Good Insight from a Hard Path

Very recently I was driving into town to a Ministerial meeting and asking God a lot of questions on the way. Something that had seemed to be so clearly His leading was turning out not very good at all. We had made a decision based on what we felt were clear indications and leading from Him and yet we found ourselves in a position that was very hard for us. I was driving and asking God, a lot, "Why?" and starting to strongly question if I/we had heard His voice (my expression for sensing His leading in multiple ways), and if not, then if we'd actually heard His voice in other decisions we'd also made around the same time. I was really struggling, doubting myself, confused, hurt, and angry—all at the same time.

I felt suddenly, strongly, "Lean not on your own understanding" (most will recognize that as from Proverbs 3). It was a very clear thought. And suddenly I felt assured that the two were separate things—whether we had heard His voice a couple months ago, and what was happening now. I suddenly felt that it had been God's leading two months ago—the signs and path were so clear!—and that what was happening now did nothing to invalidate what happened then. For then it was, "Yes" and for now it was, "Lean not on your own understanding." While I was still hurting, struggling, etc., I can't describe the peace in realizing that I was not wrong two months ago, and that I could trust I'd heard His voice then and in other things. And, for now, while I couldn't (and can't) fathom what it was/is all about, and what He is doing, and why things are happening if He was leading, my call is to trust Him and not lean on my own understanding.

After the meeting I spent some time talking with a pastor who is also a good friend and he said something that really spoke to me in light of what I just shared. He said that he has learned that you have to separate results from hearing God's voice. He said that too often we can, hearing God's voice, then assume the results will match our plans and desires. Different results then we expected or wanted, he reminded me, don't mean that we didn't hear God's voice in the beginning. The words floated back to me, "Lean not on your own understanding . . ."

I realized in this that I had fallen into the trap he'd described, that I'd heard God's voice (sensed His leading) and then assumed I knew where that was supposed to go (based on where I hoped it would go). That isn't the case in this case and so I have a couple of choices—I can be angry at God, doubt I heard from Him and subsequently second guess and doubt all the other things I think I heard from Him . . . or I can realize I heard from Him*, but that His plans are not my plans and His ways are not my ways, and trust He who died on a cross from me out of a love for me that is deeper than any human love . . . trust even when I don't understand.

As I drove and processed that I was, again, reminded of why I feel so strongly about a literal, young earth interpretation of Genesis. It is because all other interpretations are forcing Genesis to match "science" and are already, at the door of the Bible, choosing to lean on our understanding instead of not on our own understanding. If we've already begun there in Genesis, and taught our kids to as well, then what precedent do we have for leaning not on our own understanding when other things in man's mind and our life don't match what we expect or are taught or experience?

*This isn't to say that there aren't times we haven't heard from Him and thought we had (maybe hoped we had and run ahead with our own wants and hope He'll follow blessing them), and that the Holy Spirit might not want to point that out to us, but I don't believe that this was one of those times as it was too clear and too strong and too unusual for not just myself but for Mary Ann as well.

God's Plans or Ours?

Over twenty-five years ago I was in San Diego on a summer break from West Point and I vividly remembering driving through the grounds of a Catholic college campus shouting an obscenity out the car window as loud as I could at a God I didn't think I believed in.

This weekend I had the privilege of attending a wedding for a former youth grouper in San Diego, just a few miles from that site. This young man, along with many other former youth groupers, had moved to San Diego a couple years ago and is strongly involved in a fellowship and ministry while there. Multiple people from our area went to the wedding and Mary Ann and I were awed, and blessed, to see 12 former youth groupers and 6 current youth groupers at the wedding. We had worked with some for the full 6th-12th grade, and others only taken to winter camp once or twice. Some were very strong in the Lord, and others still figuring it out.

It struck me deeply as I looked around the room and as we got to take our picture with all of the former youth groupers, how amazing God's plans are for our lives—and how different they are from what we would probably design, and how different they are from what the world calls valuable.

At the same time I was at West Point Mary Ann would have been getting a degree in foreign language. Some time after we were married and moved where we are now and started working with youth and pastoring the small, rural fellowship we attend someone who knew one of our parents commented something to the effect of, "What a waste. With their education they could have really done something." So often what the world defines as doing something, being successful, etc., is in complete contradiction to the plans God has created each person to walk in. We will have to choose whether to walk in our own plans and wisdom, or to walk in the plans He has created us for.

As I shouted out the window that day I can only imagine that God could see me and could, at the same time, see 25+ years ahead of the moment to when I would be sitting a few miles away, surrounded by youth groupers I had shared His name and story with. And yet, at that moment, He and anything called ministry were a million miles from anything I would have planned for myself.

If I am honest there are times I really struggle. I see people all around me who can take vacations whenever they want. I see people who can fix their cars, buy what they want, go to the doctor freely, etc. I struggle, not with the people (who I have nothing against, and many of who have been overwhelmingly generous to us), but with jealousy. Then I look around me and the world and see all the people who have so much less than me and the condemnation comes in for feeling that way. It is a battle, but one in which moments like the wedding will frame my thoughts. I will see my life, my family, the lives that have been touched by God in some way through our meager efforts, and I have to ask, "What could I possibly get or have gotten for myself that would have any eternal value or true, lasting happiness, compared to that which I get by being who God calls me to be, in the way and place He calls me to be it?"

It is something, I think, we all have to decide—over and over. Will I frame and define my life, or will I allow the One who created me for special plans frame and define it? And, truly, when we think about it, what could we possibly do or get for ourselves that would, in the end, not seem hollow compared to the privilege and eternal value and wisdom in serving the Lord who is worthy of all honor and glory, and walking in the unique plans He has created each of us for?

Roses Correction

I did a little "homework" and found out that the roses I wrote about a few days ago from Mission San Antonio do not go back to the Padres, but were "only" planted in the Mission's garden over 50 years ago in the 1960s. So, while I won't be smelling the same lifestock the Padres smelled, they do come from the same Mission they built and soil they walked and tended. The point of it all being, it is not about the roses, but the heritage. The enemy would, I believe, love to convince Christians they are alone, fighting in futility, not part of anything big or meaningful, etc. The truth is, though, that we are each a part of God's plan and mystery of the ages—a plan in place from before the foundation of the earth, a plan to unite things in Him and to restore us to Him, and to dwell Himself within us! It is an amazing and huge plan—stunning that a Holy God would desire it!—and you and I are the next to pick up the baton from those who have, in centuries prior, walked in His plan and prayed for and plowed and planted spiritual seeds in the region you are called to. Don't let the enemy rob you of who you are in Christ, and the reality that you are a vital participant in the greatest plan in eternity! Take the baton and run! Look to the finish! The next generation is there, their hand outstretched to take it!

God's Plans

In March of 1997 Mary Ann and I went with another couple to Hume Lake Christian Camp in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. We were taking a couple of cars full of middle schoolers to winter camp . . . and I did not want to go! I wasn't a big fan of kids back then, and if I went in to a restaurant and there were a bunch of kids there I'd asked to be seated away from them. But, we were the logical couple to go with them when one of the couples who were supposed to couldn't. Mary Ann and I were the youngest people in the church, we didn't have kids, and we were self-employed. So, Mary Ann excited and me dragging my feet, we went. In the last chapel session there God overwhelmed my heart with a brief sense of the cumulative pain and tears ahead in the years to come for the 300 or so kids in the chapel. It deeply affected me and when we got home and an excited youth told his dad about his experience with God and his plans to read the Bible and the dad replied, "That will last about a week, get in the car," it broke my last wall and we decided to keep working with these youth. It was the working with youth in the next couple of years that made me the natural one to be asked to pastor the church when the pastor left, and in the years since then (January 2000) I have been both the senior pastor and the youth leader of our fellowship.

This weekend I sat in that same chapel with Mary Ann and with some other counselors and 16 of our high schoolers (among the 600+ people there) and reflected. This was my 25th trip there with youth, and as I looked back to that first trip I thought, "If you had told me, when I set out that first time, that I would be here at least 24 more times with youth (and multiple times as a family), let alone that I would be a pastor, I would have never believed it." In the years since then we have seen youth get married, have children, some walk with God, and some walk from God. As a pastor, youth leader, and volunteer fire fighter I have been there with them when a home of theirs has burned to the ground, when a sibling has committed suicide, when families have fallen apart, and when families have risen from the ashes and grown in to God-loving, strong units. I have done weddings, and funerals. I have confronted demons, seen the sick healed . . . and lost a lot of battles as well. I have felt the Holy Spirit moving strongly . . . and wondered just where He was. It has been an amazing journey, and certainly one I never, ever would have picked or designed or thought of for myself.

It all began when we said "yes" (even though I said it grudgingly). God's plans for us, each of us, are amazing. While they may never make headlines, or get on talk shows, they are miraculous and amazing simply in that the Creator of the universe partners with us and privileges us to walk out His plans and to colabor with Him as He works in and through us. It was truly stunning to sit there in that chapel and reflect back, and to see how different my life was from anything I would have ever planned, and how much more amazing it was than anything I would have ever planned. God is amazing, and God in us is incredible. I truly encourage you, if God is nudging you somewhere or to something, no matter how much it differs from your own plans, to trust Him and say, "yes." His plans for you will be far more fulfilling, meaningful, eternally valuable, and amazing than anything you can do by holding on to control of your life.

God bless you all. Thanks for sharing your life with me. —Erick