A Season of Change

“I’m sorry. It’s so hard when we reach these moments. We really love you and we love your family, but my wife and I have prayed about it and we just don’t think you’re the right person to carry our vision through this next season. Today is going to be your last day…”

His voice trailed off to some distant place, where my ears could hear but my heart could not comprehend. It felt like the classic break-up line, “It’s not you. It’s me.” But this wasn’t just any employer at any job. This was one of my pastors, and he was releasing me from what I felt was my dream job. As my heart sank down to my shoes, I muttered something about, “Well, I guess there’s nothing I can say then. I’ll just gather my things.”

Let me tell you, that one stung. I felt like I had just been gut-punched. Though it’s not true, my feelings were that I was fired, not only from my job, but from my church and my friends and my support system too. They assured me I had done nothing wrong. It was just a new season with new leaders and a new direction…a direction that no longer required my services. I cried out to God, because I knew He had been the One to put me there in the first place. “Why would You take me out of a perfectly good, 10-plus year career at a leading corporation and put me here, only to end up jobless in five years?!”

I had so many questions and emotions and tears flowed like rivers. But I could feel the Comforter land on me that day. He was so gentle. God always knows how to soothe our aching souls. For a day and a half, He quieted and comforted my soul as I wallowed. But after that time, I felt the Spirit of the Living God speak these words to my heart. “Okay, Honey. It’s time to knock it off now. You’ve had your time, but you don’t get to stay in this place. You need to forgive and move forward. Remember, this was your church long before it was your job. I need you to remain where I’ve planted you and submit yourself to the leaders I have placed over you. After all, it wasn’t them who fired you. It was Me.”

Ouch.

I may not be an expert on a lot of things, but one thing I know for sure, when God speaks, He expects us to obey. Another thing I know He doesn’t play around with…forgiveness. God commands us to forgive, and there is no getting around it. When I think about the scripture that says we are forgiven in the same measure by which we forgive, I am humbled. There is nothing I can hold against anyone because I know what I’ve done and who I’ve been and all I’ve been forgiven for. So I made a conscious decision on that day to forgive the people I have loved and served for years, and trust God with the outcome.

You would not believe the number of people, including these pastors, who were amazed to see me in service the next week. I heard over and over again, “Wow. Most people don’t respond this way.” But I have to make clear. This response was not something that came naturally. It was a decision that flowed out of my love for the Father. It’s not something that makes me look good. It makes HIM look good. HE gets the glory because He gave me true revelation about how to respond, and He gave me the strength to walk it out.

I want to make sure you take notice of the word I intentionally used above: decision. I made a decision to reach out to God instead of being mad at Him too. I made the decision to be obedient to His leading when He told me to return to the place where I got hurt, and I made a decision to allow God to heal me there. I made the decision to see the hearts of these leaders and know that their intention was never to hurt me; they were just following what they felt God was prompting them to do. These are not things I necessarily felt in the natural. They are things I decided. Feelings caught up with me later.

The point is, we can all choose to let the bumps on the roads of our lives cause us to spin out of control, or we can choose to use them as catalysts to launch us into the next level of our existence. Situations will happen, but outcomes are very reliant upon how we choose to respond to them.

If a job has the ability to cause me to crumble, then that job has too high of a priority in my life. If a relationship can make me act in a way that is outside of my true character, then I have given someone too much power over me. If fear can grip me and pull me into a depression I can’t seem to escape, then I misplaced my faith by trusting the failing, fallen nature of this world—where moths and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal—instead of relying fully upon an infallible, ever-present God who loves me and has promised to be my Father, my Provider, my Victorious Banner, my Peace, my Protection, my Vindicator, and my Friend.

I could be angry. I could even find people who would readily justify my anger and tell me I have every right to feel it. But the fact is, as a child of God, I do not have that right. God’s Word is the ultimate Truth in all situations and there is nothing in God’s Word that allows me to hold onto bitterness, anger, and offense. (The fact of the matter is, I don’t even want to feel that way about my friends.) What I do see in the Word, however, is time and time again, when one of God’s kids are hurting, He takes the ashes of their situations and He turns them into something beautiful. He takes the things that the enemy would try to use for our destruction, and He turns it around for our good. He does not leave us nor forsake us. His ways are not our ways; His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. It is preposterous for us to think, even for a moment, that we know a better outcome for our lives than He does when He is the One who laid out those plans in the Heavenlies, long before placing us in our mothers’ wombs. He uses the foolish things of this world to confound the wise, and I know He will use this situation to launch me into something even more amazing than I could ever ask for or imagine. If this is a test, I’m determined to pass it, because I know my Daddy is watching and I want to make Him proud.

I can honestly say, without reservation, I am not mad at my leaders. They are stepping into one of the greatest undertakings of their lives. They are praying and seeking God for His direction. They are doing exactly what they believe they are supposed to be doing, even when it’s difficult. They aren’t seeking the approval of man. They aren’t even seeking the things that would be easiest for them. Yes, they will make mistakes. They will fumble here and there. But that’s the natural course of a growing season. The difference between what they’re experiencing and what many of the rest of us are experiencing is that they will be in the limelight while they’re feeling their way around the murky waters of faith and holding onto the promises of God.

In this season of change that is felt both within and far beyond the borders of my own church and my own life, it is my sincere hope that we will all remember to pray for our leaders and trust God for our individual outcomes. Go where He leads you and stay where He plants you. He hasn’t overlooked a single one of us. When a shaking comes, it usually means it’s time for people to wake up and get moving…to jump off the carousel of a complacent life and be challenged by an unknown future with an uncontainable God.

As we awaken to uninvited change knocking on our doors, we can either ask “Oh God, what’s going to happen next?!” or look with wide-eyed wonder and say, “What amazing things are you going to unfold through this situation, God?!”

When we respond the right way, the possibilities are endless.