I Am Always With You #spark 04

I started my new job at the beginning of May 2023.  

I feel so incredibly grateful to God and to the leaders who hired me.  I’m working for Jesus’ Church again, and it feels like when you crawl into bed at the end of a long day and cover up with your favorite blanket.  It’s warm, and comforting, and it smells like home.  

It’s a big deal to have your church community of 20 years torn away from you in the matter of a couple weeks.  It’s a hard and unhappy thing to be shoved outside the city gates and have them slammed behind you.  

I come to a new church community at a time in my life when I’d expected to be settling in for the home stretch.  I thought I’d be savoring the relationships my wife and I have cultivated over these 20 years. I'd imagined another 10 or 15 more years of deepening my ministry investment in the community, and looking to raise up my replacement.  I’d hoped I’d be reveling in the deep troves of experience I'd gathered with this one community all this time.  I knew people’s names.  I knew their stories, their children’s names, their trials and their joys.  I knew the marital shipwreck the one couple had narrowly avoided.  I knew the deep gratitude of the man who was 2 years sober.  I knew the delight of seeing people encounter the Living God for the first time.  

There’s always been a risk of being let go.  The lead pastor of my old church community is just 10 years older than me, and so I knew when he retired there was always the chance that I’d be uninvited.  In the church world, bringing on a new lead pastor is a lot like hiring a new head coach in the NFL.  They have their own established relationships and allegiances, and they often let the previous head coach’s staff go to make room for their people.  Just like the NFL, it’s common for a new lead pastor to let most of the pastoral staff of the previous lead pastor go.  

I knew this was always a possibility, and so my heart had prepared for the possibility of a departure in my 50s.  My heart had prepared as much as you can prepare for anything you’ve never experienced.  It’s like trying to explain marriage to someone who’s never been married, or parenting to someone who’s never had a child.  You can prepare all you want, but the only thing that will truly teach you is the experience itself.  And you can count on it being much more different than you expected.  

So here I am.  I’d like to think I’ve got some inkling of Christian maturity, but here I am, feeling like a 15-year-old on their first day of high school.  I walk into a church community where I’m unknown to the vast majority of the people here. I have no pretext.  I have no context.  Without these, I struggle to make sense of the subtext.  I’m functionally anonymous.  

During the hardest times of the past three years, I often dreamed about how delightful it would be to be anonymous at a church, but I sensed that it was mostly a silly fiction crafted to ease my frustration in the moment.  And that’s what it was.

I love my coworkers.  They love Jesus and they’re all-in for helping lead people to him.  They’re kind, honest, and accommodating to the new guy.  They’re bright, focused, and accepting. 

I just don’t know them...yet.  We have no shared experience to speak of.  I don’t really know their stories, and the stories we have shared are just narratives without context, like leaves caught in the late autumn breeze.  I know that in time I’ll be able to catch some of those leaves and pin a few of them down, but for now they just tumble away before I can catch them.  

I’m unsettled, and impatient for the settling to come. I know that in time I’ll be known.  I know that in time I’ll know.  I’m frustrated because I know that there’s nothing to be done to speed it up.  The settling will come in its own time - in a year, or two, or three.  I’ll look back, and it’ll be hard to remember what it was like when I was new.  

This is where I’m reminded of a simple truth that’s been foundational for my journey with Jesus:

Everything teaches if you’re willing to be taught.  

EVERYTHING teaches if you’re willing to be taught.  This one idea is a boundary marker that’s pointed me back to Jesus so many times in my life.  Good things - a new job, a new friendship, marriage, the birth of child, or even just a beautiful sunset - they all teach us about this journey we’re on, if we’re willing to be taught.  But even the bad things - sickness, job loss, financial hardship, broken relationships, and even death - they too will teach us if we know how to listen.  

Even THIS thing - where I found myself sideways with the leadership of my church community of 20 years - teaches me if I’m willing to let Jesus do the teaching.  God is instructing us through every mundane little thing in our existence, if we can only pay attention to the lessons.  In fact, as I entered the gauntlet of leaving that community, I asked God to help me see what I can learn from this.  

So often in times of joy, we thank God and revel in the pleasure of the experience.  Some believe it will always be like this mountain top experience, or that life SHOULD always be like the greatest moments of our existence.  Others are hesitant to celebrate because they know the joy won’t last and they begin mourning the loss before they’ve ever even celebrated the joy.   

During times of hardship, we often beg God for relief and impatiently wait for the pain to pass.  Some accuse God of being neglectful, shaking their fist at the sky and demanding that they be released from their suffering.  Others pretend nothing is wrong while the dissonance between expectation and reality expands to fill their hearts with poison.  Still others succumb to the weight of the trial and fold in on themselves, withdrawing from the world and isolating.  

What if we were able to look at all these things that happen to us, both good and bad, and do our best to pay attention to what God is doing in these moments?  Jesus promised to always be with us, and so in these moments, what if we stopped and looked for where he was?  

So often we talk about what God isn’t doing when the better question is: 

God, what ARE you doing?

Even in the midst of job loss, Lord, "what ARE you doing?"  In the middle of caring for a terminally ill family member, "God, where are you at work making all things new?"  In the pain of a broken relationship, "God, what are you inviting me to understand?"  And yes, even in the midst of our greatest triumphs, "God, what are YOU doing?"

When we ask these kinds of questions, we invite Jesus to come into the space where we are with us and to show us where he’s at work in our lives and the lives of those around us. 

I ask God, “Even in this, what are you doing? What garden are you tending?  What growth are you nurturing?  How can I join you?”  

Sometimes you'll know in the moment.  Often you must trust in the goodness of God and know that Jesus is with you, right there by your side in the midst of whatever it is you're experiencing.  Often we gain a greater understanding with time as we reflect on our experiences.  This is what happened to me.

As I journeyed through my season of unemployment, this one question, "God, what ARE you doing?" kept me somewhat centered and tethered to reality.  Knowing Jesus was there with me kept me from spinning off onto a thousand fruitless rabbit trails of distraction.  

A Threshold Season

As I continue to reflect on this liminal season of transition, I believe I'm beginning to gain some insight into the outcome of this journey.  Both literally and figuratively, Jesus has been inviting me into a deeper dependence on him.  

That may sound prosaic, but it’s often the most simple truths that are easiest to lose sight of.  They become assumed, and so we fail to tend to them.  Then they sneak up on us when we aren’t looking.  

This is a threshold season for me.  

Literally, my wife and I left our church community of 20 years and headed out into the wilderness.  We crossed a threshold into an unknown and utterly uncertain future.  My wife found new job after three months, which was God's provision as I was invited to endure exactly 6 months of unexpected unemployment (October 31, 2022 - May 1, 2023). [The pristine roundness of the number feels significant, but I'm resisting over-spiritualizing it.  If it has meaning, the Holy Spirit will bring it to my attention.]  My wife and I both emerged from this episode into a new vocational journey with a new church community.   

Figuratively, I found myself thrust out into the hallway, the door slammed and locked behind me.  The hallway was filled with doors in both directions for as far as the eye could see, and most of them were locked.  I know, because I tried A LOT of them.  

In this waiting space - this space between rooms - there were some cushy red velvet chairs I could sit in to relieve the weight I was feeling. (In my mind there’s a gold lava lamp with red lava like my Grandmother had on a low wooden table between the cushy chairs.) I had time to heal, to reflect on my journey, and to hear what God might be saying about what was next.  There were other friends and people I knew who came out into the hallway as well, and we tried a number of doors together.  

Over a period of months, I discerned that I was being invited by God to serve Jesus’ Church in this next season.  During the hard times of the past three years, I’d often dreamed of working as a project manager in IT, or any other job as long as it wasn’t a church.  Of course this was also just a silly thought to make myself feel better in the moment.  Instead of rejecting Jesus’ Church, I had a gut-level compulsion that whatever I was doing had to demonstrate a practical contribution to God’s kingdom.  That significantly narrowed the number of doors available to me, which is the opposite of what one generally wants when unemployed.  This feels like sheer foolishness when you have no income.  That’s when you want to keep your options open.  

But I felt Jesus there with me as I monitored the job postings, and I reminded myself over and over again, “Jesus, you gave me the last job, and you’ll give me the next one.” When the time was right, one of the doors opened, and I was invited into one of the rooms.  I’m beyond grateful. 

I could’ve spent my time asking God why he didn’t change my situation.  I could’ve complained to Jesus about him narrowing my employment options, or about all of the locked doors I encountered.  But the truth is, I could sense that Jesus was with me every step of the way.  There were days where I felt blind and it felt like the interminable waiting was never going to end.  But I returned to my focusing prayers almost every day to anchor me in the reality of this life with God.

“God of Hope, I trust in you.”

“Let your peace rule in my heart.” 

“Your joy, my Lord, is my strength.”

“I give thanks to you Lord, for you are good.”

“I want to know you Christ, and the power of your resurrection.”

In this difficult season, God has been teaching me about my limitations.  But God can overcome my limitations.  Jesus has invited me to look to him for my confidence.  

______________

Practicing Hope

This past weekend, I did my first church event with my new team.  That Saturday morning when I got up, I felt the weight of uncertainty.  I felt unmoored and adrift, floating over a chasm of hopelessness.  I was tired and dramatic.  There was a whisper in my ear, “You’ve made a huge mistake.  No one likes you, and you've sacrificed the only real community you’ll ever have.”   

It's important to know what God's voice sounds like.  I knew in the moment that whatever voice this was speaking into my heart, it wasn’t God.  

I entered into my regular time of devotion, setting aside the weight of uncertainty and moving into the familiar rhythms that have sustained me and brought me into the presence of my Creator day after day.  I journaled my thankfulness log, inviting the Holy Spirit to remind me of Jesus’ presence throughout the previous day.  I reminded myself that none of these good things I recorded had to have happened, but they did.  

I engaged with Psalm 33, inviting the Lord to speak from into the midst of this actual life I am living.  

Here's what it looked like:

Psalm‬ ‭33‬:‭6‬-‭9

PSALM: By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, 

and by the breath of his mouth all their host. 

ME: You ARE the Creator. Over all things you rule. You create something from nothing over and over again. Create something from me! 

PSALM: He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap; 

he puts the deeps in storehouses. 

Let all the earth fear the Lord; 

let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him! 

For he spoke, and it came to be; 

he commanded, and it stood firm.

ME: Make me into something beautiful for your glory and for the world. My confidence comes from you. 

I entered into silence, centering my time with God in the words that have been my comfort and confidence these last long three years:

“God of Hope, I trust in you.  Please fill me with all joy and peace as I trust in you, so that I might overflow with hope, by the power of your Holy Spirit.” 

Romans 15:13

The accusing voice fell silent somewhere along the way.  I settled into the arms of my loving Savior and he buoyed my heart.  I was tethered to the most real Reality in the universe.  In this coming day, what could possibly diminish the power of the Holy Spirit in me, and the confidence that flows from knowing who I am in Christ?  

I finished with prayer, reciting the Prayer of Recollection that reminds me who I am in Christ.  My heart posture shifted to expectation, to a joyful anticipation of all that God had for me in the coming day.  My heart filled with God’s love for me, my love for God, and that same love flowing out of me to others.  I didn’t have to manufacture hope - God filled me with Hope.  

I got in the car.  It was a beautiful, cool, late spring morning.  At 6:30am, with no one else is out on the roads, I rolled down my windows and sang all the way there.

“All my life You have been faithful. 

All my life You have been so, so good.

With every breath that I am able

I will sing of Your goodness, my God.” 

The Goodness of God - Bethel Music

Nothing in my circumstance had changed.  I was still someone dealing with a massive transition late in life.  I was still grieving the loss of my church community.  I was still the new guy.  I was still uncertain about the future.  I was still who I am, vulnerable, naked, and wary.

But, by the power of the Holy Spirit, I’m more than these facts about me.  I have a confidence that flows from who I am in Christ.  I have hope, joy, and peace that flows from the throne of God.  God is pouring his love out into my heart, and I’m able to enter in to God’s invitation with a hope that comes from God alone.  Jesus is with me every step of the way, and I can begin to see his fingerprints everywhere I look. 

With this perspective:

The world stops happening to me, and God's invitation is everywhere.  

It ended up being a beautiful day and a delightful event.  I made some connection with my new coworkers, who are wonderful people who love Jesus.  I look forward to hearing more of their stories and learning more about their own journeys with Jesus.  I also anticipate our unique journey together as it unfolds. We will create our own shared experiences as we serve our good and beautiful God together.   

Jesus, you are always with me, just like you said you would be.  Thank you for giving me eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart that is filled with your love.  

What are your thoughts toward God when things are going well?

What are your thoughts toward God when things are going poorly?

What from this post stood out the most for you?  What is God asking you to do about it?