Deja Vu

My wife asked me tonight if I'm ok. Apparently I looked a little sad. If you read my previous post, no, it didn't have anything to do with no longer working from home, or Piper, or Christian, or my wife.

For several weeks I've been finding myself frustrated with my job, longing for some more meaningful way to make a living. Wondering again about the 'calling' that I wondered about, that I wondered if I was hearing or was being prepared for. So I talked to Celeste about what I'm feeling.

Basically, here's what I said:

Here I am wondering again about the leadings I've thought God
has given me about my calling, or the calling that he may be
preparing me for. All the verses that I thought he gave me, all
the personal interpretations I found for them that made me
think he was preparing me for some kind of role in full-time
ministry – was that really God speaking to me? Or was that some
part of myself, longing for something as simple as a career
change, imagining things that God was not really saying?
Tonight I still think those things were his voice, I still
believe that – with the caveat that while I trust him, oh how I
want to trust him fully, but I absolutely don't trust my own
heart and my own ambition to sit down and shut up and let him lead.

The interesting thing is that after talking to Celeste about this, a few minutes later I was on my computer, reading through some old files where from time to time I journaled. And the thing is that the text above came from one of those journal entries -- from March 11, 2004, a little more than a year ago.

And so I am forced to face the fact that I am mentally and emotionally in the very same place right now that I was in 13 months ago. Apparently I've made no progress related to my job and this elusive and possibly imaginary 'calling' that keeps circling my head like a spray of steam, one moment there, but the next moment maybe not.

What I wouldn't give for God to just tell me if that's my imagination or not. Fifteen months back I was seriously looking at applying for a job with a different employer, but I really think God told me to stay put, so I did. But he never said why, and he never said for how long. Past experience has taught me that I really need to obey the last directive he gave me, until he releases me from it or gives me a new directive.

So I sort of feel stuck.

I am left with the last statement from that journal entry a year or so back. I still want this to be my heart on the matter.

If these 'leadings' are of Him, they'll come to be. If not, they won't, and He's still my Lord and Master, and He still has the best possible future in store for me, and I will still trust him to lead the way.

B