Sometimes We All Need A Refresher

I sank deeply into the couch this morning, jobless, bored, waiting for the engine to cool off in my car so I could change the spark plugs.  It seems I am at some junction.  Yesterday I interviewed at a local airport for a position that I most likely dreamed about as a child.  Unfortunately, my night classes threw a stick in the spokes for that one and now the next morning I am still here feeling lazy, complacent, and like a deadbeat husband...

You see, waiting tables has lost its luster for me.  I have a little more education and a little more work experience under my belt that has left me with a desire to learn new skills and trades.  Perhaps its pride or just a lack of ambition, but I really resist the thought of going back to the same stuff I have done since I was 16.  

Nevertheless, I realized something on the couch this morning.  My real issue is not in that I am jobless.  Nor is it that I feel like a deadbeat, while my wife goes around setting the world ablaze with her endless talents.  No, it is none of those things!  I have simply abdicated God's call in my life.

For some time now, I have doubted whether or not God actually called me into the ministry.  Yes, I teach several Bible studies, go to Bible College, etc...  but more specifically, I have doubted the call to missions and church planting in post-Christian Europe.   I see it now in hindsight; that same temptation that entered Eve in the Garden, "Has God really said...?"  

The seeds of doubt have sprouted into these overgrown weeds that choke out the good fruit in my life.  My goodness, looking at my journal from the past 3 years, all I see is temptation and failure (Partially because I seem to only record the negative things...)  My faith seems to have been squandered and for some time now, I have been living according to my own means by what I can provide for myself.

That changed this morning.  You see, I am often bewildered at my ups and downs, but today I realized why I am so miserable all the time!  I have lost my focus! 

I began to doubt God's call to Europe in the days following my trip to Italy.  Largely, because things were not taking shape as quickly and obviously as I thought they would.  To this day, I have failed in remembering that the entire trip in 2011 was a confirmation of what God told me the morning of a missions conference at Trinity Baptist Church.

Let's rewind a bit!  I was in the second to front row of the chapel.  A man who ministered to Hungary spoke of his compassion for the people there.  With vivid illustration, he talked about how he walked the cemeteries of the old cities.  "Gravestones dating back 800 years!" he shouted!  "800 years of people living and dying without the gospel."  That did it for me, the picture came to life and in an instant, God spoke.  "Ryan, I want you to be a pastor and a church planter in Post-Christian Europe."

Of course, it wasn't an earth shattering, awe-inspiring voice from heaven like when Jesus was baptized.  No, it wasn't even a thought in my mind.  It was just an understanding that pierced my heart and I got it.  There is no explaining it really.

You see, God had to deliver me from my hard heart.  I wasn't in that conference because I wanted to be.  I was there because I had to be, classes were cancelled and attendance was mandatory.  I actually had a few friends from my church who would be going to Italy that summer.  I thought it was stupid.  "How can you go to Italy for a mission trip?!"  I would often tell them, "That's a vacation!  Why don't you go to Africa or Haiti or something?"  My reservations on world missions was this, If we are not doing everything we can possibly do here, what gives us the right to go over into someone else's country to tell them about Jesus?  Oh...  How immature of me...  God made that clear.  He changed my heart that instant and as a result compelled me to sign up for the trip.

So I did and He promised that I would be funded, despite my many attempts of calling the organization to back out.  I always said, "Look, I don't have the money.  I am in debt and I need to spend my summer working to pay it back."  The missionary representative on the other line (Lauren to be exact), never gave into my discouragement, she always just said "You said God called you to do this, why would He all of a sudden change His mind...?"  Annoyingly, she never let me quit, and within two months of hardly even praying about it, over $4,000 rolled in and I found myself in the streets of Italy.

He confirmed Himself alright, but that still hasn't stopped me from doubting Him.  That is what I realized this morning.  Oh, what a miserable lack of faith I have in the God who created the Heavens and the Earth!  He has changed me, given me a new name, a new purpose, a new lease on life, a new reputation, a new family, a wife, and so much more!  He has given me everything including a new heart and eyes of faith to see the reality He operates in, and yet I have failed to honor Him with them.  I have simply forgotten.

So I sat there on the couch this morning sulking, but then the memory of our Italian Pastor jolted my mind.  I had sorely wished I hadn't lost his address, so I decided to send him an e-mail.  In fact, I had forgotten that too.  I fished through the 8,000 e-mails in my inbox and found one from him.  Go figure, it had his mailing address.  I never knew that I had his address in the contents of an e-mail!  All of a sudden God confirmed His call upon me once more and my spirit rejoiced!  I read through a few past e-mails from my dear friend in Italy.  I even found a webpage he had made with pictures and videos of the time we spent with him.  It was such a refresher!

For so long, I was embarrassed about God speaking to me.  I hold true to the conviction that the revelation of God is no longer open, but I have forgotten about the personal relationship with Him that He uses to speak to our hearts.   In hindsight, I now see in part why my journal entries over the past 3 years have declined in joy and passion, because I had let go of God's promises.  

By faith, I accept His calling and to the best of my ability will hold tightly to His promises.  You see, I am not a deadbeat without a job.  No, God will provide for me, even if I do not have a direct means of income (He always does).   Instead, I am a servant of The Living God, graced with the opportunity to alter the eternal destinies of souls who have been enslaved by the vain systems and philosophies of fallen men!

Has not history shown us that the best in life is not in this life?  I think back on a European landscape, not even a century ago, ravaged by worldwide conflicts and I beckon anyone paying attention, if it not had been sin, then what in the world happened?  Sin dwells with us in this reality, but where sin abounds grace all the more, because Christ has become sin for us that we might be called the Righteousness of God.  That's the message.  That's the truth.  Jesus said, "I have come that they may have life, and life more abundantly."  When looking around at our sorry state, what the heck stops us from believing it?  

This is a video of the drama we performed on the streets of Giovinazzo.

(Check it out!)