I know, the title is cliché, but my life this last 3 or 4 weeks has been an exercise in learning to trust God.

Ann and I have been through lots of stuff in 5 years of marriage. We’ve moved 4 times, had 6 jobs (between the 2 of us) and attended 4 different churches. We lost a child, now we have a great little boy. We’ve had money in the bank and we’ve been broke. We’ve had sickness and we’ve seen healing. We know and acknowledge God’s hand in all of it. Looking back, I know God has been there through all of it, yet in the last few weeks I have had the most difficult time really trusting that God has my life in his hands.

Psalm 37:25 says

I was young and now I am old,
yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken
or their children begging bread

I know that God has never left me. Not one thing I have come up against has ever been bigger than Him, yet in some way I have this feeling that I can’t let go and stop worrying about things. Somehow I have gotten the idea that my plans have to be in order for Him to do his work, and the revelation I have gotten this weekend is that my plans don’t mean anything.

Again, I “know” that in my mind, but knowing that He is going to handle it and actually trusting him to do it have proven to be two very different things.

I really got released from it all today. That came as a combination of things. First, in my prayer time last night (which sounds much more “Holier than thou” than it should) God really spoke to my heart and revealed some things that cut me to the bone. When I woke up this morning, my life looked very different than it did last night.

Second, we had an awesome worship service this morning which spoke to my heart and gave me an opportunity to thank Him for the change he has started in my life. I know that I can do that on my own, but something about doing that as a part of corporate worship made it even better.

Third, Ann was speaking with someone from life group who knows what we are struggling with and who has some knowledge of the other side of our situation who really had some encouraging words and good news about how things might turn out. Of course, I won’t know until tomorrow what that looks like.

I have actually been sleeping pretty well lately because I have worn myself completely out worrying all day about what is going to happen next, but tonight I have a feeling I will be awake all night. The difference is, this time it’s because I am excited to see what God has in store for us next. That’s a really great feeling.

What ever God has in store for me, I know it will be enough.

I was reading Clay’s blog tonight and my comment started turning into a blog post, so I shortened the comment and decided to write my thoughts on my own blog.

His blog was about a church near him that is advertising a “Patriotic Sunday”. His point (I hope I am accurately summarizing here) is that there is a line that should not be crossed in making our Country or a flag the object of our worship. I totally agree with that assessment and I also agree that using something like this to draw seekers can be questionable.

My particular soap-box was constructed a few years back. I was in a church Christmas play about how the season was so commercial, we take our good fortune for granted and need to re-center our focus on Christ. Roger that.

Then it happened… I didn’t know it was coming, and from the look of things my Dad (the pastor) didn’t know it was coming either. Someone stands up at the front of the church and says something to the effect of “Does someone hear Reindeer?” and Santa busts through the center isle door. Right in the middle of the sanctuary they set up this big chair and put Santa in it for all the kids to come tell him what “stuff” they want for Christmas.
I was livid. If there is a stronger word for livid, that would be more accurate. I was inconsolable. How can we do this? We just told everyone that they needed to focus on Christ during Christmas, and immediately turn around to tell them “Nevermind, ask for more junk”.

Since then, my disingenuous detector has worked overtime when it comes to church services. Anything that I perceive as being duplicitous, phony or overly theatrical makes me want to scream. I’m no stuff-shirt when it comes to church. I don’t think there are many valid “sacred cows” in worship, but when it comes to sending a message about our Savior, I think we need to be clear and consistent.

While I am on a rant: As someone who basically left the faith for a few years, I can tell you that from the outside looking in nothing is more unattractive than the fake fun we sometimes as Christians want to portray. I’m all for good wholesome fun, but when it is so over-the-top-kindergarten-teacher-driven cheesy “fun” I don’t think we do ourselves any favors. To me, it was insulting that Christians thought they were fooling me with how much fun they were allegedly having. It wasn’t until I met a group of guys who would drink a beer and talk about Jesus that I came back to Christianity. They weren’t faking anything, they were just people having fun and they happened to be Christians. They lived within the boundaries (i.e. they weren’t getting drunk and talking about Jesus), but they were real and they really love Jesus.

People want us to be who we say we are, and any attempt at faking it just turns them off.

So, I’m sure I took a left turn here somewhere into something totally unrelated to Clay’s blog, but I decided that while I had the soapbox out I might as well get it all off my chest.

From Dr. Ergun M. Caner on Rick and Bubba this morning.

The difference between holiness and legalist is that a holy person wants you to look more like Jesus, a legalist wants you to look more like them.

It’s a paraphrase, but I think it gets the message across. I had never been able to frame it like that. It’s definitely a great mirror to hold up and see what inside of me has that “legalist” view.

That quote comes from Dan Case’s blog. Dan is a friend and former boss of mine and this isn’t at all the first time that Dan has said something that stopped me in my tracks.

Dan is one of the people who stood by Ann and I when we found out that something was wrong and we would likely lose Caed.  I had a lot of people around me who were great and provided such great support but Dan and I had a special connection. I think Dan probably had the perfect boss/employee relationship, we respected one another and it showed. We were really a team. More importantly we held each other up. Dan supported me for the long months between finding out we would lose Caed and actually losing him.

I am rambling, but the point I am trying to make is that over the last few years I have earned a few scars. Some of those wounds behind the scars have been deep.. very, very deep. Losing a child and leaving a job I loved have proven to be some of the hardest things I have ever done. I know that wounds heal… with emotional wounds there are always scars even if they only serve as reminders of how God pulls us through things. I also know that a wound like losing a son is not something that ever REALLY heals in this life. It gets better, it gets easier to handle and the pain subsides over time but in the long run the scab only falls off when we are reunited after this life. I read this line on Dan’s blog and it really makes a great point. I can’t tell you that I have ever had an “event” that made the pain less, but I can look back over the last 18 months and see steps on the journey where God left a marker.

I think one of those markers on the journey is probably coming up soon when Ann and I go to Little Rock to visit friends.  I hope that this visit helps to heal some of the wounds that I caused, and some that I caused myself when I left Little Rock hard and fast. I haven’t ever felt like I made that right.

Ann and I started praying some time ago about the direction our lives should go. I have been asking God about a very specific path that I have always felt was a call on my life, but that I don’t feel like I have ever really implemented. I guess it’s more about the realization that I have had that what I am doing in my career, while it is a good career choice, just isn’t what I really want in my life. After we started praying about it, I started noticing some changes in my life. I have had an opportunity to get some of my spiritual “junk” out and give it to God, I’ve seen a difference in my attitude on life and the most amazing thing is that i’ve started to see a change in my opportunities. God has started showing me some doors. They aren’t open just yet, but I can see them. I don’t even know where they may lead, but I am encouraged that it seems like He’s started placing people in my life that may put me in a position to make a move into another place in my life in the next few months or years.

My gut is that this won’t be quick, it probably won’t be easy and it very likely will cost me something. I just know that whatever I sacrifice for God will be worth it. What I don’t know is what it will look like, whether it will be something I can manage to do full time or if it just means that God is letting me get a taste of it to see something bigger. It is the desire of my heart to move out of the “norm” I am in now into something completely extraordinary, but only if that is with God and it fits his purpose for my life.

You can’t get a better boss…

If you pray, pray with me on this. You don’t have to know specifics but when I feel like I am released to talk more about it, I will.