ONE TRICK PONY

I’m writing a new book. I’ll be posting chapters as I go-along. This is the

Preface

     Over the years, some have described my spiritual journey as that of a one-trick pony.

If that is true, then the trick has been discipleship.

I return to it again and again—not because it is novel or efficient, but because Scripture leaves me no other path. The longer I have walked with God, the clearer it has become faith is not sustained by information alone, nor by moments of inspiration, but by lives steadily shaped through faithful following.

Discipleship is simply covenant lived out over time.

That conviction did not form quickly. Much of it was forged in what I can only call a wilderness—more than twenty years marked by obscurity, waiting, and deep interior work. Fruit was often invisible. Affirmation was rare. Forward motion felt painfully slow. Yet it was there that God proved Himself most faithful.

The wilderness stripped away ambition and replaced it with attentiveness. It dismantled shortcuts and cultivated endurance. I learned that God is not hurried in producing results, but He is relentless in forming disciples. Long before He entrusts influence, He forms character. Long before He multiplies fruit, He teaches us how to walk.

It was in that long wilderness that Genesis 15 became living ground. A God who walks through blood while His servant sleeps is not asking to be impressed. He is asking to be trusted. Covenant does not demand visibility; it requires faithfulness.

In time, that private formation took public shape through Schools of Ministry centered on intentional discipleship training. What God formed quietly in the wilderness was expressed openly in community. Schools were established in New Mexico, East Texas, and later within the Duncan Unit of the Texas prison system. The settings differed. The call did not: walk before Me.

In classrooms and church basements, in rural towns and behind prison walls, I witnessed the same truth—discipleship is not location-dependent. Covenant faithfulness does not require ideal conditions. God forms disciples wherever hearts are willing to walk with Him.

These Schools of Ministry were never about producing polished believers or religious professionals. They existed to train men and women to live openly before God, to order their lives in His presence, and to walk faithfully within the covenant secured by Christ. Discipleship flourishes not where circumstances are easy, but where obedience is embraced.

This book grows out of that long journey—wilderness years, quiet faithfulness, and shared walking with others learning, as I have, that following Jesus is not a moment but a lifetime. Not a program, but a posture. Not perfection, but direction.

“Walk before Me,” God said to Abraham.

Those words have become both anchor and compass in my life. They remind me that discipleship is not about earning God’s favor but responding to it. Grace establishes the relationship. Faith receives it. Obedience walks it out—one step at a time.

If this book has a single purpose, it is not to elevate experience or method, but to testify to a God who keeps covenant through wilderness, waiting, and walking. The same God who bound Himself in blood still forms disciples today—patiently, faithfully, without fail.

If that makes me a one-trick pony, I accept it gladly.

Because the trick still works.

And the God who calls us to follow Him has never broken a covenant yet.

Paul Potter

Lufkin, Texas

February 27, 2026