Zero and The Journey

Right now I’m staring at a blank screen. 

The empty, white rectangle hovering in its Microsoft Word window seems to taunt me, daring me to fill it.

You see, after writing for almost a year, I’ve finally hit a writer’s block. 

I’ve got nothing. 

Zero.

It’s not that God isn’t doing anything in my life. 

He is. 

And it isn’t that I don’t have anything to share. 

I do. 

The problem is that I feel the pressure to take what God has been teaching me and make it humorous and entertaining to read. 

So, in the spirit of honesty, and since I don’t have a funny story for this week, I’ll just share how God has been challenging me. 

It’s no secret for most of you that my season with Osterville Baptist Church is coming to an end. 

This is bitter, sweet, exciting, and scary. 

It’s sweet because the amount of time that I’ve had to spend apart from my wife and kids has been totally inconsistent with what I believe about family. 

It’s bitter because I truly do love and care about the people I’ve been serving for the last year and half. 

It’s exciting because I know that God has something in store. 

It’s scary because I haven’t the foggiest idea where I’ll serve in ministry next. 

We’ve also been wrestling with our preconceived notions of what God’s plans for us might be.

I think that we always assumed that God’s plan would involve better health, more money, a bigger house in a safer neighborhood, and nicer clothes. 

No part of that assumption is Biblical. 

If God chooses to bless us with those things, then we’ll be grateful.  The challenge to us has been to remove that presumption from our minds so we can clearly hear God as we seek him for our next step. 

For anyone who has wrestled with these things, you know how hard that is to do.

And so, in the midst of this season of transition, Laura and I have been praying for peace.

A lot.

Not “peace”, as in, “everything is smooth sailing”, but true, Biblical peace…even in the middle of hard times. 

Even this morning, as Laura called to tell me that our youngest was throwing up, we found ourselves asking God for peace.  And as much as I’d like to tell you that this story has a nice happy ending, as you can tell by the tone of this post, I still feel unsettled and afraid. 

And I think that that’s an OK place to leave it for now. 

I don’t think it’s OK to stay here but I don’t think we should be afraid to visit.

Especially during Advent.

Because the whole idea behind this season is anticipation, longing, and tension. 

The fearful, difficult, but expectant journey to Bethlehem.