#5 – Four Things You Don’t Want to Hear When Looking for a Ministry Job

Click HERE to read this entry. I wrote this piece back in April, prior to the horrible month of May that found me laid up in a German hospital for two and a half weeks only to come home and be rejected from two different church positions that same day. I’m thankful it was written before that day, though, because otherwise this piece would have reeked of cynicism. Instead, I really tried to shed some light on what it feels like for a minister without a church to face rejection, and the unintentional faux pas a pastor or search committee should avoid when turning away a candidate. I’m particularly fond of my cheeky picture captions – I guess I was reading a lot of Cracked.com back then.

#4 – God Willing, You’ll Read This Post

Click HERE to read this entry. This one was another piece born out of frustration (a common method of conception for writers). October was another rough month for the job search – a lot of confusion and assumptions that did not pan out and left me feeling ridiculous and wondering if I was cursed. A lot of those days seemed like a wrestling match with God, asking for His provision to secure me a job, but then feeling like it wasn’t right to just sit back and let God solve all my problems for me, especially considering He blesses us with minds of our own and problem-solving abilities. This piece was one of those lofty attempts to examine that wonderful, but often nebulous, thing we refer to as God’s will.

#3 – Thoughts from My Hospital Bed

Click HERE to read this entry. I’m really not sure why this one found so many readers, unless a lot of those were my students and colleagues in Germany who were simply wondering whether or not I had died. Long story short, I broke my foot in November 2010, underwent two long, non-surgical treatments that did not heal it, and then an awkward surgery that repaired the bone but resulted in a severe infection that, as I mentioned above, further resulted in a second, emergency surgery and landed me in the hospital for two and a half weeks with a wound vacuum affixed to the gaping hole leftover in my foot. I was never able to return to my teaching job and missed out on the chance to bid most of my students farewell before they graduated or left for the summer. It took until the beginning of September for my foot to completely heal. I wrote this piece on one of those May afternoons lying in my hospital bed.

#2 – Should Christians Celebrate Bin Laden’s Death?

Click HERE to read this entry. This short piece was written in reaction to how so many Americans seemed to lose their minds in the throes of elated vindication at the news that Navy SEALS had stormed Osama Bin Laden’s compound and killed him. While there was obviously a profound sense of relief that such a wicked individual would no longer be able to inflict his wickedness on the world, I found the number of Christians who seemed to be reveling in the terrorist leader’s death appalling. “Love your enemies,” Jesus said, “and pray for those who persecute you.” At no point in his famous Sermon on the Mount did the Savior add, “But when a commando makes him eat lead, you have my permission to dance in the streets.” This was a somewhat controversial piece, but I stand by my position on how Christians are supposed to respond to the death of our enemies.

And the most-viewed post of 2011 was…

#1 – What’s the Deal with Atheism?

Click HERE to read this entry. Was there any doubt this would be the winner? This post incited multiple comment-section conversations, both on this blog, several commenters’ blogs, and even my Facebook page. It was to be expected, of course – more than any issue, it seems the theism/anti-theism debate compels us to offer our opinions. A few people found this piece incendiary (against atheists), but that was never my intention at all. I am always eager to talk with people who claim to be atheists – I want to hear their stories; I want to know why the very thing that has transformed my entire life has been spurned by them. More than anything, I want them to no that just because they don’t believe what I believe doesn’t mean I don’t respect them or their viewpoint. I am devoted to the Great Conversation, and this post was simply an attempt to examine a few of the motivations for non-belief from a Christian’s perspective. It certainly wasn’t meant to be an end-all treatise on my views of atheism or how Christians and atheists can still – and should still – interact.

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Thanks, beloved readers, for making 2011 such an enjoyable blogging year. I hope to return to regular posting again soon … just as soon as I find gainful employment.

Peace in the new year.

I’ve been unemployed for far too long now, and given the current state of things, time spent posting my thoughts on this blog is, simply and sadly put, time wasted. I hope I can return to it in the near future, but until I find a steady job, I must close the door on Wonderstuff. If you are one of my few faithful readers, I wish you well and hope we will have the opportunity to read together again soon. And, if you consider yourself a person of prayer, I hope you will remember me and my search for employment from time to time.

It is with a heavy heart that I bid you and this site a fond farewell for now.

Much peace,

For the glory of God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Spirit at work among us:

For another year of life – for breath in my lungs and a pulse in my veins and a heart that beats at a tempo I do not set – I am thankful and offer my praise to you. You know better than any human how difficult my thirty-first year was. But just as you are the Redeemer, you are also the God of new beginnings. You know my struggles and my anxieties, just as you know my hopes and the inmost desires of my heart. You know that, despite all the blessings that attended me over the last 365 days, it was a joy to write “was” up above.

You are the God of my salvation, and this grace is of old. Today, however, I look to you as the God of new beginnings – the One whose mercy is new every morning, whose redemption is as steady and faithful as the sun that runs the sky. I ask that thirty-two will find me faithfully serving you in a church, growing as a father of two little girls, and as a husband to a wife who is no doubt an extension of your grace as well as your guidance. The psalmist writes, “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Beautiful savior, you told your disciples “whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive.” Let the delight I seek in you cultivate those desires in a manner that pleases you, and may what I ask of you each day be in genuine humility and authentic faith.

Do not be far from me, O God. As I seek to draw near to you, may you stoop low that I may glimpse your countenance and know your peace, for it is my very life – my one need in a swirling sea of wants.

You know the number of breaths my lungs will take, how may times my blood will pulse through this body, and how many beats are left for this heart. Should another 365 days come and go and I find myself still a sojourner in this world, may these words ring as true on that day as they do today.

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and will be forever, world without end. Amen.

Again and again, the Scriptures encourage followers of God to be thankful – to recognize and take account of our blessings. These are not simply the things we have gained or acquired for ourselves, but also the very things that compose the environments in which we find ourselves, the knits and ties in the fabric of our lives.

I'm aware I just came dangerously close to sounding like a commerical.

“Finally, brothers and sisters,” writes the Apostle Paul in his letter to the church in Philippi, “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—take account of such things.”

Lately, I’ve been taking account of the things I don’t have (job, house, money, insurance, security, stability, a Red Rider BB gun, etc.). For my soul’s sake, and in keeping with the tradition of our present holiday, I’m going to attempt the opposite. Before I sat down to write this, I settled on the number 25. I believe it is a reasonable number, as long as I commit to specifics and not hide behind vagueness and generalizations. So, here goes:

I am thankful for…

1. … Leigh’s astonishing amount of perseverance. In spite of so many stress-inducing unknowns, my wife continues to show her mettle as a mommy and as a mommy-to-be.

2. … Katy Jo’s voice. I’ve never heard such a sweet sound in all my life (except when she’s screeching in her car seat).

3. … H.E.B. grocery stores and my parents’ gracious willingness to buy most of our food.

4. … Daniel Tebbe’s smoked turkey recipe (if I can get it right).

5. … a turkey (kinda goes along with #3).

6. … milder weather. It took a long time, but central Texas finally cooled off.

7. … my laptop. Every morning, I wake up early, pour a cup of coffee, pull out my computer and set to work on a piece of writing. Strange how soothing the digital bong of a MacBook can be.

8. … Whataburger. I’ll be honest, it’s not my favorite place in the world, but it does provide a little part-time money.

9. … Chick Fil A. It’s the place I most enjoy spending the money I earn at Whataburger.

10. … a healthy foot. Aside from an ugly scar, I’m all healed up after almost ten months of problems, two surgeries and a 17-day stint in a German hospital.

11. … Community, Parks and Recreation, and South Park. I don’t have much cause for laughing these days, but these three still get me going. (If NBC cancels Community, I may finally lose what is left of my mind.)

12. … how warm Leigh is. Personality, sure, but I’m actually talking about her physical warmth – she’s like a little Amish fireplace.

13. … that Katy Jo also adores #9.

14. … coffee and Bailey’s creamer to go with #7.

15. … my friends Stevie and Jenny, who continue to take care of us even in our no-job funk. So what if J. Edgar was kind of depressing? I still had a blast the other night.

16. … Goodwill stores that sell books other than the Twilight series and Stieg Larsson’s Girl trilogy. I’ve found some great deals since returning home from the land where English books were hard to come by.

17. … Robert Griffin III, Kendall Wright and Terrance Ganaway.

18. … The Walking Dead. Hands down, the best show currently on TV. On a broader note, and at the risk of sounding like a television junkie, I’m thankful for every original series on the AMC network.

19. … competitive cooking shows. I don’t know why these are so engrossing given their absurdity, but they are.

20. … white-tail deer. They are all over the place out where my parents live, and despite being well acquainted with their presence throughout my childhood and adolescence, they never cease to amaze me with their graceful speed and lightness.

21. … Leigh’s head-rubs. No massage parlor in the world can hold a candle to her skill.

22. … my mother’s servant heart. She is forever attempting to care for us and keep our spirits up.

23. … the way Katy Jo eats spaghetti. Comedy gold.

24. … Leigh’s indomitable beauty, inside and out.

25. … Dr Pepper Ten.

How’s that for randomness?

Specifically, I’ve done my best to keep an open mind in the midst of this war. What war, you ask? It’s the war that rages within, the job search war that is fought on multiple fronts: the emotional front, the psychological front, the physical front, the social front, and, sometimes the most bloody of all, the spiritual front. And the clash takes a toll that lingers long, more like a Hundred Year’s War than a Six-Day War.

"Hotel, Echo, Lima, Papa! Do you acknowledge?!"

Yet through all the waiting and wondering and dreaming and doubting – despite the escalation of hostilities between faith and frustrated despair – I’ve tried my best to adhere to Buechner’s aphorism. What follows are a few of the many things I have learned about remaining faithful to God during hard times…

#1 – Faith Often Conflicts with Common Sense

For a person who has been a practicing Christian for a while (as opposed to someone who merely claims the title without authentically pursuing God), it is no secret that faith seems to directly contradict reason and levelheadedness. I happen to believe that “contradiction” isn’t the right word – in my opinion, it’s not that faith contradicts reason; it simply doesn’t allow reason to be the stopping point or the final judgment. Either way, however, such a mindset often conflicts with good, old-fashioned common sense. In other words, it’s hard for a person operating on blind faith to always come across as sensible, or to make decisions that other people would consider practical.

"Seriously, man. This isn't rational."

I’ll give you an example from this past year. In mid-August, I was finally offered a position at a church. It had been a long summer following an even longer winter and spring (that whole broken foot fiasco didn’t help matters), and more than anything my wife and I wanted a job for me so we could settle down somewhere and begin feeling like our own family again. And, on paper, the job looked great. I appeared to be the perfect candidate, and I liked all of the people I had met during the visit. All that was left was to hear the salary and either accept or deny the offer. Only I couldn’t do it. Something wasn’t right. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but when I tried to picture myself in the position, doing the job and living life in that community, something was off. Despite every ounce of common sense crying out within me like that scene toward the end of Revenge of the Sith where Darth Vader screams, “Noooooo!” (only way more dramatic, because that was ridiculous), I called up the pastor and told him I wasn’t the guy for the job. There was a lump in my throat when I spoke, and I had to hold back tears of frustration and guilt.

Actually, the Emporer just told him that none of his new gear is covered by workman's comp.

Someone on the outside looking in might say I was swayed not by some lack of peace, but from the anxiety of starting a new position and creating a home for my family in a new state. They might comment that another position in which I was still a candidate was more appealing and I was holding out for that one. That person might even be partially correct. But the point is that when all was said and done, I believed I had to operate by faith and not reason. Reason alone would have found me taking the job. Faith went beyond it, to the detriment of all common sense and good judgment, and kept me searching.

I still regret turning down the offer. After all, I’m only human. But, if I’m going to truly deny myself for the sake of knowing God in all things, the decisions I make must be made through the motivation of faith, not the ratiocination of mere human circumstance.

#2 – I’m Not Job, and God Doesn’t Audibly Speak to Me

The first part is good, obviously (and don’t think I haven’t wondered at the homonym between the biblical character and the fact that I’m engaged in a “job” search). The second part is hard not to wish for. I’ve actually had absurd thoughts that guys like Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Samuel, Paul – yes, even Jesus – had it easy. Can you believe that? Easy! As if familial separation, dangerous kings, angelic appearances, disembodied voices, selfish nations, storms, shipwrecks – and to top it off for Jesus, the cross – could ever be considered a walk in the park. And why? Because God actually spoke to them – told them what was up.

"Hey, it's me again. Yeah, I'm gonna need you to climb another mountain."

Then I think of Job’s story, not to mention Jonah’s and Hosea’s and all the rest of those guys I just mentioned, and I realize that the most terrifying thing I can imagine is God speaking to me audibly, in a way I can’t deny or escape. It’s not only because the incontrovertible command of God would expose every inch of my selfishness – it’s because the very paradigm by which I have lived my entire life as a Christian would be instantly burned away. When God speaks audibly, faith evaporates. Sometimes we wish God would just rend the clouds and speak directly to us and justtelluswhatweshoulddopleaseohpleaseohplease. We can even become resentful that God doesn’t cut through the veil and reveal himself, or at least make known that enigmatic thing we call “his will.”

The irrefutable presence of God – the complete invasion of his will into my life – takes away every aspect of my free will, which is the penultimate gift he gives each human being. Think of every voluntary choice you ever made in your life… which is impossible, of course, because the best attempts at a quantifiable answer is upwards of 5000 per day! But let’s say only .5 percent of those actually affect your life in significant ways – that’s 25 a day, which is 175 a week, which is around 750-775 a month, which leads to roughly 9200 significant, life-altering decisions a year. We also know, though, that one seemingly trivial decision can breed thousands, increasing the number of choices we have to make exponentially. I could go on, but blood is already dribbling out of my ears.

Amateur.

For whatever reason, God chose to plant us in a world that is cultivated, for better or for worse, by our decisions. This is the existence we know, and even though it can be hard – even though we are faced with moments where the effect our choices can have can shudder us to our core – we beat on.

#3 – My Hope Must Be in God, Not in a Job

It seems an obvious statement to make, but it has fingers that dig extremely deep.

When I taught high school English, my classes read The Great Gatsby, and we always discussed both the theme of materialism as well as the question of how basic, perhaps even primal, were the characters’ connections with security and stability, and how they were motivated by these connections to do what they did. I cannot help but remember these discussions when I consider how much I and my wife want me to find a job so we can move out of my parents house and establish ourselves in a community – so we can determine what our grocery store will be, how we will arrange our kitchen, decorate the baby’s room, organize our daughter’s toys, etc. These are the things that make a person feel like he is his own person. Call it self-centeredness, call it control, call it concern for stability – we are all guilty of this at one time or another. (Some of us are guilty of it almost every waking moment of every day.)

Regarding my second point, common sense, there seems to be nothing wrong with this. Why should I not be concerned with the welfare and security of my family? What is wrong with hoping for a specific job? With wishing for a home of one’s own? Must every desire for something this side of heaven fall under the category of materialism?

"Really, Jimmy, Two cookies! You're such a hedonist!"

No. And here’s why. If desiring such things makes you feel guilty, this is not the Spirit prompting you to fall back in line. I don’t believe God works that way. Of course, there is a danger in putting one’s hope and trust in a sense of stability or security. If happiness can only be found in gaining or attaining stuff, then you have fallen headlong into materialism. You’ve made possessions and physical comfort your god. I’ve had to guard against this at times during this search – no thirtysomething guy with a wife and kids would rather live as boarders in his parents’ house than have his own place in his own town in his own pace of life. But while I remain extremely thankful for all my parents have done for us during this time, I also have to watch out that my desire for a place does not supersede my desire to know God, to place my hope in him, and to trust his provision above all things. “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty,” claims the writer of Philippians. “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.”

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Our faith is being molded every day, whether we recognize it or not. It is being challenged and refreshed and strengthened. When we listen to our lives, as Frederick Buechner encourages, we find there are almost as many lessons as there are choices. Sometimes, it can feel like a war. The strain can be difficult to endure, to keep your head down and your strength up as you face battle after battle.

But, no matter how long they may last, wars eventually end. And for the person who endures, there is peace after.