I’m a bit of an internal mess this week, so the post is going to be as messy and perhaps a bit ‘ranty’.
Sorry.
I’m having to try and get a part time job waiting tables, in fact I’ve just sent the emails out while I’m sitting here in the coffee shop. Work just isn’t coming in fast enough with the freelancing thing. I suppose no one has any extra money at the moment for things like websites and promotional videos, especially being in the midst of the dreaded recession.
I have to admit to a slow boiling anger, mixed with a bitter disappointment. It feels like I’m taking backward steps.
I sold out for church. I studied for seven years and got two degrees which qualify me perfectly, perhaps over-qualified me, for work in the Institution. My CV never failed to impress at church interviews because it was loaded with more varied experience and skills than many people who have done the job their whole lives.
But now it means nothing.
I cannot get work because all my qualification and experience is pointed in the wrong direction.
To one I am overqualified…
To another I have the wrong experience…
To many I am too white.
I know I have done the right thing. I know leaving the ‘church as my job’ was a ‘God move’; one He led me to take. In good conscience I couldn’t continue there, and I know I need to step outside, hold my ground, and look for a way forward. It’s the ‘prophetic’ (in the ‘biblical sense’, not the ‘fortune teller sense’) role I am meant to play. But I think I had this idea that it would all be roses, that everything would fall into place. I was lied to by many church leaders over the years who promised that if I followed God, He would take care of everything.
I don’t think He does promise that though, not in the way we think.
I also feel bad in many ways for asking for it; asking for security. I have friends who tell me to pray for big jobs with lots of money and nice things, because I am God’s child and He wants to give me these things. Really? I met too many people on the streets who are much worse off than me, but who have a deeper faith than I may ever have, to believe that to be true. Why am I special or more deserving? Why should He make my life comfortable? How can I even ask for that before I ask it for them?
I feel hard done by, by the turn of events…
…then I feel guilty about feeling hard done by.
I feel like so much effort went in to becoming something, that now I cannot, and should not be.
I feel like I have wasted so much time, so many years. I know I haven’t. I know I couldn’t speak the way I do now were it not for the years that came before, but it doesn’t stop the feeling.
So in the spirit of many of the Psalms, this is my Psalm of Lament:
“God, why have you left me?
Why have you turned away?
I gave my life, my time and my energy to gladly follow you,
but you never meant me to stay.
I believed you would care for me if I followed you out,
but maybe comfort was never part of your plan for me.
Where to now, what is the point?
If I know there is reason in this, some ultimate goal,
It will make it all worthwhile.
Just a whisper of purpose, the suggestion of a direction would be enough.
But you never promised the answers, you only asked for obedience.
Many will say, ‘See, look how God has abandoned him.”
Show them wrong Father, by being deliberate with my life.
I lie awake in the steel gray light of early morning,
Wondering what the day holds,
Fearful most of all of living a bad story.
Yet I praise you, and follow you willingly.
I will never stop, though it lead me to the streets, or to the grave.
I promised it long ago, ‘no matter where it leads me’.
And I won’t turn back now.”
This may or may not help
The reason we study isn’t about our cv or getting a job or career. And while the information is useful, the discipline of studying is a really useful skill to have – applying our minds, and learning to see things from different perspectives, solving problems etc.
So – you have all the skills necessary..
I know what you mean about feeling studying theology was a waste. Hell – I don’t even call myself a christian anymore. But I don’t regret having studying what I did because it taught me so much about myself, and I am who I am today as a result of all the choices I made.
So – you are who you are, and therein lies the whisper you’re looking for…
In an impersonal, fast-moving world where we feel more like a number than a person, it is easy to believe that our vertical relationship is much the same. Nameless faces before a preocupied God; busy people involved in meaningless, futile activity. Not so. His Word assures us of an identity and promises us that our lives have Order,Reason and Purpose. God knows what He is about. “The Highest Reward for a man’s toil is not what he get’s for it, But rather what he becomes By it!” These were encouraging words for me, when i was going through some of my darkest times, i hope they bring somewhat of a comfort to you:)
Thanks for the kind words guys.
Hey Sean,
Just thought I’d let you know that I hear you. Just today I’m scouring the internet again looking, thinking, considering what in the world I’m supposed to be doing with my life and how I’m going to provide for my family. I thank God that for the next year I have a job…after that who knows. I do believe God has looked after us and will continue to do so…but it’s still a worry at times and I always feel directionless…not using my Theology, not trained to do what I’m doing. UG!
I know saying that “God will provide for us” sounds like the answer we’re supposed to give. But it’s not an institutional doctrine that tells me that; it’s Jesus in the Gospel. If I can’t trust that then I don’t know what I can trust. Yes, it may not be on my terms and perhaps he’s trying to teach me something through this experience but trust Him I must, otherwise it all seems hopeless.