I (P.T.) would be lying if I said this past season has been easy.
And this season has been anything but short. But I'm learning the value of the long game.
Bonnie and I wrote several blog posts last Fall detailing our path of obedience that led to tight financial times, and ultimately the faith-decision to sell our house. Now, a year later, our situation isn't really all that different financially (though we have a small sum sitting in savings earmarked for a down payment on a house)--we're paying slightly less than we were to be in a 4 bedroom house, only now we're living in a 3 bedroom apartment.
Yeah. Had LOTS of questions about that on moving day (and since). Some not so nice questions. THAT? That is where we're supposed to bring home our baby girl? A tiny room full of boxes and a pack-n-play instead of a Pinterested-out nursery? THEY? They who are younger than me or "less responsible" than me, or "less faithful" than me...THEY get a nice new house? THIS? This is how much we're supposed to pay to NOT be in a house and throwing rent money down the drain? This is your promise of blessing for us? Our crossing of the Jordan miraculous moment? It doesn't feel so...miraculous.
I may have mentioned this before, but man...I've never so closely identified with the whining children of Israel. Back in Egypt we had a swimming pool right across the street! And neighborhood friends for the kids! Enough kitchen cabinets to hold all our stuff! And a walk-in closet! Manna...again?!
Questions led to complaining. Complaining led to doubts. Doubts led to frustration. Frustration led to anger. Anger led to apathy. And after apathy? Well...
I wanted to quit.
Not quit my job. Not quit my marriage or my family. I wanted to quit this whole Jesus thing. This whole faith thing.
For the first time in my life I actually had to wrestle with doubt. I mean really wrestle. I had never used the term "crisis-of-faith" to describe any juncture of my life. But that's where I was. Distant. Cold. Apathetic. Showing up to church on Sunday and not even being able (or wanting) to sing the words on the screen for the most part. Hurt. Feeling betrayed. It wasn't that I didn't love God, I didn't even LIKE God.
But a pivotal moment came several months ago as I'm preparing to teach a class on the life of Jesus at the college (yeah, God was STILL using me to lead others even when I was at a low point myself--cause if He can't use jacked up people...who's left?). I was teaching on John chapter 6 where Jesus has just fed 5,000 men. The crowd rallies around Jesus to make Him their king, but Jesus says in no uncertain terms what it will take to actually follow Him and the crowd promptly disperses. So Jesus looks at Peter and asks, "You, too? Wanna jump ship and bail on me, Peter?"
To which Peter in essence replies, "If not You...who? If not this...what? You've got everything I actually need."
That line of questioning revealed my rock bottom moment.
Because I had found it easy to complain about how bad our circumstances were, or how unfair God was being, or how I deserved more or at the least better...until I had to consider the alternative. If I'm not following Jesus...who am I following? What am I putting my hope in? Who or what could really...truly bring me joy and satisfaction that at my core I know can only be found in Jesus? I may not like my situation...but it's better than any alternative I can think of.
I won't say that since then things have been perfect. Or that I have all the answers to my questions. But there's been a gradual increase in peace and contentment. A shift in perspective. A change in desires at a fundamental level.
If you asked me on move-in day back in early December 2016 what my primary goal was, it would have been to get out of the apartment as soon as possible. I didn't really even want to put anything up on the walls (and may not have except that we were running out of room in our tiny little storage unit). Several weeks ago, however, I made a list of the things I want, and a house ranked 7th. No question it's still a desire of my heart...it's just taken a back seat to things of greater worth.
This, to me, is the gold behind Ephesians 3:20. Not that when it says God can do immeasurably more than all I ask or imagine it means that if I can imagine a 4 bedroom, craftsman style, split-master house with a bonus room in the right neighborhood close to the boys' schools that God can turn around and give us a 5(!) bedroom house. And that under the carpet there's original oak floors and behind the wallpaper there's #shiplap--immeasurably more! It's about Him loving me in unimaginably big ways even when I couldn't imagine what He was up to. It's about Him removing from me the things I had imagined were what I really wanted and replacing them with things that actually bring about hope and life. It's about Him bringing me to the end of me to increase my capacity for more of Him.
20-21 God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us. (MSG)
So I don't have immeasurably more house right now (certainly not in my closet!). I don't have immeasurably more in my bank account (because I can imagine a lot!). I don't even have immeasurably more answers about what to do next. But I'm gaining immeasurably more peace and understanding. I'm gaining immeasurably more freedom. I'm gaining immeasurably more passion. I'm gaining immeasurably more than I could ask or imagine.
And it's taken a while to get there (or awhile...you grammar nerds can work that out amongst yourselves).
But in the course of this long season, this quote from John Wood Oman has reverberated to my core:
"To deliver the soul from the sin which is its ruin and bestow on it the holiness which is its health and peace, is the end of all God's dealings with his children; and precisely because he cannot merely impose, but must enable us to attain it ourselves, if we are to really have the liberty of His children, the way He must take is long and arduous."
The long game.
Kinda like the 40-year wandering Israelites I've been so readily able to identify with.
4 For everything that was written in the past [including that story about the wandering Israelites] was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope. (Romans 15:4 NIV)
Hope that I now have. Hope that I will actually be able to quit this year--to quit walking in fear and doubt. Quit walking in bondage to the number in our savings account. Quit wondering if He's actually good enough or strong enough or even paying attention to our situation.
And as far as our housing situation goes...I definitely still feel like we're still wandering in the wilderness (we just re-upped our apartment lease for another year a few weeks ago). Surviving on manna. Believing there is a land (house) that has been promised to us on the other side of the desert. But I'm looking to follow the cloud by day and fire by night and see where He takes us rather than striving for solutions on my own.
2-6 This is the way God put it:
“They found grace out in the desert,
these people who survived the killing.
Israel, out looking for a place to rest,
met God out looking for them!”
God told them, “I’ve never quit loving you and never will.
Expect love, love, and more love!
And so now I’ll start over with you and build you up again,
dear virgin Israel.
You’ll resume your singing,
grabbing tambourines and joining the dance.
You’ll go back to your old work of planting vineyards
on the Samaritan hillsides,
And sit back and enjoy the fruit—
oh, how you’ll enjoy those harvests!
The time’s coming when watchmen will call out
from the hilltops of Ephraim:
‘On your feet! Let’s go to Zion,
go to meet our God!’” (Jeremiah 31:2-6 MSG)
