One lesson I'm learning well in our wilderness wandering is that looking back is pointless. I want to look forward, perhaps more than at any time in my life.
Let me quickly circle back for one moment and say "yes" I said wilderness wandering, it's a great metaphor for where I feel we are. Why? Having left the security of the enslavement of institutionalism, I feel like we are on the verge of the Promised land. I can't go back to the golden-chains of the mainline, institutional structure that I was once deeply enmeshed in. What the future is holding, only God knows for sure.
I mean no disrespect for people who can thrive in an institutional-mainline church setting; simply put, personally I can't. some of the people I love & respect the most are in that type of setting. I'm not saying I'm out of full-time ministry for life, but I am saying I can't ever go back the same-ol-same-ol structure I've been in. I love doing ministry because I want to, not because I have to. I'm thankful for being sidetracked in the desert, it's rather liberating.
Okay, back to the point I was trying to make about looking forward...
Recently we were having a great discussion with a few friends, discussing Bible things, and someone asked a question. We had looked at a passage in I Timothy 2 at length, and we saw it in a different light than our heritage typically has. Someone asked, "How would you help someone see this particular point?" (my loose paraphrase of their question)
At that point something clicked in my brain, and I said, there is a certain powerful phenomena we experience when we weave/braid together: Nostalgia over our golden-years, our Comfort-zone, and our hesitation to rock the boat/upset, or make people uncomfortable. That emotional rope can hold us back from seeing Scriptures in a fresh way. At that point, the person who asked the question about helping others see I Tim 2 more clearly, mimicked wrapping a rope around their neck and said, if we aren't careful that rope we weave is the noose we hang ourselves with...
So, as I work concrete these days and feel like we are being led by a pillar of Cloud by day & a pillar of Fire by night, I've thought about change quite a bit. I know I can never go back to the garlic, cucumber or pots overflowing with meat (Check out Numbers 11:5) and I'm looking forward to where God is leading us. Change, even when we can clearly see it is a change for the best is still hard for most of us. The hardest part of change just might be the willingness of letting go of the one so you can grab onto the other...
1 comment:
Well, Craig, it looks like what I had hoped would happen is happening. It used to really irritate me when people would say things like, "You just don't understand the real world." I thought, "How dare they judge me thus, they don't know where I have been and what I have seen and what kind of people I have been with, etc. I have seen and experienced much more than they have in many areas," but, when I stepped out of the pulpit, I began to see what they were talking about. I found that I learned many useful lessons I would never have learned while in the pulpit. I felt many of the things you have expressed...I do pray that you will continue to find "All things working together for good" and that God will use you wherever you are to bring glory to Him...I do love you Brother and wish the very best for you and your family...AGAPE!!
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