Why I Haven't Been Writing

Of course I don't have to explain an absence or delay in posting if I have no reason to suspect that I have any current readership. Then that one guy has to randomly say "I thought you were blogging" and the wave of guilt crashes over you as if you've robbed the world of something. As inconsequential, as my blog has been even back when I wrote more frequently, I can tell you that for the majority of my time away the reason for my slack has been quite simply a busy schedule with too much to focus on. 

Study ceased to be the primary focus of my work and ministry and so writing took the same hit. From 2013 to 2015 I wrote two or three new sermons out of necessity. I was too caught up in the work of ministry to study and contemplate Scripture on the level I would prefer. If I'm not pondering God's word and the mysteries of life, not making observations on the world around me, then I've not the time nor material to write as I would like either. 

But for the last year I have had all the time on the world to think and write. So what was the issue? I have been overcome by fear. Pure unadulterated fear. 

Many who know me also know that I rose quickly through the ranks of a large Christian nonprofit in my area only to have the rug pulled out from under me with no warning or reason given. I call it a coup, but to be fair I am ignorant of anything that went on behind the scenes and nothing was explained to me. I went from CEO to mall security guard to substitute teacher to stay at home dad. I had time to think, and time to write. 

But I couldn't do it. My initial problem was one of anger. It would be easy to start blogging and lambast those who had wronged me. To try to pull back the curtain on my perceptions of corruption in the system that had failed me. But would this actually help anything? Time and time again I felt an overwhelming conviction that this would take me nowhere. I would write that post or letter to the editor and while it helped to get my feelings out on paper all I could think was, "What does this serve?" 

Then came the fear. I found myself in a position of bona fide ministry failure. I had not failed morally (as is so easy a slope to find oneself on these days) and because of the way I was let go I couldn't point to any matter of my work or leadership style that had led to the problem. I had failed and I didn't know how or why or if I was even responsible. Still my voice was silenced. What could I say or do that would help anyone? What insight could I possibly bring forward? I was afraid (still am) that to express an opinion would be to open myself up to immediate criticism. From whom I do not know, but every time I would start to form a thought or opinion on paper I would hear this voice saying, “Right as if any of us should listen to a failure!”

Added to my lack of confidence was the fact that with no super stressful job to distract me, I had to now face my PTSD. Since returning from Afghanistan I had managed this demon by throwing myself into work. I would go to counseling and psychiatric appointments to get just enough help to survive. But never face the issue head on. Anxiety and self-loathing ruled over me.

I’m not here to describe my symptoms and triggers or to gain sympathy or support. Just to tell my experience. Finally at the beginning of this year I could take it no more and confessed the full breadth of my struggle to my wife. I’m not ok yet, it isn’t managed yet, but I’m getting the full scope of help I need instead of scraping by and that is what’s important. I’m taking off the mask and letting my scars show instead of keeping up the façade that everything is fine and perfect. I am a good actor, it is easy to lie to the world and pretend life is good.

So that’s it. That’s why I haven’t been writing. I lost my voice so to speak but I am trying to get it back.

But what to do with the fear? In my weakness, I have found strength in God’s word. Let’s consider Jeremiah 29 in which God addresses the exiles through Jeremiah’s letter. This chapter has often been taken out of context in an effort to make ourselves feel good or help people swallow name it and claim it doctrines the most misused verse is 11 which says,

“I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

The misuse of this verse revolves around people declaring that God has a tailor made plan for their personal welfare on earth in the here and now. Tell that to the believer in the third world country. Or as a friend of mine said the other day, “Walk into a children’s cancer ward and say that you [expletive deleted]!”

The verse, the entire chapter has context. And that context still allows the believer to find hope in God, not because of a specific promise but because of His nature. Just to be clear God is not addressing me or you personally in this verse. He is addressing exiled Jews in Babylon circa 722 BC. This promise refers specifically to a promise to return Israel to their homeland in time.

I am not exiled, I’m not Jewish, I live in 2016, I have an iPhone. I have nothing in common with the addressees of this letter. I’m not looking for the type of restoration they were asking for. Why then should this verse speak to me? Because my hope is not in what God will do for me, but in God’s promises to His people. The Bible is full of those promises. In Jeremiah 29 we have a promise that was verifiably fulfilled. God did return his people to their land, and He did provide for their spiritual welfare.

I find strength knowing that I serve a God who keeps His promises.

Philippians 1:6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

God called me to faith and to service to His Kingdom. The short years I have spent in full time ministry contexts may be all I get but God will complete the work He started in me. That doesn’t mean I will absolutely be restored to ministry, it doesn’t mean that I will be a pastor or great spiritual leader in my community. It does mean that God will be glorified in all that He has allowed me to do for Him. And should I never see the completion of that work with these two eyes, I can rest in the peace and assurance that God keeps His promises.

It's coming back!

Hey there my five followers! The blog is getting ready to come back. Excited screams and sighs of frustration equally welcome. Prepare to have my thoughts force fed into your facebook feeds!

My candidate lost...should I move?

It has been years since I've posted. I logged in again after all this time and found a draft with the above headline and no text. So this is all I'm going to post today. Just that headline from 2012. Hopefully the sarcasm is understood. I hope I start to write and post again and that it will be of benefit to anyone. 

The Story

My wife bought the Album “Music Inspired by the Story” the other day. And we have listened to it pretty much nonstop since.  Several well-known Christian artists perform songs written to represent various characters in the bible.

The one we hear on the radio all the time is “I’m with You” by Amy Grant and Nicole Nordeman, a musicalization of Ruth and Naomi. Lovely song. But upon hearing the whole album I realize that it is all good. Just a splendid album.

What I like most about it though is that music demands an emotional response. And I think we often lose that factor in reading the bible. I mean, take a look.

Ruth 1

 ¹ In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land, and a man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. ² The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there. ³ But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. ⁴ These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years, ⁵ and both Mahlon and Chilion died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.

We hear the book of Ruth preached and taught almost yearly between sermon series and Sunday school. And the story is excellent, the relationship between Ruth and Naomi is wonderful. The symbolism of Boaz as kinsman redeemer brings us right back around to a picture of Christ. We even come to realize that Boaz and Ruth will be ancestors to David.

But we lose the emotion. I’m not saying that faith is emotion, or that we need to focus on emotions at all times. But in these times of making the Bible “relevant” wouldn’t it makes sense to find those emotions that we have in common with the players in scripture? Wouldn’t this provide an amount of relevancy and connection between the Bible and modern day readers of scripture better than a sermon series on Gilligan’s Island or Fear Factor?

In these five verses we have a man taking his wife and sons on a journey to a place where they are strangers. The famine is too great so they leave the familiarity of home to try to make a living somewhere else. Is this not relevant to a nation in a recession? Doesn’t this strike a chord with a generation who find themselves moving in with family and moving to places they didn’t know existed in order to find work? People who are giving up the comfortable and familiar life they knew in order to try to provide for their families.

This was surely no small trip, but since it is only a verse in the exposition, we choose not to consider it. The same with Elimelech and his sons. They are far from “home” and then they all die. First Dad and then the two sons. So the sons are able to provide for Mom for a time, but then they die as well. Leaving not only Naomi, but Ruth and Orpah in the lurch as well.

If you consider this situation and put yourself in the shoes of the survivors you can’t help but make a relation to the life you are living. Imagine the worst loss you have experienced in your life. But imagine that this loss means you are 100% destitute. Naomi is far from the land of her family, she has no husband and now no sons.

Ruth and Orpah have places to go, but Naomi’s only course is to pack up and leave. So imagine the deep emotional moment it must have been when Ruth said, “I’m going with you.” The scripture tells us that this was a hard moment, that the women wept and didn’t want to part. But Naomi sends them away to their homes since they have nothing to gain by being with her. Naomi has an uncertain future, does not want to part ways, but doesn’t want to transport these girls the way she was, with no guarantee that she can care for them.

But Ruth insists on going with her anyway.

I don’t think I have a grand smash bang finish to this post. I just hope that as we read the bible we will stop to consider moments like these. In today’s age, if there isn’t a 3 page description of Elimilech fighting cancer, our hearts aren’t tugged. Don’t let the straightforwardness of the scripture distract you from the humanity of the characters in it.

Relevance is found in how we relate to people who lived thousands of years ago. How we see them interact with God in the same ways we do. How we see them face the same struggles and trials that we see today, but in a different context.

Naomi and Ruth hadn’t read the end of the book when this journey started. They did not have the perspective of how God would come through and use them. But they are faithful and God does work in their lives in a big way.

 Though you can’t see it now. Perhaps someday, someone may look back on your life and say, “Look how God used that experience for his glory!”

It has been long enough

Since the last post we have packed up a house, driven from Jacksonville, FL to Miller, SD, unpacked into a new house, adopted a dog and started adapting to civilian life. Yes, the whole family has to adapt. People fail to understand that the family is just as much in the military as the parent or spouse who is wearing the uniform.

Well, let me say that it is amazing to be a civilian again. I get to be home for lunch every day and if we have a rough night with the kids I currently have the flexibility to kick around the house a while longer. More amazing though is the experience of being a pastor. God placed us in a great church in rural South Dakota. The people are supportive and loving. Pray for us as we take steps every day to expand our reach for Christ in the community.

Obviously with so much going on and getting into the swing of pastoring and sermon prep, this blog has taken a break. Not that it was booming before, but I hope to change that now. I should have a good deal of material to adapt and play around with on here after my first 3 months of preaching. So if you are one of my church members—sorry there might be a lot of repeats, but you said you liked it the first time, so I am assuming you will love it the second!

Today I have just a brief post-Christmas thought to share. And yes I shared something similar both last Sunday and last Wednesday.

This week I was taken aback at the thought that over 2,000 years ago God made the most significant move in the history of His creation. Consider the impact the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus has had to date. I defy you to name one person who has impacted history to the same extent. We might be able to think of a few people who acted in ways that have changed life as we know it. Or we ask the question, “If you could go back in time and kill Hitler, would you do it?”

Men, women and events have certainly shaped our history, but our history would have been shaped either way. To the colonists the greatest evil was King George. To us in recent years it has been the likes of Usama Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein. But Jesus impacted the 1700’s the same way he impacts our generation. But how many in our generation even remembers that the American Revolution sported George as its antagonist? In 200 years will Bin Laden or Hussein carry the same gravity when they are mentioned?  Probably not. But Jesus has and always will hold weight and significance to the creation of God.

Traditions of Santa and Christmas trees may fall out of style one day. Christ will not.

Merry Christmas to you and peace in the New Year!!