offered me a new start. I knew it had to be all or nothing. The transaction was made. My all was yielded and his all was credited to my account. New life burst forth from the depths of my being. Love washed away the hatred. Peace settled my tormented soul. And joy… oh such joy… erupted from within the secret chambers. A new and colorful drawing began to emerge on a fresh page.

Through meditating on the gospels, my knowledge of and love for Jesus grew rapidly and intense. I couldn’t help but overflow to friends, many of whom also came to trust Christ as their Savior. I loved telling and displaying the awesome grace of Jesus. An evangelistic passion was born.

While backpacking through West Africa and working with missionaries in Central Mali, I struggled with God’s call upon my life for ministry. Having yielded and won, I returned to Canada and devoured all I could receive in Bible School. After graduation my bride and I headed overseas again to solidify Brenda’s sense of call to overseas ministry. Confirmed and clarified, we returned to Canada and began Pastoral ministry.

In the early years of pastoral ministry the gifts of evangelism and preaching had been affirmed as clear motivations. As I sought to keep all ministry real and dynamic (as opposed to occupational and dead) our churches flourished. Tempered by pain and pleasure, affirmation and rejection, success and some stupidity, my gift of leadership was also honed.

God has regularly used people at strategic times and places to prune and shape me according to his design. Words of encouragement, rebuke, warning, counsel and affirmation have been fertilizer spread lavishly over the depths of my character. Many have spoken into my life truths that have profoundly shaped me, adding color and texture to my person and producing bountiful fruit from my life.

My primary input has come from God himself through his written Word. From establishing my life’s focus and purpose (Matt. 6:33; Ps. 37:4) to providing my personal security (Ps. 139) to directing my financial affairs (Lk. 6:38; Prov. 13:22) to drawing me deeply into his heart and revealing his secrets (Prov. 3:32) to being the source for dynamic discipleship for the nations (Jer. 1:4-10), God has spoken intimately and profoundly to me. My relationship with Christ has grown close and sweet, creating an unbreakable bond and a continuous flow of life (Jn. 15:1-8). God’s word is truth and I have grown to love and cherish his wisdom. Unfortunately, it is often when I am the busiest and, therefore, most in need of God’s enabling, I drift from my spiritual disciplines and dry up spiritually. Out of my hollow I then turn to the Lord and find him ever faithful.

Exposure to God’s world and to many cultures has also profoundly shaped my heart, mind, focus and passions. God’s love for all people compels me with a holy dissatisfaction, thrusting me forward until the most unreached peoples have a chance to hear the marvelous news of God’s love in Christ. God has moved me beyond human boxes and boundaries enabling me to “become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some” (I Cor. 9:19-22).

As I have sought to abide in Christ he has indeed allowed me the awesome privilege of seeing bountiful fruit produced in and through my life. My public ministry has developed a cycle of major change and advance about every 12 years. Each time God calls me to something more challenging I come face to face with my inadequacies, only to be reminded that it’s not about me but rather all about him. As I stay close to Christ, he continues to overwhelm me with new measures of enabling grace I couldn’t have imagined.

In addition to being joy-filled sources of blessing for my life, my closest companions on life’s journey (my wife and children) have also been God’s continued workshop for renovation in my life. I have gleaned amazing insights to the heart of God as a husband and father and longed to love my family the way he has loved me. With our last child taking flight and leaving the nest this month, Brenda and I are heading into the next relational adventure: life after kids. We’ve had a fabulous marriage to date and are anticipating it getting even better now that we will have more time to devote to each other.

Because God has granted me a teachable spirit, I have been able to glean much from others throughout my life. I have sought to surround myself with those better and smarter than me, ensuring that God gets the glory for all achievements.

Although I am a “reluctant leader” God continues to affirm my leadership and place me in positions requiring my absolute dependence on him. Although always somewhat hesitant and careful when looking inward, I joyfully advance with God’s aggressive agenda knowing that “The one who calls [me] is faithful and he will do it.” (I Thes. 5:24)

Having observed a gutsy obedient faith in my parents, I have sought to live out the same. Yielding my all (initially) and everything (practically) many times along the journey has enabled me to know, with great confidence, the reality of God’s promises kept. Confidence to take on challenges far greater than my personal ability has only come from seeing beyond myself to the one who holds me secure. Such is my present condition. Like Moses, I naturally want to offer alternatives instead of saying yes to the huge challenge. But with God’s own promise to go before me, I obey (and smile with anticipation).

After 34 years of swimming in the pool of God’s faithfulness and feasting on his love, I am eager to take the next step into his heart. I want to be still for longer. I want to go deeper. I long to reach higher. I am addicted to his grace. I want to see his face.

Respectfully submitted,
Dave Petrescue, June 15, 2003

OVERWHELMED BY GRACE (March 4, 1999)

Gratitude is what I feel
Thankfulness is very real
Nobody will ever steal
The wonders of your love.

For I am overwhelmed by your grace.
I am drawn into your warm embrace.
From there I look into your wondrous face
And say, “Thank you Father for your love.”
“Thank you Father for your love.”

My sins and stains were crimson red
They twisted up my heart and my head.
But I’ve been cleansed by the blood you shed
In my place on Calvary.

Now I am overwhelmed by your grace.
I am drawn into your warm embrace.
From there I look into your wondrous face
And say, “Thank you Jesus for your love.”
“Thank you Jesus for your love.”

You deserve more than I ever give.
I still trip up in the way I live.
My wandering heart isn’t sensitive
To your clear call on my life.

But I am overwhelmed by your grace.
I am drawn again into your warm embrace.
From there I look into your wondrous face
And say, “Thank you Father for your love.”
“Thank you Father for your love.”