Tuesday, January 14, 2014

God Threw me out!


God Threw Me Out!

I think God threw me out of Church!
I don’t know how else to explain it.

For 8 years, I was a “Professional Christian” employed as the minister of an inner city church.

We did quite well, living on faith, throwing caution to the wind, lots of people started attending and I got quite “Big Headed about it all.

So God threw me out.

So I became a very unprofessional Christian working helping less fortunate people.

I didn’t call them that.
That would be condescending because they are no less fortunate than I was.

Just in different ways.
We were very successful at that too, and naturally I got “Big Headed” again so God threw me out of there too.

Then I spent a lot of time mostly alone.
Just God and me.

We sat on the back deck, listening to the ocean in the distance, watching leaves dance in the breeze and blooms on the Hibiscus plants come and go.

“Hey God,” I asked one day, “Why’d you throw me out of those jobs? I was pretty good at them.”
God didn’t respond so I took it as a shrug of the Divine shoulders.

About a year later, I finally understood my time at both of those jobs ended when they should have.

Neither ended AS I thought they SHOULD HAVE but definitely WHEN THEY SHOULD HAVE.
Oh well!

You can’t have everything!
“Hey God,” I said after arriving at this conclusion, “Now what?”

I felt the Divine shoulders shrug again.
“I’d appreciate a lightning bolt every once in a while,” I sighed.

Another holy shrug. 

I did a lot of stuff over the next year but none of it worked out.
Then people started showing up at the house.

They were all running to something or from someone and needed advice, understanding and someone to believe in them.
We’d sit on the back deck and I’d listen which seemed to make everyone feel better about the decisions they made.

I’d follow up with them online and my mornings became a bustling flurry of personal communications, visits and phone calls.
Then I started getting “Thank you” letters, emails, texts and messages as friends moved to better places in life than they had been.

“Hey God,” I asked. “So I did those other things so I could learn how to do this?”
There was no need for God to answer.

I already knew.
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