Interactions with God #96

Aside from the chaos with my job, everything else had also taken a southward direction. The house we rented put us in rather odd situation. The neighbors were either really strange or completely unfriendly. We tried to connect with people, but it was clear that ALL of them wanted nothing to do with us. It was stunning. I hated that house.

With the church plant, Dan and Terry decided to move to Houston. Shortly afterward, John and Jessica also left the church. With only Martha and myself left, we stopped the services at the school and tried to keep up the effort as a small group, meeting in our home. We did this for only a few weeks with a couple who had called due to our ad in the paper.

The guy was interested in becoming a worship leader, his name was Mike. We of course needed a worship leader…badly. Unfortunately, Mike was not willing to wait until our church grew again, so he decided to reach out to my Church Planting Coordinator. He wanted to see if he could find a position in his church. To add importance in his effort, he threw me under the bus. After he did this, my Church Planting Coordinator called to let me know that he got a bad report regarding our efforts, from Mike. He recommended that we shut the church plant down. Brian, our sending pastor, called a week or two later and did just that.

When the first church plant in NH was shut down. It hurt. This time was it was much worse. If it wasn’t for the Interaction that God did on my birthday, 8 months earlier, I don’t think I would have survived it, emotionally or spiritually. Of course, God knew that ahead of time, which is probably why He did it in the first place.

Martha and I were both really hurting because of these events. To this day, we still have not recovered. How our “church” family reacted didn’t help at all, in fact, it made things even worse. This continued for years too. There was only one family who stuck with us through the pain, Ron and Anna Stine. They were great friends and true Christians toward us. There is not enough good things that I can, and will, say about them before the face of God, throughout all eternity. Even so, I don’t think even they understood how much we were hurting.

We went back to our sending Church, Vineyard Christian Fellowship of North Phoenix. All of our friends there were now in leadership or had a ministry role. No one had the time to chat very much and when they did, it was rather superficial. Yes, they were busy and yes it would have been uncomfortable to talk to us. I get that. Only one of the leaders even tried to get us involved again. He asked me to help teach some adult classes, which I did. However, what I really needed was just someone to sit with me and listen.

For those who don’t understand, when your brother or sister is hurting, they don’t need or want your advice. They don’t need or want your statements to “suck it up”. What they need and want is a heart that will listen and a shoulder that will accept their tears. Support, that is what they need. Not your arrogant feelings, and looks of how you think you would handle the problems so much better. Yes, they can tell that you think that. You are way more obvious than you think. I am sorry, but if I ever see you doing this to another…I will go Italian on you.

There is a reason for everything. God has a plan. His plan is a great plan, but there are points in the implementation of His plan that are very painful. Jesus, though He was God, walked as a regular Joe, just like us. He, of course, had perfect faith along with the heart and soul of God. Yet, even HE sat in the Garden of Gethsemane, not real thrilled about the pain He was about to face. He did endure it for the joy that would result from it, but He sure did ask the Father if there was maybe another way to get there. God doesn’t expect us to go through these trials happy. They would not be very useful for growth if we could. He also doesn’t want us to fake it for the sake of others in the church.  Clearly from scripture, we are to carry each other’s burdens…not brush them off or pretend they don’t exist. 

Unfortunately, many of the coming Interactions will focus on pain. Since God is in control, these circumstances are still very much Interactions. They are just as much an Interaction with God as an angel visitation would be. He uses these events to mold us and shape us. He uses these events to draw us closer to him. I hate these events, but I love what they accomplish. Seriously… I don’t think Jesus will ever look back on the cross and go “Boy, what a great time!” But I am positive, He will always say “Wow, It was really worth it!” Especially, when He is looking at you.