I was twenty-three years old when I came to Jesus Christ in 1974. I knew I had been saved, and I wanted badly to serve God. The problem was that I did not know His Word very well, and I did not know how He wanted to use me.

In those early years, I had a desire to serve God, but desire is not the same as being ready.

I went to Bible college because I thought that was where a man went to prepare for ministry. Looking back, it was mostly a waste of time. I received schooling, but I was not taught what a man truly needs to know to care for people, handle the Word of God correctly, and stand faithfully when ministry becomes difficult.

While I was still in college, I became the pastor of a church. I was not good at it. I wanted to serve God, but I was still ignorant of much of the Bible and unprepared for the work. Later, I took another church. That did not last long either.

Those failures hurt. They also left me wondering whether I had misunderstood God’s purpose for my life.

Then I fell away from God and into sin.

I do not say that lightly, and I will not try to make it sound better than it was. Sin is never harmless. God did not lead me away from Him so that He could teach me something. I wandered because I made wrong choices. Those years cost me something, and I have no desire to excuse them.

But my failure did not end God’s faithfulness.

Eventually, God had enough of my wandering. The best way I can describe it is that He grabbed me by the neck, sat me down, and laid things out plainly. He corrected me, and I knew it was time to stop playing games and return to Him.

“Those whom I love, I rebuke and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent” (Revelation 3:19).

God’s correction was not proof that He had abandoned me. It was proof that He had not.

I returned to the Bible. I began studying it seriously. Later, I started teaching a Bible study. Even after I stopped teaching that study, I could not stop studying and writing lessons. I would choose a subject or passage, search the Scriptures, and write down what I was learning.

Hundreds of those Bible studies began to pile up on my computer.

No one was asking for them. No church was waiting to use them. I had no newspaper column, no blog, no Facebook ministry, no books, and no website. As far as I knew, no one would ever read a word of them.

I often asked God, “Why am I doing this? No one will ever see these studies.”

Then one morning, just as I sat up in bed, four words came clearly into my mind:

“I am preparing you.”

I cannot prove to anyone else that those words came from God, nor would I ever place a personal experience on the same level as Scripture. But in that moment, I knew God was dealing with me. The words did not contradict His Word or reveal some new doctrine. They simply gave purpose to the work already before me.

That was all.

God did not tell me what He was preparing me for. He did not explain how long the preparation would take. He did not tell me that I would become a writer. I simply understood that He was preparing me.

So I kept studying.

For years, I thought those Bible studies were teaching me how to write. Now I understand that writing was not the main purpose. God was teaching me His Word so that one day I could write it plainly for others.

The difference matters.

I did not need more training in how to sound impressive. I needed to know what God had said. I needed to learn how Scripture fits together. I needed to understand salvation, grace, repentance, obedience, holiness, suffering, correction, and the faithfulness of God.

I also needed to live long enough to learn some lessons that cannot be learned in a classroom.

I needed to know what it was like to fail. I needed to experience God’s correction. I needed to learn that good intentions are not enough. I needed to discover that a man can know religious words while still lacking spiritual understanding. I needed to learn that sin brings pain, but repentance brings restoration.

Most of all, I needed to understand that anything useful in me would be the result of God’s grace, not my own ability.

Paul wrote:

“But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain” (1 Corinthians 15:10).

That is how I now see my life.

God did not use me because I deserved to be used. He did not owe me a ministry after I had failed Him. He could have left me to the life I had chosen, but He showed mercy. He corrected me, restored me, taught me, and continued preparing me even when I could not see what He was doing.

Then God waited until I was seventy-three years old.

By that age, most people assume their greatest work is behind them. I might have thought so too. I had already worked several jobs, raised a family, served in the Marine Corps, pastored churches, made plenty of mistakes, and lived most of my life.

Then an opportunity came for me to write for a newspaper.

I had never written anything like a newspaper column. I had no formal training as a writer. I did not set out to build a writing ministry. I was simply given an opportunity to share what God had taught me.

One column led to another.

Then came the blog. Then Facebook. Then more newspapers. Then books. Now my column appears in five Wyoming newspapers, and I have my own website, The Other Side of Amen.

The studies I once believed no one would ever see became the foundation of a ministry reaching people I will never meet.

People in Africa read what I write. People in the Philippines read it. People across Wyoming and in other parts of the world read the truths God spent years teaching me in private.

I sat at a computer wondering why I was writing studies no one wanted. God knew those words would someday travel farther than I ever would.

He knew about the newspapers before I wrote my first column. He knew about the blog before I posted my first essay. He knew about the books before I wrote the first page. He knew about the website before I ever imagined having one.

I saw a computer filled with studies that no one would read.

God saw preparation.

Scripture says:

“For who has despised the day of small things?” (Zechariah 4:10).

We often judge the value of our work by who notices it. God does not. He may use years of quiet obedience to prepare us for something that has not yet entered our minds.

Moses was eighty years old when God sent him back to Egypt. Caleb was eighty-five when he asked for the hill country God had promised him. Anna was advanced in years, but she continued serving God with prayer and fasting. Age did not remove God’s purpose from their lives.

It did not remove His purpose from mine either.

Psalm 92:14 says:

“They will still yield fruit in advanced age; They will be full of sap and very green.”

God does not measure usefulness the way the world does. The world looks for youth, strength, education, influence, and talent. God looks for those who will trust Him, obey Him, and remain faithful.

I wish I could say I had always done that. I cannot.

My story is not the story of a man who followed God perfectly from the day he was saved. It is the story of a man who stumbled, failed, wandered, was corrected, and received far more mercy than he deserved.

It is also the story of a God who did not abandon the work He had begun.

“For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work among you will complete it by the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6).

I once thought my failed attempts at ministry meant God could not use me. I thought the years were passing and the opportunity had been lost. I could not see any purpose behind the hundreds of Bible studies stored away on my computer.

But God could see what I could not.

He was not merely preparing something for me to do. He was preparing me to do it.

If the twenty-three-year-old Dean Butler who came to Christ in 1974 could see me now, I believe he would be amazed. He wanted to serve God but had no idea what that would look like. He could never have imagined that God would wait nearly fifty years before showing him why He had placed such a hunger for Scripture within him.

He would see a blog with hundreds of essays, a Facebook ministry, three books, columns in five newspapers, and a website carrying those teachings beyond Wyoming to people around the world.

He might look at me, shake his head, and say, “Well done, old man. I had no idea God would use us like this.”

I would have to answer, “Neither did I. But God did.”

None of this is a monument to what I accomplished. It is a testimony to what God can do with someone who does not deserve it.

God waited until I was seventy-three to give me the work He had been preparing me to do.

He was not late.

I simply could not see what He was doing.

Perhaps you believe your useful years are behind you. Perhaps you have failed and think God has no further purpose for your life. Perhaps you are doing something in obedience today that seems unnoticed and unimportant.

Do not decide that God is finished simply because you cannot see what He is preparing.

Your past may explain you, but it does not have to control the rest of your life. Your age does not place you beyond God’s reach. Your failures do not overpower His grace when you repent and return to Him.

Keep learning. Keep obeying. Keep serving. Keep walking with God.

You may be looking at wasted years.

God may be looking at preparation.