Divine Discontentment

I have had a stirring, a restlessness in me for about the last year and a half, which help lead me to make the change in my ministry that I did last February. I know of no other way to say it but to call what I am feeling "divine discontentment." It's hard to put it into words and it sometimes just frustrates me to no end because I can't express this feeling well. I sense God calling me to a deeper place... not only me but my church. I had come to the place that my previous church and I had become too casual together and they were no longer looking to me as a leader as much as they were their friend. That is as much my fault as it was theirs. After 15 and a half years together, we had lost the shepherd/sheep relationship and change had to come. Since that time, I've grown and in so many ways revived and feeling the passion and energy in my ministry again, still, the discontentment is still there. I'm not satisfied. There is more in the relationship with the lord and I want to go there. It's a place I know I must go to, because I hear the voice of God calling, but the thing is... I don't know exactly where it is we are heading! I just know God is saying, "Come on! Follow me!"

It's hard saying this with several of my former members and a few of my new ones reading this blog, but I think they will know what I mean when I say it. The frustrating thing, or maybe I should say, the thing that wearies me, is that while there are a few who are packed up, committed and ready to go after God, but the truth is, most are not. Honestly, at times I feel somewhat like a father trying to get the kids together to get in the car for a trip, but they are off doing other things and I have to keep going after them. You finally get one rounded up and ready to go, only to find that the other that was in the car waiting has wandered off somewhere. And while some of us are in gear and ready to "go after God" with reckless abandon, at the very same time there are those who want to get in the flesh and play "church games" and have power struggles trying to show who is the calling the shots.  And all the while I hear the voice of God calling... "Come... follow me." While I don't know exactly where God is taking us, I have an idea, and I have seen glimpses, and I'm like, "If you people could just see what God is wanting to do, and where he is wanting to take us, you'd get on board and follow!"

Like I said, there are those who I believe sense it. They are ready to go, and they are pursuing God themselves, but the corporate journey is staggeringly slow.

I often find myself wondering if this was how Moses felt as they wandered the wilderness all those years. I just know that somewhere in the back of his mind, Moses was thinking, “If you all had gotten it together and followed, we would have been in the Promised Land a LONG time ago! But still, day after day, week after week, year after year, he led them, knowing that while they should have already been there, the Promise was still out there! Don’t you know that Moses wanted to just pack up in the middle of the night and cut across the desert and go on into the Promised Land? But he could not do that… he was called to lead the others there. And that's where I am, and where Keith is. We are trying to lead a church to the place where God is calling us, but at times I feel like we are dragging some of the folks as they fight to stay where they are or even go the other way.

Sometimes, I think “Lord, if they don’t want to come along… let me go!” But it does not work that way. Sometimes I think pastors and leaders get tired of the struggle or journey and they settle where they are… but this is where the “divine discontentment” comes into play. The Holy Spirit is stirring something in me, and I know there is greatness ahead if we will not settle. I refuse to stay where we are because I know God has something amazing ahead that he is calling us to. I’m going on. The one thing that really troubles me is that I remember that many people died and were left behind in the wilderness, having never made it to the promise. I realize that this is what has been happening in my ministry the past few years and I fear it is going to happen to a degree in my current church as well. It already has begun... for a few people refused to follow after the promise because they liked it just fine the way they currently were doing the things the way they had always done them. Anytime we get at ease, or comfortable, we are at risk of settling short of the promise. Not me... I am going on.