The grace of God cleanses us from all sin. The blood of Jesus is as sufficient as it is powerful to wipe away all of it. Past, present, and future. I write this afternoon a free man, cleansed of my sin, of my shame, of the guilt and failures of my past. And it is all because, will always be exclusively because, of Jesus Christ. He is risen. I am safe. I am cleansed. I am redeemed. I still struggle, make no mistake. But if you asked me, "Tony, what is the main difference, if there is one, between you now and you three/four years ago?" Hope. Hope. In marvelous grace, God is helping me finally believe the Gospel. And I have a living and joyful hope.
And while I can't explain it or form the words to describe it correctly, I know that I must preach. For me, the lines of a life that will glorify God means deliberate, vocational Gospel-ministry.
So. What do I do? Do I put out my resume? Or do I plant? For me, there are no other options. If I don't preach soon, I will probably explode. I can look back at my time as a full-time pastor and list what I should have/could have done differently. There is a blessing to making mistakes...you do learn. I can look back on my time as a planter and list what I should have/could have done better. I can look back at both and see decisions I should have made, ones I should have made differently, people I should have treated differently, etc. etc. etc. Listen, I could do this all day. I've been doing it for over two years. Well, I'm not doing it anymore. I'm just not. I have had the absolutely grace-filled, unbelievably kind hand of a good God let me fail and give me trial. And He has brought me through. Yes, I messed up. Yes, I had issues. There is no doubt. But I also had a great Savior. In the mirror of my failure where I saw my sin and pride and wickedness, there was a hand on my shoulder in the reflection. A nail-scarred hand. I didn't see it before. My eyes were blinded by my pride. But I see it now. My fight was finished 2,000 years ago. I'm moving on.
So here I stand at Frost's diverging roads. I can keep sending out my resume (I think I have 4,987 out at the moment in virtually every state in the contiguous US)or I can plant a church and by grace do it the right way this time (if the Lord wills and will work so in me). My friend, my brother, Darby, says that most guys who want to be pastors don't even entertain planting. It isn't even in their minds. For me, it's always on my mind. I can wait for a church to call me or I can plant one. Is this irresponsible? I don't know. But I have to wonder why it's there at all, don't I? I want to pastor an established church, full-time, right now. I want one to call me and say, "come and be our pastor." I want to move my family and I there and go to work. One church for the rest of my life. That's what I want. But I kind of also want something else. I want to start a God-glorifying, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated, people-loving, missionary-sending, church-planting church in a place where the current churches aren't holding out the light. I want to see a people rise up from nothing and bring hope where other churches aren't bringing enough. Sometimes I would rather give birth than raise the dead. I also want that. I would be lying if I said there isn't a part of me that would love to do that. So, I don't know what to do.
I'm standing here, praying, waiting, seeking God...but how long do I stand and pray and wait and seek?
2 comments:
Praise God he hasn't taken his hand off of you. If I've prayed for anything for you, it's that you would be miserable if you weren't doing what he wanted you to do. Of course, in my extremely humble opinion, he wanted you to preach. Those three years were not wasted, OK? I can't think of a single person in that first church you planted who was not changed for life. I thank God for those three years, and for you and how he used you, poor, miserable, imperfect wretch that you were, to preach the Gospel to all of us poor, miserable wretches.
(Oh, and please keep blogging.)
Mrs. May, it most certainly was not a waste. When I speak of wasted time, I am speaking of my tme spent doing nothing from then until now, including the wrong way in which I did things I could have done better. I in no way see my time spent with each of you as a waste, not for you and not for me. I simply wish I could have done better. However, I am not defeated by this anymore and I won't use it as an excuse anymore. My prayer is that the lessons I've learned, even the way I had to learn them, will serve to make me a better husband and father and pastor and friend. I have been miserable and I do believe it is because I have not pursued a life using my gift for God's glory. I realize now that all has been meant to push me to this place. Now I need to decide, and soon, what to do next. I'm so anxious and I can't read myself very well. And you are right, I need to keep blogging! I will soon!
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