Hopeless Ramblings

Do you have the time
To listen to me whine
About nothing and everything
All at once
I am one of those
Melodramatic fools
Neurotic to the bone
No doubt about it
-"Basket Case" by Green Day

Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.
--Proverbs 13:12

I am not Job.

I was not a man worthy of praise for my uprightness. I certainly wouldn't draw the attention of Satan for my ability to avoid sin. I've not lost everything and everyone I love in a flash. I'm not covered in sores. My wife is not telling me to curse God and die- actually, she is a glimmer of hope in my life.

But those glimmers of hope are few and far between lately. I don't face Job-like catastrophes just yet. My job is on the line, my kids got sick and the medicine is ridiculously expensive, my computer crashed and we lost all important documents and pictures of the last two years, and the tendinitis in my elbow is getting pretty painful.

These things seem small to you, no doubt. But they don't to me. They are piling up, and despite my hopes and prayers- there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

I guess I should also point out that in the midst of all this, I've been looking for God. I've been asking Him for help, for direction, for light- but all that happens is one more thing to weigh me down.

I don't want you to quote me scripture, or give me some platitude about how "things will turn out." I don't know that I can believe that. Things have always turned out before- but that is no guarantee now. Things didn't turn out for John the Baptist when he was arrested and put before Herod. Why do we assume that "things will turn out" when many of the people of the Bible ended up on the total opposite of "OK?"

So, what if I lose my job and there isn't another one to fill its place? What if, on the limited budget that creates, we can't pay bills, or the car breaks down or some major illness hits? What if the way out I've been praying for never comes?

How can I have faith when it seems God is silent?

I remember once in college, shortly after my Dad passed away, I was at a small group leaders meeting with twenty or so other college students. Something was said and I responded to it. One of the other leaders, Michael- who I had always seen as a great example of faith and conviction and desire for God- looked at me and said, "You have such faith."

What happened?

I served in churches where "Christians" ate each other alive at the drop of the hat. I've seen fervent prayer for healing or rescue go seemingly unanswered. I've watched as truly faithful people struggle while others seem to have it easy with seemingly little dependence on faith. I've seen hollow believers ascend to leadership because of who they knew, while those whose hearts are true wallow in the depths of anonymity.

Through all of that, I've had faith. It has been tested, it has been tried, it has ebbed and flowed- as it is even now.

And I recognize that faith is not a constant- sometimes we have it and sometimes we don't. Right now, my faith is low. Perhaps next week it will rise, perhaps after lunch, perhaps not for a long while. My faith is low, because my hope it exhausted.

Just last week, I came across a quote from Hurley on the show Lost:

Look, I don't know about you, but things have really sucked for me lately, and I could really use a victory. So let's get one, dude! Let's get this car started. Let's look death in the face and say: 'Whatever, man!'"

I'm between the first and second sentences there right now. I need a victory. I need God to show up. I need my faith and what little hope I have to be validated.

See, it would be easy for me to take what I'm feeling and say, "Forget you, God- you've left me and don't seem to care. Your expectations and rules are too much for me, so I'm gone." Believe me, this is tempting.

But I can't.

And I can't really explain why I can't. Perhaps it's in the fact that I know God is real. And if I know and believe that God is real, then I must recognize what He said and has done in the past for me and all people is real.

Perhaps it's the fact that I don't know how to not trust in God, that's all I've ever known.

Or maybe, it's the fact that if I let go of the hope I have in God, then I really have nothing left to hope in.

And if that's the case, then the hope I now have is that I am right where God wants me: lowly and contrite, broken and malleable. Available to Him. Useful to Him.

Wholly His.

And it is there that I will get to the second sentence in Hurley's quote- that I will look death, or failure, or unemployment, or stagnation in the face and say "Whatever, man!"

And He will be the only victory I want or need.

Being Miserable at Your Job for God's Glory

The other day, I was having lunch with Craig, a local pastor, and we were talking about ministry and "the call." We both agreed that a calling to full time ministry means that you will be miserable doing anything else- because if God calls you to serve, that's where He wants you.

I thought a lot about this over the last few days, in the midst of being miserable at my day job, and decided it is so true. Yet, there is, as always, an exception. What if God calls you to a ministry, but that ministry can't pay you?

When we started the Gate, I knew that I would have to become bi-vocational, and I was OK with that. In the early days, it was pretty easy to balance the two, especially since my day job offered a great flexibility. I could work through lunch and be able to meet people for coffee in the afternoon and still have time for family in the evenings. The job was low stress (other than the fact that being a legal assistant in delinquent tax law means all I do is research, and I hate research) and the pay was good. On the Gate side, we were still in high single digits to barely teens, so there wasn't as much time needed for that.

Over three years later, much of that has changed. The Gate is running in the mid-twenties with great potential to grow this spring- despite there being NO advertising at all this last semester aside from word of mouth. I'm scheduled to be meeting with three guys one-on-one on a weekly to semi-weekly schedule, plus I'll be meeting with the worship leader, when we find them. (They're not lost, we just need a new one due to graduation.) With Wally stepping back from the church, there are many things he did that I now have to do- they're small, but they are things like setting up slides for the messages. Also, with growth, there is a need growing to put our church in action like it never has been before- we need to be going, and going hard to the community around us. With the Wellborns gone, as well as our biggest graduating class ever, we are at a point where we have to take risks, and we have to spend time growing leaders to fill gaps.

I've not been this excited about the Gate since we started her. The possibilities are keeping me filled with hope and expectation and vision.

But my day job, that thing I keep so I can pay the bills, is killing me. I still have that freedom part, but with the increased needs of the Gate, it's not enough. The pay has stayed about the same as when I started, so that's no good. And the stress part? Let's just say there are certain elements in play that necessitated an early Christmas present punching bag for relief.

I'm not doing the Gate full-time, and I'm miserable.

I've looked at getting another job, but I realize now that nothing will allow me the freedom to do the Gate and the salary to pay the bills. Nothing, that is, aside from working for the Gate. The problem is, the Gate has about enough money to pay rent at the bar and handle a few miscellaneous needs that arise here and there. The Gate has never asked for money outside of itself, and so far, God has provided for the needs we have. But now, we sit at a point where we need God to up the provision.

I'd love to have someone donate the money to pay me full time and have enough left over to fulfill some of the needs we have like paying the rent and upgrading equipment that is growing old and funding mission opportunities. I want the Gate to grow, and reach people and be light to the campus of A&M and the cities of BCS. I need more time to devote to that, and the funds to support the ideas God is growing in me and in the people of our church.

And so, we're back to the start of this blog- that a person called to serve God full-time will be miserable if they do anything else. I am called to the Gate, yet I must work in tax law to be able to serve the Gate and reach people for Christ. I'm a "tentmaker" like Paul.

This is my trial.

But this, this is my hope:

"In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls." ----1 Peter 1:6-9

If I must be miserable as a legal assistant so that I may know the joy of seeing God work in the lives of the people the Gate reaches, then so be it.

I need more time to devote to the Gate, but until I have it, I will take your prayers. Because with them, it is not just the Gate and I who reaps their blessing, it is you as well. For your prayers are what give the Gate and I support. Support when we are stressed, support when we are down, support when things don't go well. But you will also rejoice with us when God brings victory, salvation, and hope.

And though we might have trouble seeing Him now, I believe in Him- and that gives me joy.