October 21,2010

It’s quite. My wife and children have all gone to bed and I find myself in a place, that I hate to admit, is all too familiar. I promised myself that my blog would be a place of honesty, a place where I would express the hardest parts of my journey. So instead of having another private entry into my journal tonight I thought I would write about the messy reality of a pastor’s heart on this road less traveled.

See for those of you that might be stopping by for the first time you might find this a bit unnerving. It’s OK if you feel that way because it makes me, the writer, a bit uncomfortable. See, I’m in a season that pastors never like to talk about. It’s like I pledged some secret fraternity that has an unspoken rule. It is a rule that discourages honesty about our passion for God’s Word. Well, maybe that is a bit misleading. It is less about my passion for the Word, but more about my lack thereof. You see my heart at times experiences a seasonal change like the Fall leaves as months that pass by in the mountains of Colorado. This season in my journey is not one that you want to meander through and take snapshots to hang on the wall. This season comes with a hundred excuses, excuses justifying my lack of desire for God’s Love Letter to me. Excuses that fumble off the tongue like a young school child when asked to turn in the homework that they forgot to complete. There continues to be this nagging tug at my heart like my son’s holding onto my pant leg in a busy supermarket. A tug that says slow down and be with the Father. However, my routine is less disturbing than my heart’s desire. The essence of what I’m saying is my soul is dry and the bucket that one lowers into the well keeps hitting the bottom producing a resounding sharp echo… “Clank”.

Now ask yourself, what could be more useless than a dry well? It’s not like you can simply turn a well without water into something useful. I don’t see this being a HGTV special where they come in and do a makeover on some fancy Victorian home. We’re talking about a deep hole in the ground that is nothing more than empty. Empty and missing the very thing that gives it purpose, water. So why would I tell you, my reader, this? Well, I’m guessing that there are people out there that have felt this very same thing before and have thought to themselves, “There must be something wrong with me.” Or, “Maybe God doesn’t love me as much as He used to.” It’s not like I’m trying to avoid His Word. I’m not looking to run from Him or trying to conceal some secret sin issue that I’m unwilling to address. Right now I’m in a season that His Word doesn’t seem to be alive and active. There’s a silence in the air.

Now I’m not so naïve as to assume that the Word is not alive and active in spite of my inability to see it right now. God is on the move regardless of my spiritual or emotional inability to recognize His voice on the pages of His Word. I’m speaking more about the lack of passion to be in the Word. I personally believe that every believer goes through these seasons whether we talk about it or not. This post isn’t to justify this place or even make sense of how I got here. I’m writing to acknowledge this season and that this heart still has a propensity to wonder into places that have walls. Walls that seem to trap the way I think and walls that seem unforgiving as they move in to create this smallness to His presence. These walls create a place where the rope leading out seems to be just out of grasp. There is light in the distance as I look up from the bottom, but it’s damp in the darkness.

There is hope that water will once again touch these walls and consume the presence of this place. There is understanding that this bucket that seems empty will once again rise up with a purpose. There is knowledge that it will rain again and this season will change like the spring taking from the presence of winter. For now however, I will continue to reach for a rope that today seems out of my grasp. I know the days ahead will produce something different. How do I know? I’ve been here before. See I don’t think this is strange or contrary to the life of a believer. I know the ebb and flow of our journey. The question is not, "Why am I here?” The question is, "How long am I willing to wait upon His Word to drink the water again?" It brings to mind an old song that my dad used to sing when I was a kid. “Spring up ol’ well within my soul. Spring up ol’ well and make me whole.” Maybe that song writer understood me…

                                                                                                              October 14, 2010

The emotion on the front end of taking a risk to follow Christ is much different than the emotion you experience on the back end. Many will never understand what I’m talking about. For those that have given up a dream or ambition to follow Christ in His purpose for their life understand the emotion that I’m speaking of. This emotion rests in a place where there are a thousand questions about our futures. It’s a place that is foreign and uncomfortable because it’s produced in our lives when we give up our ways in exchange for His. It is not comfortable. It is not always joyous and it is defiantly not easy.

The questions of "why" are met with silence. The ability to see beyond tomorrow is void. Everything is new and strange. You’re met with an overwhelming tension between what you've known and loved with the reality of a calling to love and invest yourself into something different. I don’t think it’s anything new. It’s a tension that goes all the way back to the first church. I see it in the pages of Jews being sent to influence Gentiles and Gentiles going to the Jews. Its image is overlooked in the fine details on page after page of people reaching into the lives of people that were unlike their own. To stay in Jerusalem would have been easy, but Samaria?

It’s an amazing thing when you find yourself being thrust into the deeper realms of scripture. See Acts1:8 has taken on a whole new tone and significance to me. I just thought I understood the “uttermost parts of the world” bit because of a mission trip here and there. I thought I had a glimpse of a diverse culture that the “Samaria” reference stood for in our church speak. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Diversity is not truly understood when you are in the majority. Diversity is only understood when you are faced with a reality that you are the minority and the knowledge that you will continue to be. That is not necessarily a bad thing. However, it does give you a deeper glimpse into the cost of reaching your “Samaria” or the “utter most parts”. I’m finding that this knowledge is another tool that my Redeemer is using to bring me into a deeper reliance of who He is. This kind of education strips us down of the self-reliance and pride that our Jerusalem’s tend build up within us. There is nothing more sobering than being in place that sees no value in your accomplishments somewhere else.

This place of reliance on who He is can be a good place. It can be a place of intimacy with the King. It can strengthen us. It can prepare us for a journey that can blow our minds and speak to our souls. It can change us. However, it has to start within the heart and emotion of who we are. See the emotion that we tend to make the choice to step out and follow our King with so frequently changes when our pursuit takes us through Samaria. Our emotion begins to change when our expectations are altered. Our emotions begin to speak with more reality in our lives than our God. It’s a dangerous place to be, hence the need to address our dependence on our Father. My emotions are God given, but so is His Word. What I choose to listen to more will greatly alter how I see my God. He continues to speak into me… “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not in your own understanding, but in all of your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path.”