Now that I think about it, the Lord has used a lot of situations from our past to prepare for our future in Everett. You'll find that theme in the Bible as well. Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers, was thrown in prison, and eventually was made second in command of all of Egypt. Each stage in his journey prepared him for something he was going to do later. Moses started life in Pharoah's household, was exiled for 40 years while working as a shepherd (the most humble of professions), and later was called to free God's people from bondage in Egypt. Saul spent his life as a religious zealot, but during that time he studied scripture so much that, when he became a believer, his proofs that Jesus was the Messiah were not refutable by any of the religious officials who were around him.
Here are some of the situations that God has used in our lives to prepare us for this missional journey.
1. In college, I felt like I was supposed to go into the ministry. I was serious enough about it to look into seminaries, and went and talked to the youth pastor of our church at the time. As I talked to him, he impressed upon me that I could have a greater effect for the kingdom as a layperson than he would ever have as a professional minister. He said that, no matter what, people would always look at him as someone who earned his living from working in the church. He said that was something I didn't have, and people would pay attention to it. That thought has shaped my beliefs since then.
2. During my first few years of teaching professionally, I got caught in the middle of a nasty fight within our church. A group of people assembled against the pastor, and their primary complaint was that he was not "warm" enough. They put so much pressure on him that he eventually resigned. Their anger at him didn't seem to end, as they called a church business meeting for the sole purpose of denying him a severance package that, by tradition, all pastors get when they leave a place. I attended that meeting, knowing ahead of time of their plan. When the opportunity came, I stood up and made a motion that he receive his full severance that was due to him. I believed that this was fully supported by scripture. The church body quickly voted to affirm this action, and suddenly I was at the center of a major drama in our local church.
I was next elected to a "Transition Team" whose purpose it was to fix the problems within the church. For the next 18 months we met weekly and dealt with all of the mess that was going on behind the scenes in the church. We had to reach resolution, forgiveness, and had to lead the church to decide as a group to move on from the past. It was one of the more emotionally difficult experiences I have had, but its end result was that it taught me about how churches work (they are full of people, and those people are sinful including myself), taught me how to extend grace to those who openly dislike me, and showed me the value of standing up for right principles from God's word even when faced with lots of opposition. I also learned about other church models during this time, including the ever expanding home church model. This idea has intrigued me since that time.
3. Our trip to Portland, Oregon in May of 2009 was a pivotal event in our family's decision to move to the Northwest. This planted the seeds for the move, and literally helped us to discover a land and people that we loved.
4. The death of my Mom in 2011 has forever marked my life. Death forces Christians to confront the ideas that they have "head knowledge" of, particularly the goodness of God in all situations, heaven and hell and the reasons for going to each, death as a consequence of sin, God's sovereignty in spite of lengthy illness, love for others at all times even when it hurts, and serving God in all situations. I struggled mightily with each of these issues and have found that God is present even in the pit of despair. It was He who waited for me with open arms, and it was I who walked away from Him for a time. However, his mercy allowed me to come back.
Mom's death also opened the door to our move. While we both still have family in Texas, as parents go we only have my Dad left. While leaving him is not easy, I can also admit that our family is not as tied down to a place like other families are that have aunts, uncles, cousins, parents, and grandparents who are still alive and well and living nearby.
5. Our adoption of 3 boys has taught us significant lessons that we take with us to Everett. Adoption is quite simply a choosing of a person to be a part of your family and extending full benefits to that person as though they were yours by birth. This looks and sounds easy when you read it on a brochure, but when you actually bring those individuals into your family, you bring with them all of their emotional baggage. You have to learn to lay down your life for the betterment of these individuals, and that is not an event but is instead a 24 hour per day job.
Through adoption, I have gotten a picture of myself from God's perspective. I come to him with tremendous baggage, faults, problems, selfishness, and neediness, and He has fully accepted me into His family even with this knowledge. To go further, He even interacts with me for my betterment, shows love at ALL times without strings attached, and cares for me each and every day. Many times my response to this has been like that of my adopted children: to shake my fist at him, become angry, decry his unfairness at recognizing MY plan for MY life, and selfishly sulk in a corner. And yet in spite of all of that, He still loves me and still cares for me and still refuses to abandon me. That is what adoption is all about, and it also happens to be what a relationship with Christ is all about.
Strange "Coincidences"
The Lord as usual has been quite clever in how He has arranged for us to move to Everett to join Him in ministry. Below is a brief list of things that I see now that on the surface could be seen as coincidental. However, I believe in God and not in coincidences. I will add to this as time goes by since God isn't finished with executing His plan yet.
1. The entire journey started in Portland where I was receiving training for work. My first day of work at my new job will be in Portland, once again receiving training. He has brought us full circle.
2. Our return trip to Seattle after our mission trip this summer was randomly chosen to be during October 23-26, 2013. After scheduling this trip, we learned that church planter initial training was occurring in the same week and initially we disregarded it. However, since the Lord moved things so quickly we got to attend part of this event as learners and future planters.
3. I got a call 1 week before going on the return trip asking if I'd interview for a job in Everett. They wanted to do round 1 over Skype since I was so far away, but I quickly let them know that I was actually going to be in Seattle that week anyway and could come by. They were amazed.
4. After a good first interview, I was called on that Thursday evening in Seattle and told that they were going to try to do round 2 of the interviews on Friday, the very next day. The big issue was that round 2 was going to be done by the superintendent and his cabinet, and they weren't sure they could schedule all of those individuals together that quickly. I later received a call and the person told me that they were shocked, but that the superintendent and his cabinet were all available that Friday at 1:00 PM. They admitted that that never happens and they really were not sure how they had been so "lucky."
5. When in Everett for the interviews, we felt compelled to look for houses since things seemed to be moving so rapidly. Amanda really was pushing that we get a realtor and start going into houses. I told her to look one up on Google, and she found one about 2 blocks from our location in town. We walked in and only one was available, and after talking with him a little while we discovered that he is a Christian. That's pretty unusual up there.
6. This school year, another associate principal was moved to our campus at the start of school. There generally is only one associate principal, and I was the only one at the time for Summer Creek. God helped me to realize after I experienced His calling to the Northwest that He had made it so that I could leave Summer Creek at literally any time. He had already put my successor in place. And this successor was at the time going through a difficult time because the move was forced upon her. God used my situation to bless her in the same way he blessed Joseph from the Old Testament. She was pulled from an undesirable situation and eventually was made second in command of the campus.
God has a plan, and occasionally we get a chance to peek behind the curtain to see what He's up to. The Bible tells us that no man can thwart His plan. Our desire as Christians should be to follow His leadership and allow Him to work through us every chance we get.
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