For you fans keeping score at home I am about to begin
reading my journal entries for 2005. My
children at this point in the story have all graduated from High School. All three of them love Jesus and, maybe more
surprising for pastor’s kids, all three love the church. For about the last 2 years in my journal I have
made the observation that I either need to change how I lead or I need God to move
me on to another ministry because there are things I sense God wants to do in Santa
Margarita Community Church but I don’t seem to be the one to lead them there. The church has grown from 35 to just under
200 in the sixteen years we’ve been part of the Body and leading 200 is very
different from leading 35.
For those who know the end of the story, it will be another
20 months before Sharon and I make the move from Santa Margarita back to Orange
County. It will be early in 2006 that
things begin to become clear for us as to the where and when of moving away from
the church family we have known and loved for 16 years.
But in January 2005 all that is not so clear. What is clear is an increasing sense that our
time as part of this local church is coming to a close.
I share this because sometimes we think we will always get a
clear leading from God. It will be
unmistakable and it will happen fast. As
I’ve read through 20 years of journaling so far I am here to tell you that, for
me at least, God’s leading more often comes through a long, rather quiet,
process of changing my heart and giving me experiences that prepare me for the
next season. No lightning flashes a la
Martin Luther. No handwriting on the
wall a la Belshazzar. No 900 foot Jesus a la Oral Roberts. Just a steady moving of me along in the
daily-ness of life until the next step seems obvious.
Maybe some of you have had those clear words of God about
“here is the way, walk in it,” but after shepherding God’s people for 40 years
I can testify that more often it is, as Nietzsche wrote, “a long obedience in
the same direction.”
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