Morning Revelations

In our morning devotion group that we have at T-Net before work, we’ve begun studying Rick Warren’s "Purpose Driven Life." A church that I attended for many years covered that material in worship and small group. At that time I was very unimpressed. I know lots of people with strong opinions pro and con. I guess I decided at that time that if effectively reached people then great. I was in the process of leaving that church and denomination so it didn’t seem to bother me.

Then it was announced that we would begin studying the book in devotions. I decided that there must be something there that God wanted me to learn since there was no way I was "getting out of it" this time. (Insert chuckle here. You know the kind when you realize you’re caught and resistence is futile.)

So for the first few days I sort of listened with that ear to try and hear what it was that God wanted me to hear. What lesson was I to learn? Nothing. I mean, nothing seemed to jump out at me. Now, my tendency is to rush ahead. Maybe I should read ahead to see what the lesson is. I felt an immediate check on that. It was as clear as your mother’s arm flying across you to keep you from flying towards the front windshield–you know the one: the human seat belt. Okay. No reading ahead. Trust. Trust God. Trust the process.

A huge lesson unfolded this morning. I got to T-Net early, in case there was work at the factory. There wasn’t, so I worked on grant research until devotions at 9:00. It was a productive time, but not near as productive and beneficial as when God pulled back the curtain during devotions.
I’m not sure why, but there are times when I truly marvel at the timing of God. I was so not ready to hear what I heard today a couple years ago. The truth that blitzed my brain this morning would have blown right past me before. In the journey of time and experience, of mask peeling and humbling, I was made ready.

There on page 43 Warren quotes 2 Chronicles 32:31: Hezikiah had enjoyed a close fellowship with God, but at a crucial point in his life God left him alone to test his character, to reveal a weakness, and to prepare him for more responsibility.

In July 2001, I remember so clearly thinking, "God? God! God, where are you? God stop me. God help me". But I didn’t sense God present. And then I knew God was absent. And in that moment like no other moment in my life I knew the absolute weight and horribleness of sin.

Unfortunately, my sin was also crime. After many agonizing days that turned into months I finally turned myself into the authorities. People marveled then and still tell me that they wouldn’t have had the courage to turn themselves in. I couldn’t not. I suppose I could have lied and denied. I knew how. But I really, really couldn’t do that. I did wrong. I wasn’t going to lie about it any longer. Consequently, I ended up serving time in jail and am now on probation.

I had been a pastor in two denominations for twenty years, a hospital and institutional chaplain for six years. I had been a mental health counselor for seven years. I was on my way up. I was respected. I was effective. I was also caught in a tireless and destructive web of perfectionism and compartmentalization. I was superwoman! I was spinning out of control. I was lost and afraid. And God gave me a test. And all I could see was that I failed it. There was and is no shame to describe the total awfulness of that failure.

In my life I knew what it felt like to sense that God had given a test, a test to prove integrity and character, and to fail that test. To feel the total horror of breaking the heart of God by going back on everything that I knew and held dear. What I never had heard until this morning was that there might have possibly been more to that test: that God wanted to reveal a weakness in me and prepare me for more responsibility.

Could it possibly be? In the eyes of the church and the counseling community I am uncredentiable (how’s that for a made up word?). I can’t be trusted again. But in God’s economy I’m just getting started because without the test, and even the failure, the weakness wouldn’t have been revealed and I wouldn’t ever have been prepared for the greater responsibility God had in store for me.

I can barely see the computer monitor through the tears right now. Some of my dearest friends and mentors who have journeyed close by my side these past couple years have repeatedly encouraged me by saying that they didn’t believe that God was finished with me. It was hard to hold onto to that in the face of all the closed doors. But today, I actually felt hopeful.

And hope is a powerful thing. Sometimes overwhelming, especially when it’s been hardly or slowly known and trusted. I just need to sit here near it and get used to the idea that more is on the way!