Slow Start

A friend asked me recently how my new year has been, and I had to admit to him that I’ve had a slow start. See how the one swimmer in the picture is still on the platform while one is already in the water? I’m that guy. For serveral weeks I’ve really been struggling to get going on a daily basis and feel like I’m accomplishing much.

Where I’ve feeling it keenly here of late is in my job search. It’s been very lack-luster. It hasn’t exactly been stagnant, but it hasn’t produced anything worth writing home about either. I did get a half-dozen rejection letters between Christmas and New Year’s, which I suppose is one way to measure “progress.” One of them was from a job that was posted and that I had applied for in February of last year. I had written it off months ago, but clearly some HR person was able to finally able to cross off some things on their to-do list. Good for them. Where it left me, however, was in a bit of a funk.

Another of those rejection notices was from a ministry that is going through a very difficult transition. There were a number of indications from the beginning that I was not the right fit for them or them for me, so I wasn’t surprised to get a “thanks but no thanks” letter from them. What did surprise me was that in his note the CEO posted a link to another like-minded ministry which was also looking for IT staff. I don’t often get a referral with a rejection, so I checked it out. The IT opportunities they had were not the kind of thing I’m looking for, but there were some other needs listed that appealed to my missions and ministry orientation.

This group is unapologetically a faith-based, mission-driven, donor-supported organization, so they go out of their way to deter people from applying if all they’re looking for is a job. They have a 6-page document that not only describes their values and mission statement but also prompts the reader to ask himself a series of 8 pointed and thought-provoking questions to make sure that he really wants to buy into the mission and the lifestyle it requires before even starting the application process.

As I read the values and mission statement, I was mentally checking boxes left and right. They were not just saying things I agreed with, they were saying things I strongly believe in. Then I got to a section entitled “Affirmation of Service” which is where they started asking those questions which they openly declared were intended to weed out all but the most serious candidates. I was unfazed by the challenge. Ask anyone who knows me — service is my middle name. Missions? I was born to be a missionary. I wanted to be a missionary so bad that God had to strip me of everything I had — money, job, relationships, dignity, pride — and sit me on a shelf to watch Him lead a dozen of my friends into full-time ministry right underneath my nose to convince me Who was really in control and that missions was NOT what He wanted me to do. I learned my lesson back then, but I’ve been jealous of missionaries ever since. There wasn’t going to be anything on this organization’s list that I didn’t expect or hadn’t already committed to in the past. These questions might present problems to others, but they would be perfunctory to me.

As I continued to read, I found that the questions were in fact what I expected them to be, but I did not anticipate the way they were worded. Are you willing? Can you commit? Are you truly motivated by the mission? Is this how you want to grow your walk with Jesus?

I was shocked by my visceral responses. No, that isn’t something I’m willing to do. No, I don’t really want to live that way. No, I’m not interested because I am passionate about the mission — I am just looking for a job. Yes, I do want to grow in my walk with Jesus, but not if He wants me to do that.

I closed the document in shame. I wanted all my responses to be unconditionally affirmative, and I was horrified by the truth that they were not. I didn’t have a problem with the organization requesting those commitments, but I had a huge problem with the fact that I wasn’t willing to make them. That wasn’t supposed to be true of me. Of others, sure; after all, missions isn’t for everyone. But it wasn’t OK for me to respond the way I had. For decades I had maintained that the only reason I’m not a missionary is because God wouldn’t let me be one, but I had just been brutally confronted with the notion that I am not willing to do what it takes to be one. And if I’m not willing now, maybe I never had been.

I fail to find the words to describe how awful that moment was for me, and the few that I can find are damning. Hypocrite. Fraud. Liar. The most shameful part was that even the extreme disgust I felt for my answers was not enough to make me change them. I wanted to desperately, but to do so at that point would have simply added “cheat” to my list of offenses, because I knew my attitudes were real and that I wasn’t ready to change them yet. I had always wondered how the rich young ruler could come and ask Jesus what he needed to do to inherit eternal life only to walk away sad when Jesus told him to sell everything, give it to the poor, and follow Him. I mean, don’t ask the question if you’re not willing to hear the answer, right? Yeah, well, all of a sudden I knew not only how he felt, but also why he walked away because I was him. And it made me sick to my stomach.

That evening, while hanging out with the young adults after they finished their Bible studies, one of the young ladies asked me to pray with her about a ministry internship she was considering. It would definitely be a leap of faith on her part. We talked about how the experience might stretch her in several ways that would be scary but ultimately beneficial. There would likely be a lot of competition for the one spot, and she considered her chances of getting it slim, but said she couldn’t shake the Spirit’s prompts to apply. She wanted to know what I thought.

The irony that she was asking me for counsel on the same topic with which I was struggling myself was not lost on me. With the rebuke “Physician, heal thyself” ringing loudly in my ears, I advised her to go ahead and apply. The risk, I reminded her, wasn’t that God might say no to the opportunity — it was that He might say yes. But if He did, then He would also provide the means to work through all of the associated challenges. I then told her a little about how I was having to work through the exact same quandary myself. Fortunately, she found my struggle encouraging rather than disheartening.

The following Sunday our pastor began a new series on the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. The idea he chose to focus on from Ezra 1:1-5 was that God “stirred up” Cyrus to allow the Israelites to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. He challenged us to not only consider what God was stirring us to do, but also to not ignore Him when He does. The Lord had certainly stirred me up plenty, but I still wasn’t sure to what end. By that time I had come to realize that the point wasn’t that He wanted me to apply with that specific mission organization — that was just the mechanism He used to rattle my cage, which He had done quite successfully. Unfortunately, knowing what His point wasn’t hadn’t provided much clarity on what it was.

Later that week, in my own small group, we were discussing the Sunday sermon, which gave me another opportunity to relate how I had been stirred up without the same kind of happy ending that others were sharing. I’m on the same weekly distribution list for the suggested discussion questions as our group’s leader, so I knew generally where the conversation would go, and was able to carefully pick and choose my way past the ones that might further accentuate my embarrassment. The final question of the evening, however, was one of his own design, so I didn’t see it coming, and it caught me off-guard. Picking up on a connection the pastor had made between stirring up Ezra to restore worship in the temple in Jerusalem, he asked us how the stirring the Lord has done in our lives was connected to or had impacted our worship.

I sat in stunned silence as the Spirit finally revealed the point He’d been trying to make. Up until then, I had been treating my job search as a chore, as something I had to do. Over time, I had gotten to a point where I was just going through the motions. Yes, I’ve prayed repeatedly for work, reasserted my willingness to wait until He provides, and expressed my confidence that He would, but I took no joy in the process. To be honest, being ghosted hurts just as much as being rejected; the only difference is that one is passive and the other is active. It gets old very quickly, especially at the rate I’ve experienced it over the past two years, and I’ve grown weary from it. In that moment, however, He revealed to me why I’ve grown so weary, why the joy that characterizes waiting well was missing, and why the passion for something as dear to me as missions had evaporated: I had never considered my job search to be an act of worship.

The whole purpose behind worship, whether that be an act of serving, singing or giving, is to express our gratitude to and dependency on God by surrendering our time, our talents, and our resources to Him without any expectation of return. The intent behind genuine worship is never to gain anything but is rather to give in grateful response to what we’ve already received. My job search had become so tied up in what I needed, wanted, and expected that I had become unwilling to even consider doing the very thing that I had once desired so strongly that I was jealous of those who were granted the privilege. Whether you understand or can relate to that, let me just tell you — that’s messed up. And I need to change it.

Each application I submit from here on out needs to be different — not in its content, but in my heart. Instead of a chore to be done to meet a self-imposed quota to convince myself I’m still being responsible, each one needs to be an offering of thanksgiving that He continues to flood my inbox with opportunities. Instead of asking, “Is this a place where I would want to be?” I need to ask, “Is this a place where You want me to go?” Instead of wondering if I’m saying the right things to interviewers to impress them, I need to focus on saying the things that bring honor and glory to God even if it costs me the job I’m seeking. Instead of worrying about money and benefits, I need to remember and be convinced that He requires no employer or benefit plan to meet my needs.

I’ve said repeatedly that a servant does not get to dictate the terms of his service, and I firmly believe that principle is true. If that means submitting another thousand job applications, then that’s what I’ll do — not begrudgingly, or out of compulsion, because God loves a cheerful giver. Each one will be presented as an offering, a dedication of my time, my abilities, and my resources to be used as He sees fit because I am just a steward, and they were never mine to begin with. Each one will be a sacrifice of praise that He has equipped me to be qualified for the roles to which I apply, whether that particular employer accepts me or not, because it is He who has made me, and not I myself. Each one will be a commitment to do what He wants because everything He is and does and wants is good, and because He finishes everything He starts.

My job search can no longer be about beating the odds and increasing my chances to land a job — it must be about obedience. It can no longer be about solving my problems — it must be about becoming a more dependent servant. It can no longer be about me achieving a goal — it must be about me being changed by the process. It can no longer be my job to find another job — it must be my worship to present myself as a living sacrifice to Him with every application I submit because that’s the only logical thing to do given who He is and who I am.

So yeah, I had a slow start, but perhaps now with my attitude adjustment, the pace will pick up a little. I know that the joy in my heart certainly will.