UNcomfortable

I’ve had this ringing in my ears my whole entire life that “I just want to feel settled.”  That has meant different things during varying phases of my life.  As a child it meant that I wanted to be in a family that wasn’t so full of pain and heart ache.  I wanted a “normal” childhood where I could trade my fear and anxiety for fun and security. As a teen it meant that I wanted to feel loved unconditionally, and I would accept that from whoever would give it to me.  As college age girl it meant that I wanted to get married and live a nice, simple, peaceful, stable life with my husband and children.  As a grown woman, it has progressed even more into a deep rooted lie that Satan tries to daily whisper in my ear. He whispers, “seek comfort, comfort, comfort,” and then the seeds of my discontent start growing into bitterness and despair.

I remember telling my husband after we accepted our first ministry position in WI, “I don’t want to move from here until our kids are grown.  I want to plant our roots and STAY!” I’m not sure if you can resonate with what I’m saying, but it was this unexplainable longing in my heart to be comfortable.
I wanted the comfort of long term friendships for myself and my children.  I wanted the comfort of living in my dream house. I wanted the comfort of a stable job.  I wanted the comfort of… a predictable life. 

God must laugh at His children sometimes at our foolish ways of thinking.  Or does He cry? I hope he laughs because in my mind we need to stop taking life so seriously.  I guess there’s a reason He always calls us “sheep” in the Bible.  Is that God’s way of telling us we’re all stupid?  Well, it’s at least fun to think about.  I like to imagine the God I serve with a smile on His face and not a frown.  How do you imagine your Father?  It might say a lot about your view of grace if He always carries ‘The Frown of Condemnation.’

Today, I’m keeping my thoughts simple.  I just want you to hear from my heart to yours that maybe you need to get off your fanny and start getting a little more UNcomfortable in your life.
Stop making the safe choices. Step out in faith and talk to that neighbor you’ve been avoiding. Call that friend that is going through hardship and take them to coffee (don’t worry about what to say…just listen and pray). Make the call and get yourself in counseling if you’ve been avoiding it. Reach out to that friend you’ve hurt and say sorry. Take a hard look at your life and ask yourself if there any areas you are holding back from God. Stop counting yourself out in life, and quit being the victim. Serve in your local church and stop making stupid excuses.  Get the idea? 

For us in recent days it has meant my husband leaving the pastorate and totally going back to the LORD asking “How can I thrive and serve You best?” For me at has meant taking off the comfortable “stay at home mom” hat and being the bread winner for a while. FREAKY STUFF, MAN!!!  I’m not going to tell you getting UNcomfortable has been easy on us. Frankly, so far most days feel really crappy.  At the same time I have never felt so dependent on God in my entire life…and that, my friend, is an AWESOME feeling.

So, I leave you with this prayer that has been my prayer in recent days. 

“Father, I confess to you that I have placed comfort as an idol in my life. Forgive me for trying to be the conductor in the orchestra of my life. Lord, I ask you for help. I confess my fear to you.  I confess that the ‘unknown or unpredictable’ look like a ravenous lion in my heart that wants to devour me. God, I want to follow you with no strings attached. I want to be bold for you and make choices in my life that will leave those in my path curious. I release control to you, Jesus, and ask you to help me find my COMFORT in YOU.”

How will YOU start getting UNcomfortable today?

"The Ministry" is not a Calling

Where do I start?  How do I put words to things I have felt for so much of my life and have only just now the courage to say out loud?

As a kid I felt that my “calling” was to be a missionary because that was what was expected of me (or so I thought). In college I fought against that and decided that I was “called to vocational ministry” with Bradley.

A few years into our career of vocational ministry, our calling was challenged, and our world was rocked.  I remember the moment when this happened like it was yesterday. If I could pick up the pieces of my heart during that time and speak the truth that I now wholeheartedly believe, it could have changed so much for us.  But alas, Bradley and I had to learn the hard way (which by the way I truly wouldn’t change for anything).

The result of us equating our “calling” with our “vocation” is a common mistake we make as believers.  For us personally, living in a “calling” that did not bring us true, heart level joy, has caused us to process our life in a confused state of mind.  Way too often people in full-time church or parachurch ministry resist truly following God’s leading because of this unhealthy belief that “leaving a ministry role” is  a sign of failure or disobedience to God. Wow. I said it. 

After studying at the Moody Bible Institute and then Dallas Theological Seminary, we have been well equipped.  No doubt about that.  We both felt that God “called” us to the ministry. No doubt about that.  We have been “successful” in ministry. No doubt about that.  BUT, there has been a huge component to our vocational ministry that we have not addressed until the last 6-8 months, and that is we have come to the conviction that “The Ministry” should not be the focus of our Calling.

I’m not a theologian, and I’m not interested in theological debates or semantics.  Hear my heart.  As believers in Jesus Christ, we have been CALLED His sons and daughters.  We have been CALLED to suffer for Christ.  We have been CALLED to preach the gospel.  We have been CALLED to live a life full of the Fruit of the Spirit.  We have been CALLED to use our gifts to further His Kingdom.  I could go on, but do you get the point?  Our CALLING is not an job or role, it is a life attitude that should permeate every single one of us!!!  That literally makes my heart skip a beat.  Just think what an amazing impact we as believers could make in this world if we all truly accepted and acted upon this CALLING!

There is so much more I could say about this, but for now I just wanted to let you all (my faithful readers and friends) know how these thoughts have impacted our family in a huge way this year.

About 6 months ago, Bradley and I were in a very hard season of ministry exhaustion and internal evaluation. As Bradley puts it, he felt as though the ministry for him was like “building sand castles too close to the rising tide.”  We both knew that something needed to change, but we had no idea what.  That is when we learned of a study called “Life Beyond Imagination.”  Our dear friend, Steven Barr, wrote this curriculum for Disney Cast Members to have an opportunity to learn for the first time that they were created for a unique purpose.  While it was a bit unconventional at the time since we aren’t Cast Members, he asked us to join him on the journey to find our unique purpose. We have spent hours and hours charting our lives, experiences, ups, downs, and it has been truly life-changing (especially for Bradley).  Many of these things God had already brought me to a point of clarity on about 5 years ago, but it was a joy to walk through it for the first time with Bradley.  There have been lots of tears, lots of anger as we processed past ministry hurts, and much laughter as we have dreamed about stepping outside the vocational ministry box.

In conjunction to meeting with the pastor of Cast Member Church (Steven Barr), I have also been receiving some great mentoring from a dear woman I met two years ago at the Exponential Conference.  Debbie Jones is the leader of “Bloom,” which is ministry to church planting wives in Stadia, and she has faithfully taken me under her wing.  Debbie, if you are reading this, THANK YOU.  Your investment into my life has been such a blessing.  You’ve heard the raw things and have pushed me to be MORE and MORE the woman the God has created me to be.  The key thing that Debbie has challenged me about is that we need to be “making the maximum impact for Christ.”  This has been the catalyst for causing me to re-think how I see myself serving Christ for the long hall.

So, this past October Bradley and I decided to start having some very frank conversations with our mentors and then eventually some of the leaders in the E-Free denomination about how we were feeling.  I will spare you all the details, but through a constant leading from the Holy Spirit and confirmation from trusted spiritual advisors, we have decided to step out of vocational ministry for an undetermined amount of time.  During this season, I have accepted with JOY the opportunity to go full time with my job as Director of Sales and Marketing at a large wedding venue owned by my mom and stepdad.  I love, love, love my job and it has been a huge opportunity to shine Christ to a lost world.  Bradley has taken up 100% of the home schooling and household responsibilities (although he says he puts his foot down when it comes to the cooking!).  ;  )   

One key thing that Bradley is hoping to accomplish on a personal level during this season is to finish writing his novel and then start putting together a ministry writing project that I honestly believe could be a bestseller and could really open up some huge opportunities (more to come on that later!).  Bradley is a gifted teacher/speaker and no matter what comes our way, I do believe that there will be aspects of that involved.

SO MUCH right now is uncertain, and I feel that this is literally the biggest step of faith we have ever made (with the exception of accepting Christ that is!).  In these next months, I ask that you pray for us.  Pray for our children as we have asked them to join us on this “adventure.”  They are sad to leave our sweet friends at CrossWay Community Church (as we are too!), but even at this young age they see that something needed to change in our family. There are many questions you may have that we just don’t have the answer to right now.  The biggest question we get is “are you moving?”  We just don’t know the answer to that yet.  Our kids are happy here.  They have an AMAZING school (homeschool M,W,F and then a classical school T, TH-perfect combo!).  I like the warm weather (Bradley barely makes it through the HOT summers though). We have a great home and wonderful friends here.  There are a couple possible options that would bring us away from Florida, but at this point we just wait and pray. 

I leave you with two scriptures that have been a huge encouragement to us in this season.  I know you can all quote Proverbs 3:5-6 (look it up if you don’t have it memorized), but God has given us new understanding of these verses and it’s awesome!!  God asked us to basically forget about the “path” that we wanted to be led upon and totally opened our eyes to the TRUST, LEANING NOT ON OURSELVES, and ACKNOWLEDGING HIM aspect of these verses.  God showed us the “path” really doesn't matter so much but rather our heart attitude as we WALK the path!!!  We need to focus on keeping our lives so in-tuned with Jesus that we could take almost any path, and it would be great.  Do you hear that??  Life with Christ is not about the destination, but the journey of obedience to Christ in every aspect of our lives.  He needs to touch EVERYTHING in our life.  I love that!

The second scripture I've been personally meditating on is Psalm 37:4-5 (Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.  In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths).  What I love about these verses is the thought that when we delight ourselves in God, HE GIVES US the desires of our heart.  Not, “He lets us get what we want,” but the idea that we actually have NO IDEA what our dreams are without Jesus.  He is the author of our lives, and He calls us to delight in Him.  And, when the time is right, He plants the seeds of those dreams in our hearts.  Isn’t that cool??

So, this is what we are asking of God right now…for Him to plant that seed in our hearts and show us how we can best “delight in Him.” 

Thank you, sweet friends, for taking the time to hear from my heart.  We covet your prayers.

Tirzah (and Bradley too!)