Rising baseball star Nehemiah Toles chooses serving God over sports career
Most young men who grew up playing baseball would give anything to be participating in the World Series this week. Outfielder Nehemiah Toles, however, knows he is right where God wants him to be.
Toles, who had numerous scholarship offers and interest from professional scouts, instead is preaching the gospel to the nation’s youth.
“It’s the scariest thing to be gifted at something that God did not call you to,” he told Fox News Digital. “Baseball was my passion; it wasn’t my purpose. When I stand before God and he looks at me, he’s gonna say, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’ How did hitting home runs, how would that have served him?”
Toles, who now has his own ministry, grew up in a household with a pastor father transitioning to be an evangelist. Although surrounded by faith in his home, he admits thinking religion and following God were “corny” during his youth.
“From 13 years old to 16 years old, I felt like I struggled to connect with people, struggled to just articulate my thoughts,” he said. “And so, I went back to church, before I even started worshiping or anything like that, I felt the presence of God just hit me. All my anxiety, all my depression left. And I had tried everything else and nothing else was working.”
Toles detailed one of his first experiences receiving college offers during a championship game while ranked the top outfielder in the state of Ohio. While circling the bases after hitting a home run, he saw his coach on the phone..
“I’m in the dugout,” he said. “And he’s like, ‘Before you touched home plate, three Division I coaches had just confirmed.”
He described the elation on his parents’ faces and recalled his father’s tears at the news of the offers from Yale and a handful of other universities, all right before he heard the voice of God later that night alone in his room. “In the hotel room that night, I felt like the Lord had spoken to me, like, ‘Is that enough?’” he said. “`Was that what you were looking for? Like, is this ever, is it going to be enough?'”
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While helping children in need shortly after that game and wrestling between both destinies, he decided that serving those kids was “something deeper” and “more satisfying” to him than hitting home runs or getting top college offers.
“I felt like God was calling me into full-time ministry, and, so, [during that] exact event, I went back to the green room, and I called half of the Division I coaches and told them I’m not going to come to their college, I’m going full-time into ministry,” he said.
Despite tension with his family and multiple difficult conversations with various adults, from guidance counselors to coaches, imploring Toles to reconsider his decision, he stood firm. “He made it so evident to me,” he said. “He said, ‘Obedience to me will always be insanity to the world.’”
–Lee Hartman | Metro Voice
PHOTO: Nehemiah Toles preaching on stage to a crowd in a “Jesus Saves” T-shirt. (Nehemiah Toles)
