Better than Before

Some years ago we lost…well, materially, just about everything.

A series of tough breaks and the decision to transition my career had us on the ropes. 

We went from having two cars down one. Despite our best efforts, our home was foreclosed on. In every expression of the word, it was awful. 

Photo Credit: Bryan Minear

My wife and I found ourselves donating plasma so we could buy groceries. We had to pick and choose which bills to pay and what not to pay. We had to trust God around every corner for day to day things. There were moments where we had no idea where provision would come from, except that it would sometimes show up in our mailbox. The stress of that time was incredible, but the faithfulness of God had never been more real.

Life was hard. 

I transitioned from ministry and back into teaching. As a man, wanting to provide for his family, this season spread me thin. It was immensely humbling.

I was recovering from some of the gravest disappointment I had ever faced in the local church. I felt wronged, mismanaged, and sorely misunderstood.

I made the move, but it was not easy. 

I went to church, a different church, but it all hurt. Not in a surface way, but in a super, subcutaneous way – under the skin, in the heart.

I knew where I was. Not that I had wanted to be in this predicament. For a good amount of time, I struggled to see beyond the emotional weight of the situation. I was angry and broken.

My wife had taken to quoting “Pride and Prejudice” to me when we’d talk about experiences of the past, “That savors strongly of bitterness, my dear.”

It came down to this: I was unable to reconcile my experience with my convictions.

To help you understand, ministry has long been both my occupation and my calling. As a pastor, leading the church is not just what you do, it's very much a part of who you are. “Church Hurt” is a specific kind of hurt. The wound is never surface; it cuts to the quick. It invokes a spiritual ache that is hard to describe.

I knew this road to recovery would take some time, but I had no idea it would test me so much.

There I was, teaching art again. Something I had done right after college. But I taught in the toughest school in the city. I’m talking hard-nosed kids from the streets. The school was (and still is) in an incredibly impoverished and struggling area. Art has been a love of mine for many years, but I didn't like it this time. And it wasn't because I hated the school or the students. I just couldn’t see past my circumstances.

For a solid year, my wife endured my poor attitude, as we welcomed our 2nd little girl into the world. 

I was delighted to have another beautiful, baby girl. When the school year came to a close, I was approaching the two-year mark in my time away from ministry. Time gave way to relief and I was longing to lead in the local church again. I agreed to take a position somewhere new. 

The next 18 months went by quickly. While the church we were at had been struggling, God began to turn things around. We served faithfully and saw the church nearly double in size. Then, at the turn of this year (2017), we were blindsided by a family emergency. The course of action was obvious and, albeit hard, but necessary, my family and I chose to move back to Tulsa, OK to be closer to my parents.

In the midst of our move, however, we were still on the road to financial recovery. While traveling over the holidays through the beautiful state of Kentucky, the transmission suddenly gave out in our car…while barreling down the road at 65mph. And so, without a car to call our own, we packed our things, said goodbye to the people we loved, and moved back to the Midwest.

We had no assurances. 

No jobs.

No vehicles. 

No house. 

But what we lacked for in natural things, we knew God could and would provide. 

After speaking with some incredible friends, they agreed that we could live with them (and their two kids), until things panned out. (Thank God for selfless friends who live and love sacrificially!)

Within 3 weeks of our arrival, my wife landed a job. Not just any job, she was hired on at a church we love and now call home. 

Then, along came the means to purchase car. No, it wasn't a sexy, speed wagon, but we found it and in 3 hours’ time, it was ours. At this stage in the year, we, a family of four, had effectively survived for 3 months without a car!!! (For the record, I don't suggest this. We opted not to finance a car because we did not want to go into debt. So, we held out until the timing was right.)

Our living situation was good, but having a house filled with 8 people, four under the age of six, can test you as an adult. There was this nudge in our hearts to look for a house to rent. This was major. It had been 4 years since we had owned a home, and this was a sore spot for me.

Am I the only one who finds house hunting to be a full-time job? We looked and looked, but everything either slipped through our fingers or cost more than we could manage. So, we prayed. I prayed that God would grant us just the right place. My wife, a highly motivated (and pretty) woman, came upon a lovely place in a part of town well beyond our current means. But as it happened, 2 weeks after discovering it, things worked out, and we moved in.

At this rate, we were almost 3 months into our move. While my wife was employed, I was not. I had been furiously looking for work since our arrival to Tulsa. I wanted to work as an artist. After all, I had gone to school for it. Be it art making, design, museum curation, etc., I was chasing every lead I could find, yet nothing seemed to pan out.

So, I watched my girls. Me, a grown, 35-year-old male, watched my 2 daughters, ages 2 and 5, while my wife got up each day and went to work. It was a humbling and precious time that allowed me to understand the role my wife had been playing in our lives for the past few years. Stay-at-home parenting is a full-on gig, not for the faint of heart.

This routine carried on for a near 3 months, and then, I got a job. But not just any job, I scored a position as an artist and designer at a local agency. And while I was so grateful to begin work, this opportunity meant my wife and I would have to travel in opposite directions every morning to get to work. As you might have guessed, this meant I would need my own car to get there. A car we didn’t have.

God’s faithfulness was revealed yet again, when someone gave us a a car. Please understand, that up until the last few weeks, I’ve been Uber-ing rides and renting cars to make my way to work. My dad even graciously stepped in to help me for a few weeks until it all came together.

If you’re reading this, I want you to know that the last four years have tested me more than I ever thought they would. And now, in a matter of five months, God has provided my family and I with work, vehicles, and a home, where there were previously none.

But more than the things He has restored, is the man He has restored. My passion to serve my family and others is stronger than it has ever been. This is, perhaps, the greatest miracle of all: the joy I have found in trying times. I still have days where I struggle, but they do not define me, God does. His declaration over my life is final.

Some seasons are really hard, but the difficulty you face does not negate the goodness of God. 

Trials may endure, but so does His faithfulness. 

In the times where life seems to suck, no hard season can overshadow His magnificence. There’s not a moment where any circumstance or emotion will outlast the enduring, constant goodness of God. 

This realization, the understanding of this His inherent goodness, will set you free. In the end, nothing ever has or will ever defeat Him. He is unmatched in every way. 

Looking back, I can see how unmoved God has been by any apparent crisis of mine. By comparison, all that has happened is so much smaller than His capacity to meet my need.

He’s not standing outside of your present circumstance, He’s in it with you. Jesus is not waiting to meet you on the other side of whatever you’re going through. No, He’s by your side, walking with you at this very moment. He is more than able to meet your need (Phillippians 4:19-20; Romans 8:28). He is gracious, considerate, and able.

If you would acknowledge His presence, and turn to Him, He will restore you.

“But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”

— Hebrews 11:6

Dear Reader, 

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. If this has somehow encouraged you, then I would ask that you please take a moment to share it with someone else. 

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Let's Try Honesty

Honesty. Let’s try honesty. 

I’m lazy. 

Actually, no. I struggle with laziness. And yes, there is a difference. 

I get up and read my Bible every morning, but even still, look for excuses to look at my phone. I’m just making my coffee. I’ll look at my phone. 

Gah, I’m still not quite awake. I’ll look at my phone. 

I can sense Him coming if I know what to look for. I hear the leaves rustling, I feel the breeze, and He calls. I see the sun rise and the colors change and He draws. 

I don’t deserve it. His patience or His mercy and yet, because it is who He is, I will always find Him faithful. Even when I am not. 

Doesn’t He know every thought in my head? How sometimes I go down roads I know I shouldn’t? Secret paths, dimly lit and forgotten. He does, and He waits. 

He waits until I take those thoughts captive because He’s given me the responsibility and authority to do so. He waits until I’m ready to listen, but He’s not One to be manipulated. And when I’m ready to listen He speaks truth–love-soaked truth that cuts me to the quick and exposes my need for Him. 

And yet there are times that I persist like a belligerent child who insists that she knows best and she knows what she wants right now but cannot conceive of more and can’t imagine better. 

Pride is ugly. It doesn’t look good on anyone. And it comes in secret forms. Forms we don’t recognize at first. 

Pride looks like my frustration when things aren’t going my way. It looks like when I’ve worked all day, dinner still has to be made, children still have to be cared for, and I feel the load resting on my shoulders rather than letting Him carry it. It looks like when I choose anger over love and I don’t invite Him in. 

There is a kind of death that must happen for us to move forward. A death to that old self. You know, the one with all the demands. Can you see it? Demanding that I reach for the phone. Demanding that I think those thoughts. Demanding that I speak my mind or hold a grudge when things don’t go my way. Demanding that I carry the load.

Why does it take so long to decide we are no longer slaves to who we once were? 

Because it’s a choice. A choice that I will have to make time and time again. I will have to tell that old part of me, the part that is selfish, lazy, insecure and unloving to get back in the grave. And with every ounce of grace at my disposal I’ll let her know, “You’re not welcome here anymore."

“For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.”

— Colossians 3:3-10 ESV 

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Within and Without

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“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”

— Philippians 2:12 & 13

I could tell I was stuck. I’ve been here before. I know you’ve been there too. It’s a part of our humanity and it sneaks up on us. The realization that we’re not living abundantly, I mean. 

I know myself enough to know that in order to thrive it requires some form of self-expression. And I know that means communicating something, to someone, somewhere. Maybe that’s the part I’ve been avoiding. Or maybe it’s just blatantly disobeying. 

We’ve all been given gifts. Some of us know good and well what those gifts are and that God wants to use them to serve others. But because we’re afraid, or even lazy, we don’t. What we often don’t realize is that those gifts are an expression of God’s incredible grace given through the sacrifice of Jesus. When we neglect to operate in God given abilities we deny people the opportunity to experience a facet of God’s grace in our lives (1 Peter 4:10 & 11).

Disobedience makes you sad. It makes me sad. Please hear me, there is power in that realization. There’s freedom in finally admitting it to ourselves.

(I do feel the need to add that not all sadness is a result of disobedience. There could be so many other factors involved, I’m merely using a fairly recent example from my own life.)

Too many of us are just surviving, not willing to face that something isn’t quite right. But if there is something wrong let’s not ignore it any longer. Let’s not gloss it over and pretend like it isn’t there. Maybe, you’re even covering it with busyness…maybe you’re even telling yourself it’s for the sake of the Gospel.

If you want to stay in that sad place for a while, sometimes the easiest thing to do, when you feel the Holy Spirit calling you out of your slumber, is to immediately turn it inward, taking the proverbial stethoscope from the doctor and insisting you can give yourself a more accurate diagnosis.

How did I end up here again? How can I get myself out? Why does it take me so long to figure it out? Why am I such a failure? And then, finally the resolution: I’ll always be a failure. So why change?

Grace is grace because sin is sin.

And you will not know grace until you understand why you need it so desperately.

It took me far too long to come to terms with the fact that I heard the Holy Spirit and yet, I was trying to do the work. And then, I told my husband something was wrong, which is almost always the hardest part because I don’t know how he’s going to react and, for Pete’s sake, I want to fix this on my own. Rarely, does he ever react wrongly to the freight train of my emotions barreling towards him. He usually handles it well.

But can I put words to my vulnerability? Can I take this first timid step into the light?

When I initially tried talking to him the words wouldn’t come. Blah blah blah. Still sad.

Then he came in the room and said, “Don’t grow weary in well-doing, babe” (Galatians 6:9).

You know? He’s the best. And he made an assumption about me that was so sweet, but not true-that I was “well-doing”. And I wasn’t. At least not in this area. The reality was that I was “not doing” anything except looking at Instagram and watching "The Office." Self-medicating at it’s finest. 

No, it wasn’t that I was supposed to keep going. It was that I was supposed to pick up where I left off. I had left my plow in the field (Luke 9:62). I had looked back and decided it looked safer and more comfortable at home. I was not fit for the Kingdom. Oh, how I wish I could conjure it on my own. But the Holy Spirit in His grace whispers, “Pick up your plow, Casey. Pick up your plow.”

And I am utterly wrecked. Because while He’s working in me, it’s my responsibility to submit to that work and pick up my stinkin’ plow.

There is a sweetness that follows obedience. A confidence. A rest. A sigh.

He wants better for us. He wants so much more. And we keep taking. Taking for ourselves what He knows will only bring us harm. "Don't you want me to enjoy myself?" we say, accusingly. Because at the heart of our begrudging is a fundamental lack of trust. And we take one more... one more bite, one more look, one more. And in that moment, we succumb to less. No abundance for us. We already took what we wanted, we accepted the lie and made the exchange: more for less.

But if you’re reading this, it’s because I’ve decided to pick up the plow.

There is an extraordinary joy waiting for me in calloused hands.

When left to my own devices, I choose comfort. I choose safety. I am willingly deceived. We all are.

I’m so thankful that He began the work in me and He has promised to complete it. He hasn’t left me. Why? Why does He always promise to be there? Time and time again in scripture, He says He’ll be there. He won’t leave. The promise of His presence must be enough. He won’t leave when I’m numb. He won’t leave when I’m disobedient. He won’t leave when I’ve made the exchange of more for less. He has decided He loves me and He’s going to stay.

And He’s with you now. Wherever you are, reading this. And He whispers, “Pick up the plow. We’ve got work to do. I work within, you work without.”

“For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that He powerfully works within me.”

— Colossians 1:29

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