I’ve been leading all year on this thing…and I’m tired. Not physically but emotionally. I team-led for 4 months and I have squad-led now for 5 and will for the remainder of the race. Every morning I pop a pill to help me with the depression I have been battling for 2 years with a side of pink medicine to lower my blood pressure. And now even my spiritual condition seems to be off.
I thought I had God figured out before I left on this thing…or at least most of Him. I knew he was leading me and preparing my every step. But I also knew that I have a pretty bomb resume. No gaps. Nothing lower than a 3.8. Nothing that says waitstaff or self employed for lawn mowing. It’s progressive. It makes sense. It even says manager and masters. But its NOT normal!!!
Here I am a few months from the end of the race…trying to figure out what’s next. My resume doesn’t have a gap in it so why start now? I need to have a plan. I’ve got open doors and I’m pursuing them!
Until they start closing…and I start realizing that my perfectionist mentality has remained buried deep inside of me when I thought I put it in a coffin 3 years ago. I have more of a heart for God’s plan for my life than I do for lost people. Having spent the past 9 months in jungles, slums, and mountains I know that doesn’t add up.
I’m afraid that if I don’t plan ahead then I am going to miss God’s plan. I’m afraid to lay down the very thing I KNOW the Lord is in control of.
If I could sum up the biggest thing I have learned on this trip, it is that Kingdom work isn’t sexy. Every month I’ve worked with a missionary or pastor who lives in the tenches of ministry. Trenches so deep that the fruit disappears behind the horizon. 3,000 people don’t get saved every day. Actually most days not even 1 does. Churches aren’t packed to the front porch. No, they are usually 60 – 75% empty. Orphanages aren’t clean with happy kids running around everywhere. No, they are actually filled with kids on dirt floors who have seen more at the age of 7 then you and I have in our lifetime. Rehab centers aren’t filled with people on the road to success and sobriety. No, they are filled with lost souls who will probably leave, come back, and start over. People aren’t being healed left and right. No, sin and sickness is still an epidemic across the globe.
But if you know scripture then you know that God’s love for His people is RELENTLESS in spite of all that. Because in all of that there is Child who WILL grow up to preach God’s word…a church member who WILL take in an orphan as if he was her own…an alcoholic who WILL succeed and will remain there solely to be an encouragement to others…a deaf man who WILL praise his heavenly Father in front of the church regardless of how he sounds and the fact that God has never healed him.
How can I even think that my resume matters…
That being said I just want to go ahead and apologize for the following:
– The gaps on my resume that will eventually come (probably sooner than I am ready for).
– The job under “experience” that doesn’t seem to fit at all with the types of jobs I am applying for.
– The MBA that “over-qualifies” me.
– The lack of bible training that “under-qualifies” me.
– And the blank space next to mission because I don’t always know or understand what God is specifically leading me to.
Why do I apologize you ask?
It’s because I’m too busy growing God’s kingdom. I’ve gone fishin. I’m trying to be spirit led. I’m taking risks and learning to love the lost relentlessly.
I’m not always going to be great at it. Those things may or may not even happen. For all I know, my resume could continue to flow perfectly. But at least I have this blog to look back on if it doesn’t. In the meantime, if you need my resume you can email me at [email protected]. It will be attached with a stamp in capitol red letters that reads “gone fishin.”
PS…thanks to the person who helped me come to this realization 😉
