I talk a lot with people about the choices they make in life. Inevitably, talking about a person's choices means talking about a person's thinking. (As she thinks, so is she...) And this is usually how the conversation goes:
Pastor Suzie, I don't know what to do about "X."
OK. What would lead you to make that choice? Where is that coming from?
I don't know. But I'm just afraid I'll make the wrong choice and screw everything up.
Yes. But what are you thinking that makes you see things that way?
I'm thinking I'm...going to fail, I'm unworthy or unlovable, I'm about to get hurt, [you fill in the blank.]
There is a reason we quote 2 Corinthians 10:5 a lot. A verse in which Paul is defending his ministry, informing the church in Corinth that we, believers, are to take EVERY thought captive to Christ. This verse came alive for me years ago sitting at Schuler's bookstore cafe in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with my friend Colleen. It's actually one of my more vivid memories.
She said: "At any moment I can choose to begin thinking differently than I do right now."
Scha-zaam! I will never forget what she said or the way in which she said it. It was one sentence that connected so many of the dots in my life.
I have struggled with physical challenges, and depression, and hurts, and boundaries, and lost relationships, and searing grief, and infertility, and losing a job. You know, the usual. And being highly introspective—many times I would get stuck in my mental-hamster-wheel. (To be honest, a couple counselors have winsomely asked me mostly the same questions I now ask others.) But today, sitting from where I sit, knowing that I am created by a God who knows me intimately, that His Son, Jesus, paid a price so exorbitant to set me free from my self-addiction, I have been given a choice. Pursuing God on his terms (not the terms of others) and accepting His love always leads me into truth. Anything that is not of him is a lie. And as I grow on this long journey toward heaven, He will teach me how to choose healing and truth. He will show me how to begin thinking differently at any moment, to actually put on the mind of Christ.
That changes my thinking, over and over again. And changed thinking leads to changed choices.
It's not a miraculous, once-in-a-lifetime epiphany. Though, some of us, like I did, experience amazing ah-ha moments. It's a gradual revealing of the infinite love of our heavenly Father toward us, his Spirit filling us, his presence so gently shining the light into all of our brokenness. A soul-transforming love that begins to permeate our thoughts, dramatically influencing our choices, and healing us from the inside out.
"Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it." Proverbs 4:23, NIV
What about you? Have you seen a clear link between your thinking and your choices? What is holding you back—or setting you free?
Friday, February 17, 2012
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
The wisdom of addicts
I cannot tell you definitively that those who are addicted are wiser than the average bird. (Though in general, I think they are smarter than most.)
I can only tell you that those who are in voluntary (and proactive) recovery from their addictions have taken a self-awareness pill. They have taken the pill, drank the self-awareness koolaid, if you will, and so they tend to drill down to the essence of their problems in record speed. It is the first of 12 steps that initiate this process: admitting I am powerless to help myself.
And given the fact that most of us struggle or have struggled with some kind of addiction—pride, food, nicotine, drugs, lust, codependency—you name the crutch, it would follow that all of us could choose the path to greater self-awareness.
Especially when Jesus enters the picture, and gives the hope of a new heart for the old one, delivering on his promise to make all things new.
Each Sunday night I plop down on a couch facing six or seven women who are recovering from drugs and alcohol and we talk about recovery and what Jesus has to do with it. Some weeks, what comes out of their mouths stops me dead in their tracks. This week was one of those weeks.
Wise words erupted, intertwined with stories of utter brokenness and redemption:
I can only tell you that those who are in voluntary (and proactive) recovery from their addictions have taken a self-awareness pill. They have taken the pill, drank the self-awareness koolaid, if you will, and so they tend to drill down to the essence of their problems in record speed. It is the first of 12 steps that initiate this process: admitting I am powerless to help myself.
And given the fact that most of us struggle or have struggled with some kind of addiction—pride, food, nicotine, drugs, lust, codependency—you name the crutch, it would follow that all of us could choose the path to greater self-awareness.
Especially when Jesus enters the picture, and gives the hope of a new heart for the old one, delivering on his promise to make all things new.
Each Sunday night I plop down on a couch facing six or seven women who are recovering from drugs and alcohol and we talk about recovery and what Jesus has to do with it. Some weeks, what comes out of their mouths stops me dead in their tracks. This week was one of those weeks.
Wise words erupted, intertwined with stories of utter brokenness and redemption:
- "Things are a lot less painful when you're sober."
- "Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers."
- "And I said, 'Oh, God, sometimes you talk too much.'"
See what you can learn in one short hour-and-a-half Bible study sitting on an old couch?
- Our addictions are meant to dull the pain—and they end up intensifying it.
- Unanswered prayers, the ones we beg most to be answered "our way" often bring benefits: brokenness and healing we can't even conceive of in the middle of life's mess.
- God is speaking, warning, guiding, instructing, and we sometimes quench His Spirit, try to quiet His voice, to our detriment—and sometimes, to our destruction.
That's it. That's what I learned from 7-8:30pm last Sunday night while the rest of the world was eating nachos and watching the Superbowl. I think from now on I'll call our weekly visits "Sunday School," the very best kind, where Jesus teaches me words of wisdom from those who are wise enough to know they are broken, and smart enough to believe Jesus can do anything.
Your turn: Do you have someone in your life whose deep self-awareness and brokenness has instructed you? What have you learned from them?
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Why I Drive a '97 Sunfire
I suppose there are many reasons I drive a rusting '97 Sunfire.
I inherited it from my mother. It runs without a car payment. It gets me where I need to go. But as the years tick by, I become increasingly aware of its downsides.
Strange noises from any and every inch of the vehicle that others notice when they drive along. (I have for the most part blocked them out, now that my ears are so used to them.) It leaks antifreeze and stuff. And so it goes into the repair shop often for a new water pump, a new belt, a new this, a new that. It is beginning to feel like we are pouring money down the drain.
Then there are the obvious aesthetic challenges.
The rusting passenger door. The creaks and groans. The short that makes for a lack of good volume control on the stereo. The one slightly-cracked light on the back, the bumped up license plate that says "beep-beep" on the front. The way the fuse on the horn went out for awhile, giving me no ability to toot in those times when a horn would come in handy. This is not my dream vehicle, not by a long shot.
Still, at this very moment, it's sitting in my garage. And it still gets me where I need to go—while dispensing a healthy dose of humility in the process. Many times when I drive it I think about how God is providing my transportation for the day (give us this day our daily rusting Sunfire), and that the Almighty is watching for me to be grateful, even in this. I suppose God is smiling as I pray, "Thank you, Lord, for getting me safely where I need to be." (Aging cars as a way of breeding dependence on God. Yes, he's definitely smiling!)
But beyond all this, the real reason the Sunfire still gets me where I need to go is because we've decided to opt out of the American way. You know—the get-a-car-every-so-many-years-and-put-it-on-credit mentality. We've gone that route in our pasts, but we're trying to do something different this time around.
We started a savings account specifically for a car, and we're hoping that come spring or summer we'll be buying a vehicle outright. When we do purchase it, we're praying for a different mindset: a determination on how we can minister to the people in our lives through using the new vehicle to provide transportation while getting a good MPG that will allow us to steward our money wisely. Meanwhile, the Sunfire has decided to run for another day.
And yes, Lord, I am grateful.
*Turns out there's a Christ-centered movement to drive junkers! No kidding. It all started in 2006 when a guy named Mike Foster sold his fully-loaded sports car to drive a junky 1993 Toyota Camry. As an act of rebellion against consumerism and in an effort to give more, Mike enlisted the help of his friends. There's even a junky car club bumper sticker. Check out junkycarclub.com and let me know what you think. Or follow Mike on twitter.
What about you? Does your faith impact what you choose to drive? How?
I inherited it from my mother. It runs without a car payment. It gets me where I need to go. But as the years tick by, I become increasingly aware of its downsides.
Strange noises from any and every inch of the vehicle that others notice when they drive along. (I have for the most part blocked them out, now that my ears are so used to them.) It leaks antifreeze and stuff. And so it goes into the repair shop often for a new water pump, a new belt, a new this, a new that. It is beginning to feel like we are pouring money down the drain.
Then there are the obvious aesthetic challenges.
 |
| A beautiful shade of....rust. |
The rusting passenger door. The creaks and groans. The short that makes for a lack of good volume control on the stereo. The one slightly-cracked light on the back, the bumped up license plate that says "beep-beep" on the front. The way the fuse on the horn went out for awhile, giving me no ability to toot in those times when a horn would come in handy. This is not my dream vehicle, not by a long shot.
Still, at this very moment, it's sitting in my garage. And it still gets me where I need to go—while dispensing a healthy dose of humility in the process. Many times when I drive it I think about how God is providing my transportation for the day (give us this day our daily rusting Sunfire), and that the Almighty is watching for me to be grateful, even in this. I suppose God is smiling as I pray, "Thank you, Lord, for getting me safely where I need to be." (Aging cars as a way of breeding dependence on God. Yes, he's definitely smiling!)
We started a savings account specifically for a car, and we're hoping that come spring or summer we'll be buying a vehicle outright. When we do purchase it, we're praying for a different mindset: a determination on how we can minister to the people in our lives through using the new vehicle to provide transportation while getting a good MPG that will allow us to steward our money wisely. Meanwhile, the Sunfire has decided to run for another day.
And yes, Lord, I am grateful.
*Turns out there's a Christ-centered movement to drive junkers! No kidding. It all started in 2006 when a guy named Mike Foster sold his fully-loaded sports car to drive a junky 1993 Toyota Camry. As an act of rebellion against consumerism and in an effort to give more, Mike enlisted the help of his friends. There's even a junky car club bumper sticker. Check out junkycarclub.com and let me know what you think. Or follow Mike on twitter.
What about you? Does your faith impact what you choose to drive? How?
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Pastoral tears
When you sign up for the job of a pastor, no one tells you there will be tears. They mention you will be on call at times, that people will misunderstand you and sometimes confuse you, and that you might sometimes be emotionally tired.
But they forget to mention the tears. In seminary or otherwise. At least that is my experience.
You do not realize at first that sometimes you will be helping people who are so emotionally and spiritually and physically broken that all you want to do is lie down on the floor and cry with them. They didn't tell me that I would usually end up crying later, after they are gone, when I am alone with God and asking "Why?" When I am begging God to give me His vision of restoration for them. Asking that he would help me believe that all things are possible with him.
They did not tell me that those who are the most broken would bring the most joy to my heart, as I witness God's work in them. Sometimes these things go in fits and starts, two steps forward, three steps back, and over again, but nevertheless, there is an undeniable look in someone's eye when they believe God loves them and wants to make a way for them. Repentance before God is the gateway to new life, and it is so heart-achingly beautiful that I almost look away. It blows my mind that I get to see these transformations as they are happening, that I am a witness to the power of God's love in the heart of the broken.
You see, they did not tell me that next to my Bible, I would need a box of tissues in my office, stashed in my glove box, crammed into my purse. (Or that I would constantly be dispensing of a used-up tissue in my coat pocket.)
They did not share with me that occasionally I would cry because I had no words left to share with the hurting, with those who are not ready to see beyond themselves. That I would cry because they were not ready to receive all that God longs to offer them. That at times I would be a weeping prophet who didn't have clearance to speak all that my heart held.
No one happened to mention this. Though maybe they tried. Perhaps there are no words to express pastoral tears and so it is useless to try. Yet there they are, these tears, binding me to God's heart, spilling out like love all over those who need a touch from God, cleansing the pain, making way for the newness Jesus longs to bring to every aching heart.
And just beneath the tears? Deep, abundant joy.
It is the story retold, the story of deep pain on Good Friday and brilliant joy on Easter Sunday. It is the story of new life waiting to burst forth all around me, and for this reason, the tears are worth it. I wouldn't trade them for a minute.
What in your experience brings you to tears? Do the tears give way to joy—and if so, how?
But they forget to mention the tears. In seminary or otherwise. At least that is my experience.
You do not realize at first that sometimes you will be helping people who are so emotionally and spiritually and physically broken that all you want to do is lie down on the floor and cry with them. They didn't tell me that I would usually end up crying later, after they are gone, when I am alone with God and asking "Why?" When I am begging God to give me His vision of restoration for them. Asking that he would help me believe that all things are possible with him.
They did not tell me that those who are the most broken would bring the most joy to my heart, as I witness God's work in them. Sometimes these things go in fits and starts, two steps forward, three steps back, and over again, but nevertheless, there is an undeniable look in someone's eye when they believe God loves them and wants to make a way for them. Repentance before God is the gateway to new life, and it is so heart-achingly beautiful that I almost look away. It blows my mind that I get to see these transformations as they are happening, that I am a witness to the power of God's love in the heart of the broken.
You see, they did not tell me that next to my Bible, I would need a box of tissues in my office, stashed in my glove box, crammed into my purse. (Or that I would constantly be dispensing of a used-up tissue in my coat pocket.)
They did not share with me that occasionally I would cry because I had no words left to share with the hurting, with those who are not ready to see beyond themselves. That I would cry because they were not ready to receive all that God longs to offer them. That at times I would be a weeping prophet who didn't have clearance to speak all that my heart held.
No one happened to mention this. Though maybe they tried. Perhaps there are no words to express pastoral tears and so it is useless to try. Yet there they are, these tears, binding me to God's heart, spilling out like love all over those who need a touch from God, cleansing the pain, making way for the newness Jesus longs to bring to every aching heart.
And just beneath the tears? Deep, abundant joy.
It is the story retold, the story of deep pain on Good Friday and brilliant joy on Easter Sunday. It is the story of new life waiting to burst forth all around me, and for this reason, the tears are worth it. I wouldn't trade them for a minute.
What in your experience brings you to tears? Do the tears give way to joy—and if so, how?
Monday, January 9, 2012
Serious heart withdrawal
I am in serious withdrawal.
And I am not referring to giving up Christmas sweets or the crass materialism that threatens to gobble us up and spit us out this time of year. This is withdrawal of another kind. Ministry withdrawal.
No sooner did I jet out of town following our two Christmas services, then I started to remember the people I live with and minister to at our church. I thought about so-and-so's surgery, whether or not certain individuals were spending the holiday alone, what it looks like for so many to soldier through the season with fractured relationships, unanswered questions...and doubts. I shook my head as I heard of several individuals who experienced searing loss at the time of year when all is supposedly "merry and bright."
My heart, it seems, was in two places at once. For some, this is parenthood; for others, it is the pastorate.
Eugene Peterson described it this way: "The pastor's question is, "Who are these particular people, and how can I be with them in such a way that they can become what God is making them?"How, indeed.
For this is a messy proposition. A mixed-up bag of highs in one meeting and deep lows in the next. Hot tears and deep joy. Hospital visits, and graveside services, and Bible teaching, and subversive acts that point towards God's advancing Kingdom while the world screams comfort and materialism and the ordinary. Looking for the uncomplicated and straightforward? One need not apply here.
But suppose one's heart beats for transformed hearts and changed lives and the new things Jesus ends up doing with and through ordinary folk. Then the rollercoaster becomes the ride of your life and withdrawal brings its own rewards. I am investing in the hearts of lives of those who matter to my Abba, and he is doing the rest.
I am trusting that all of it matters, even when I don't see how.
"Christian spirituality means living in the mature wholeness of the gospel. It means taking all the elements of your life - children, spouse, job, weather, possessions, relationships - and experiencing them as an act of faith. God wants all the material of our lives."
Did I mention it's good to be back?
[*The author is new to a temporary assignment as a part-time pastor of evangelism. Proof positive that miracles do happen.]
Your turn: What makes your heart experience withdrawal symptoms? How is God's Kingdom expanding around you in a way that brings you deep joy?
Citations: Eugene H. Peterson. The Contemplative Pastor: Returning to the Art of Spiritual Direction (Kindle Locations 41-42, 45-46). Kindle Edition.
And I am not referring to giving up Christmas sweets or the crass materialism that threatens to gobble us up and spit us out this time of year. This is withdrawal of another kind. Ministry withdrawal.
No sooner did I jet out of town following our two Christmas services, then I started to remember the people I live with and minister to at our church. I thought about so-and-so's surgery, whether or not certain individuals were spending the holiday alone, what it looks like for so many to soldier through the season with fractured relationships, unanswered questions...and doubts. I shook my head as I heard of several individuals who experienced searing loss at the time of year when all is supposedly "merry and bright."
My heart, it seems, was in two places at once. For some, this is parenthood; for others, it is the pastorate.
Eugene Peterson described it this way: "The pastor's question is, "Who are these particular people, and how can I be with them in such a way that they can become what God is making them?"How, indeed.
For this is a messy proposition. A mixed-up bag of highs in one meeting and deep lows in the next. Hot tears and deep joy. Hospital visits, and graveside services, and Bible teaching, and subversive acts that point towards God's advancing Kingdom while the world screams comfort and materialism and the ordinary. Looking for the uncomplicated and straightforward? One need not apply here.
But suppose one's heart beats for transformed hearts and changed lives and the new things Jesus ends up doing with and through ordinary folk. Then the rollercoaster becomes the ride of your life and withdrawal brings its own rewards. I am investing in the hearts of lives of those who matter to my Abba, and he is doing the rest.
I am trusting that all of it matters, even when I don't see how.
"Christian spirituality means living in the mature wholeness of the gospel. It means taking all the elements of your life - children, spouse, job, weather, possessions, relationships - and experiencing them as an act of faith. God wants all the material of our lives."
Did I mention it's good to be back?
[*The author is new to a temporary assignment as a part-time pastor of evangelism. Proof positive that miracles do happen.]
Your turn: What makes your heart experience withdrawal symptoms? How is God's Kingdom expanding around you in a way that brings you deep joy?
Citations: Eugene H. Peterson. The Contemplative Pastor: Returning to the Art of Spiritual Direction (Kindle Locations 41-42, 45-46). Kindle Edition.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Jesus and the Story of a Table
Sometimes it is alcohol. Sometimes it is crack. Sometimes sexual slavery or addiction. Sometimes physical disease or abuse. Overspending. Food addiction. Cycles that beg to be broken.
Things that splinter my heart in two at the hearing of them, that tempt me to stop believing in the radical power of Jesus to set the sinner and the sinned-against free. These are the moments in which I must stop and remember the Kingdom perspective. When I must live in the Jesus Creed.
In his book The Jesus Creed, theologian Scot McKnight unveils Jesus' call for us to love God and to love others as ourselves. And how did Jesus illustrate this outlandish idea, this law that trumped all the other picky Jewish laws the Pharisees (or keepers of the law) had come to treasure?
He does it through a table.
Could this have anything to do with him being a carpenter? I'm not sure, but I do know it had everything to do with him fashioning his Kingdom. The Pharisees message to the down-and-out: smell better, do better, look better, be better, and then you can earn a seat at my table, to eat with me. Then you will be worthy.
Jesus' table story? "...clean or unclean, you can eat with me, and I will make you clean. Instead of his table requiring purity, it creates purity." (Jesus Creed, p. 36)
"For Jesus, the table envisions a new society, and that means that the table is a boundary-breaker and a grace-giver--and place where we can see what God can do when people are restored to fellowship with Abba." (Jesus Creed, p. 39)
In the story Jesus is telling through a table, the Church would not be a place to come for really righteous people to listen to righteous things and sing righteous songs and repeat only righteous things. Not if Jesus really meant what he said in Mark 2:17: "Jesus said to them, 'It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners'.”
Rather, the church would be a hospital for the sick.
It would not be a place to shuffle consumer-oriented, middle-to-upper-income people from one church to another church in their same city. It would be a place with healing ointment, and food, and provisions, and love and truth, and it would reek with healing and holiness. The church is to be a place where we fight for the broken and wounded, where we give to see them grow, where we worship to advance God's Kingdom, where we eat together. The homeless and helpless sitting next to the prosperous and the pampered. For we are all in need...and we are all in recovery, in debt to Jesus for what He has so graciously done on our behalf.
That's what Jesus and the beauty of His table is telling us. Something beautiful happens when we start issuing come-as-you-are dinner invitations.
Things that splinter my heart in two at the hearing of them, that tempt me to stop believing in the radical power of Jesus to set the sinner and the sinned-against free. These are the moments in which I must stop and remember the Kingdom perspective. When I must live in the Jesus Creed.
In his book The Jesus Creed, theologian Scot McKnight unveils Jesus' call for us to love God and to love others as ourselves. And how did Jesus illustrate this outlandish idea, this law that trumped all the other picky Jewish laws the Pharisees (or keepers of the law) had come to treasure?
He does it through a table.
Could this have anything to do with him being a carpenter? I'm not sure, but I do know it had everything to do with him fashioning his Kingdom. The Pharisees message to the down-and-out: smell better, do better, look better, be better, and then you can earn a seat at my table, to eat with me. Then you will be worthy.
Jesus' table story? "...clean or unclean, you can eat with me, and I will make you clean. Instead of his table requiring purity, it creates purity." (Jesus Creed, p. 36)
"For Jesus, the table envisions a new society, and that means that the table is a boundary-breaker and a grace-giver--and place where we can see what God can do when people are restored to fellowship with Abba." (Jesus Creed, p. 39)
In the story Jesus is telling through a table, the Church would not be a place to come for really righteous people to listen to righteous things and sing righteous songs and repeat only righteous things. Not if Jesus really meant what he said in Mark 2:17: "Jesus said to them, 'It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners'.”
Rather, the church would be a hospital for the sick.
It would not be a place to shuffle consumer-oriented, middle-to-upper-income people from one church to another church in their same city. It would be a place with healing ointment, and food, and provisions, and love and truth, and it would reek with healing and holiness. The church is to be a place where we fight for the broken and wounded, where we give to see them grow, where we worship to advance God's Kingdom, where we eat together. The homeless and helpless sitting next to the prosperous and the pampered. For we are all in need...and we are all in recovery, in debt to Jesus for what He has so graciously done on our behalf.
That's what Jesus and the beauty of His table is telling us. Something beautiful happens when we start issuing come-as-you-are dinner invitations.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
My New Occupation: Spiritual Mother
I feel a little like Deborah, the prophetess, warrior, and judge whom many call the mother of Israel. And with that, perhaps I should explain myself.
I am physically barren; in biblical terms, this means that up till now there has been no fruit and no multiplication in my household. This sometimes feels like a grave injustice, an assault against my God-given feminine instincts, as it also feels for many women who desperately yearn for motherhood but never experience it. Yet it is certainly not the worst lot in life. Others have far more difficult circumstances, like struggles for freedom from the horrors of sex-trafficking and the need for clean drinking water or an AIDS vaccine.
But barrenness is the place from which I can truthfully speak, and so I sometimes do.
Tonight, this struggle points me to a woman I have never met but hope to chat with one day. Her name is Deborah, and her story is recorded in the Bible in the book of Judges. She was married, but there is no record of children. And someone else was likely helping with her household duties, since Deborah spent her time righting others' wrongs, prophesying of God's faithfulness to Israel, warring in battle, and trying to convince a man like Barak to find his courage. All in a day's work--right, ladies?
In the last month, I have temporarily joined a church staff during an interim period. It was a natural progression after serving as a pastoral intern at our church. This happened when two of our lead pastors moved on to another call and holes sprung up, desperately longing to be filled, at least that is what my heart said.
So now when I go to work, people call me pastor. This is shocking and crazy to me, but as one friend said in an email: "Of course you would struggle with a title that's been so male-dominant. Only with time will you (and frankly, others) get used to it. But pastoring is the gift you have. Teaching. encouragement. spiritual leadership. These are the giftings of a pastor, and that you are."
So I gulped and dove in and for the most part, nothing could be more natural. I have wondered where this is all going in terms of my future, but no matter what the future holds it will include teaching, encouragement, and spiritual leadership. Along the way, something surprising is happening.
The focus in my life is not on my barrenness and my monthly cycle, but on the fruit that can be born for God's Kingdom. I pastor, and I have the privilege of watching God work. I encourage, and God gives the increase. Ministry is becoming much less frightening and a thousand times more life-giving. And the other day I had a eureka moment: I was in the office and making hospital visits and counseling and preparing to teach, and I thought to myself, this is what mothering is all about. No matter what turn my fertility takes, I am a spiritual mother.
Truthfully, I answer to almost anything. But if the shoe fits--and the spiritual giftings, too--perhaps we should start calling each other who we are, regardless of our job titles. The occupation blank on my next medical form just might be filled in "spiritual mother." And it would be a high privilege to be lumped in with Deborah, a woman with a song in her heart and a God-ordained purpose guiding her every step.
Read Deborah's story and song here.
Your turn. What is your occupation at present, whether homemaker, business person, pastor, caregiver, seminary student, etc.? And based on your spiritual giftings, what is your spiritual occupation?
 |
| Gustave Dore's interpretation of the prophetess Deborah from wikipedia.com |
But barrenness is the place from which I can truthfully speak, and so I sometimes do.
Tonight, this struggle points me to a woman I have never met but hope to chat with one day. Her name is Deborah, and her story is recorded in the Bible in the book of Judges. She was married, but there is no record of children. And someone else was likely helping with her household duties, since Deborah spent her time righting others' wrongs, prophesying of God's faithfulness to Israel, warring in battle, and trying to convince a man like Barak to find his courage. All in a day's work--right, ladies?
In the last month, I have temporarily joined a church staff during an interim period. It was a natural progression after serving as a pastoral intern at our church. This happened when two of our lead pastors moved on to another call and holes sprung up, desperately longing to be filled, at least that is what my heart said.
So now when I go to work, people call me pastor. This is shocking and crazy to me, but as one friend said in an email: "Of course you would struggle with a title that's been so male-dominant. Only with time will you (and frankly, others) get used to it. But pastoring is the gift you have. Teaching. encouragement. spiritual leadership. These are the giftings of a pastor, and that you are."
So I gulped and dove in and for the most part, nothing could be more natural. I have wondered where this is all going in terms of my future, but no matter what the future holds it will include teaching, encouragement, and spiritual leadership. Along the way, something surprising is happening.
The focus in my life is not on my barrenness and my monthly cycle, but on the fruit that can be born for God's Kingdom. I pastor, and I have the privilege of watching God work. I encourage, and God gives the increase. Ministry is becoming much less frightening and a thousand times more life-giving. And the other day I had a eureka moment: I was in the office and making hospital visits and counseling and preparing to teach, and I thought to myself, this is what mothering is all about. No matter what turn my fertility takes, I am a spiritual mother.
Truthfully, I answer to almost anything. But if the shoe fits--and the spiritual giftings, too--perhaps we should start calling each other who we are, regardless of our job titles. The occupation blank on my next medical form just might be filled in "spiritual mother." And it would be a high privilege to be lumped in with Deborah, a woman with a song in her heart and a God-ordained purpose guiding her every step.
Read Deborah's story and song here.
Your turn. What is your occupation at present, whether homemaker, business person, pastor, caregiver, seminary student, etc.? And based on your spiritual giftings, what is your spiritual occupation?
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