Where Do You Live?

MY HEART EXPOSED “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” Proverbs 4:23 I will never forget that morning. In all my 43 years I had never been so full of doubt, so completely overcome by anger that I didn’t want anything to do with God and I told him so. We had arrived full of hope and expectation to Santa Maria, California. We were scared but very excited because we knew the call of God on our lives to plant a church. We had a strong group of prayer and financial supporters. Family members who believed in us and friends we had ministered with over the years who were also convinced that we were going to have great success. We had gone to boot camp which is a two week training seminar for new church planters, and we were just brimming with ideas and strategies for success and we knew that if we prayed and worked hard enough God would bless our efforts. But things didn’t go like we thought. Early on we had a lot of interest from people who said they wanted to be part of the church. This was very exciting to us because we were a “parachute drop” church plant. That meant that we came having no connections to another church or anyone else in the community. Originally we had wanted very much to be a daughter church plant, where you have the support and help of an already established church to help “parent” you, so to speak. We liked the idea of partnering with another pastor for support and encouragement. We had already decided to accept the invitation of a pastor in Nevada when God shut the door. Actually he really slammed it shut. As we considered these events we both came to the realization that what we really wanted was an easy road. The motives of our heart were not in the right place. Motives play a large role on whether or not there is truth on the inside. God wanted us to fully trust and believe that he was all we needed. But like I said earlier, things weren’t working out the way we had planned. We started our church with a core group of seven people. Our first service saw 53 people! We were so excited! I remember that day so well. The room felt really full and I remember thinking to myself, “We will have to move to a bigger room very soon”. I was so sure that the church would just keep growing and growing, after all, God had always blessed our ministries. But I was wrong. After one year we had about 30 people. Oh, every now and then we would get up near 50 people but then some would move away and others lose interest and we would be right back down again. I didn’t know what to think. I felt lost and completely inadequate. I began to sink into a pit of depression. There were days I didn’t want to get out of bed. I lived in guilt every day. I must not be doing enough, or doing it right I told myself. If I sat down to watch TV I would feel guilty that I was resting instead of out there trying to find someone to talk to about the church. With every person I met I felt I had failed if the conversation didn’t somehow make its way around to the church we were planting. The worst part of it all was that even God seemed to have lost interest. New opportunities would come and I would get hopeful again, but when they yielded no tangible fruit, discouragement would quickly set back in. I began to question everything I believed. I began to question God: Where are you and why are you letting this happen? What have we done to deserve this? We have spent our lives serving you. All we have ever wanted was to be used by you. We have never asked for fame or even a huge church, just to make a difference in people’s lives. Where are you? My anger began to grow. Sundays became a chore. I would go every Sunday with a smile plastered across my face and a mouth full of hope but I didn’t believe any of it. The truth was I really just wanted to disappear. So, there I sat that morning, in total despair and fuming at God. My husband tried to encourage me but I just blew. “I’m so tired of this”, I yelled! “Why did He call us here just to play some kind of sick joke on us!” “I left everything to come here, my friends, my family, a great life and this is how he treats us!” It didn’t matter what Scott said there was no stopping this train I had completely lost it! He said something about the book of Job and I just fired back that it was a sick little story about God playing with people. My parting words as I left for work that morning were that I was done playing this sick little game and I was done with God. I walked out of the house in a cloud of anger leaving a worried and somewhat stunned husband in my angry wake. You know that feeling you get when you know someone is staring at you? They can be clear across the room from you but you can feel their eyes just fixed on you. No matter how hard I tried to ignore God at work that morning I couldn’t. I could actually feel His gaze. Every now and then I would remind Him that I was not speaking to Him, but the feeling never went away. In fact it grew stronger and although I can’t explain how I knew this I knew that God was smiling at me. To make matters worse, He started blessing me. I work at a community college and it can be very frustrating at times. Things tend to move very slowly there so getting things accomplished can be somewhat trying at times – actually most of the time. But on this morning things kept going right for me. Out of habit I would slip with a “Praise the Lord”, and then take it back angry that I said it. But His gaze grew stronger and I could actually feel His presence leaning over my desk and He was still smiling. Things just went from good to better all morning. At that time we had a cooking class that met down the hall from our office. On occasion they would bring down food they had prepared for us to taste. It wasn’t very frequent and sometimes the food was a little strange. But not on this morning! On this morning they came in with my favorite raspberry pastry! Usually it is said that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. But on this day, it was true of this woman. That did it! I had felt his gaze all morning and when I would allow myself to feel His presence I was fighting to keep from smiling because He was. When the food came in I just threw up the white flag. “All right!” I yelled in my spirit. I give up! I had tried all morning to block Him out but I just couldn’t do it. When I left my house that morning all I wanted was for God to leave me alone. I tried so hard to block every thought of Him but I couldn’t even last four hours. He refused to let me go. He just stood there and loved me after I had hurled all kinds of awful accusations at Him using language not at all becoming of a daughter. He just loved me. I came to a very important conclusion that morning: Even after all of the disappointment and anger, I just couldn’t live without Him. I couldn’t pretend He didn’t exist or try to live my life avoiding Him. So, what do I do now, I asked? I can’t live without you but I obviously can’t seem to do what you have called me to do. I can’t live like this anymore and I don’t know what to do. But if I can’t live without you, somehow I have to figure out how to walk this road with you.