Ted Haggard and David's Recent Forward

After hearing confirmation that Ted Haggard was dismissed by his board, I googled around and found his bio. What was humbling to regard was the connections between what the author of the forward that David sent about becoming a leader 'of no reputation,' and what Haggard chose to include in his bio. It's humbling for me at least because so many of these same desires, to be noticed, to be respected in the secular world, to be knowledgable, are ripe inside of me. This is what is written on Ted's own bio page:

Pastor Ted Haggard is the president of the 30 million-member National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), the largest evangelical group in America. He is also founder and senior pastor of the 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He formed and serves as the president of both the Association of Life-Giving Churches, a network of local churches, and worldprayerteam.org, the only real-time global prayer network.

Pastor Ted has been interviewed by Barbara Walters, Tom Brokaw, Bill O’Reilly, Chris Matthews, and more. Time included Pastor Ted in their list of the 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America. Harper’s says, “No pastor in America holds more sway over the political direction of evangelicalism than does Pastor Ted.”

He graduated from Oral Roberts University in 1978 and has received two honorary Doctor of Divinity degrees. He served as the American Vice-President for World Missions for Jesus, a German missions organization, and served as an Associate Pastor at Bethany World Prayer Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which helped him plant New Life Church in 1985. Haggard and his wife, Gayle, have five children.

I am personally praying that God would restore Haggard and even more so that God would protect and provide his wife and children with safe people to grieve and be unconditionally loved by during this time.