i am a lover of all things brennan manning. he is the author of the ragamuffin gospel. its one of those books that will change your life, and i find myself continually going back to it.
right now, i go back to it because cyndi and i have some major life changes coming our way, and among them is that we might be moving. we are currently in the process of interviewing with a church in southern wisconsin, and of course this is stirring all kinds of emotions in us.
there is something very vulnerable about interviewing with a new church. question after question comes your way, some loaded and some simple, but regardless, the questions come. obviously you get to ask some questions too, but you never really feel like you are in control. you know that most of the control is in their hands. at any moment they could say, "sorry, we have decided to go in a different direction, thanks for your time", and then you get to bare your soul to another church. all this soul baring is exhausting, and it can cause some anxiety. this is why i went back to brennan for some advice. on page 112 of the ragamuffin gospel he writes,
"in prayer Jesus slows us down, teaches us to count how few days we have, and gifts us with widsom. he reveals to us that we are so caught up in what is urgent that we have overlooked what is essential. he ends our indecision and liberates us from the oppression of false deadlines and myopic vision. second, our response to the love of Jesus demands trust. do we rely on our resume, or the gospel of grace? how do we cope with failure? 'grace tells us that we are accepted just as we are. we may not be the kind of people we want to be, we may be a long way from our goals, we may have more failures than achievements, we may not be wealthy or powerful or spiritual, we may not even be happy, but we are nonetheless accepted by God, held in his hands. such is his promise to us in Jesus Christ, a promise we can trust.'...'for it is not as if we had a high priest who was incapable of feeling our weaknesses with us; but we have one who has been tempted in every way that we are, though he was without sin. let us be confident, then, in approaching the throne of grace, that we shall have mercy from him and find grace when we are in need of help' (hebrews 4:15-16)."
the truth is that my resume doesn't define who i am, it is Jesus who makes me who i am, and he knows exactly where i am, i am not out of his sight. so when i feel the worry of what will be, i have to remind myself of what is essential. Jesus. so as we go through this stage of opening ourselves and being vulnerable to the possible acceptance or rejection of church elder boards and search committees and staff teams that are ever so carefully examining us, i pray we hold onto the promise and truth of Jesus in whom we can trust.
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