I’ve
been living in a bubble. This past week
the bubble broke. And when I write, “broke”
I mean “exploded”.
There’s
been a gap between the last paper I wrote and getting the reading list for my
next school module. It’s been like a rumination
bubble. I’m still digesting the trip to
Egypt, Jordan and Israel. But this week
my new reading list arrived for just one of my classes in the upcoming module. As I looked over the list my first thought
was, “I should’ve started on this last year…”
My second thought was about how much I’ll miss my friend Kim’s reading
spreadsheet.
I’m
excited about the books as we’re going back to the beginning and reading from
the first few hundred years of the Church.
It’s something I’ve dabbled in but now I’m forced to actually dig in and
read for content, not just quotes. I
know it will be rich and my facebook status will be full of one liners from
dead saints who were closer in time to Jesus than I am to the Mayflower.
My
bubble has also been living in a job that was literally made for me. This past week I resigned from the senior
pastor role here at the church I helped plant a decade ago. I left a cushy job to come to this one and
now I’ve quit this amazing job to load a u-haul truck and embark on a whole new
pilgrimage. As you may or may not have
heard, the Elusive and I will be moving to Raleigh, North Carolina where I will
become the senior pastor at the Raleigh Vineyard.
I
have never been more excited, terrified, happy, sad, confident and feeling inadequate
in my life! I’ve never felt a greater
opportunity for an epic fail than I feel with this new adventure! I’ve also never felt a greater opportunity to
see God do amazing things in me and for me to do in Him than I do right
now. It’s an amazing group of leaders and friends that we’re saying “later” to here (not good-bye) and an incredible group of leaders and new friends we’re
joining there.
The Elusive and I have never had an experience where God gave us so many assurances and signs that we were right where we were supposed to be. There were nudges, words, dreams, visions, "coincidences" and most of all a deep connection of the heart and spirit. And that scares me too. Often such clarity comes for a reason.
This
explosion actually started back in my first module as God increased the
internal pressure in the prayer exercises and discussions. I’m hoping the two remaining modules will
help re-order my interior world for the rest of the journey ahead. I’ve still got a lot to learn but I’ve
learned in all this that it’s best not to limit God either by expectation or by
previous experience. May God increase the internal of whatever bubble you've been floating in for the greater things that are yet to come!
