I have 3 pretty contrasting things going on in my life: ministry, mortgages, & music (alliteration unintended I promise). For the 1st half of the year I wrestled with how they all fit together, or if they even did at all. Am I trying to be 3 different persons? Do I need to choose? Who am I really, in the midst of it all?
Self-preservation knocked me out of the game for a month.
But something has shifted recently, & I stopped trying to keep them separate. I pastored a mortgage client who was picking up the pieces of a broken life, taught some guitar to someone who’s joined my church, gave mortgage advice to a security guard at a pub, & at the end of a gig shared with a table of punters about how awesome Jesus is.
Somewhere along the line I stopped trying to segregate the areas of my life. Now they’re all flourishing, and I’ve realised they weren’t competing things at all, but complementary things.
God doesn’t make mistakes when he “knits us together in the womb” (Psalm 139). There’s not some parts of me for making money or for enjoyment and other parts for serving God. It’s ALL in service to God and for loving others and to enjoy myself. My whole self. I now feel more like myself than I ever have before.
What’s changed? I can’t say for sure, but I’ve got some thoughts and I’ve probably already overshared so I might as well share them with you too.
1) I pivoted…from trying to nut it all out and make sense of it, to simply embracing it as one big crazy ride. Maybe that’s too self-aggrandising, maybe it just got too busy and it all blurred together, I don’t know.
2) Those who know me know I’ve suffered much loss this past year, but this has taught me to hold things loosely. WAY more loosely than I ever have before. Again, not my own smarts, it was either learn to let go or be crushed by it. I seem to always learn the hard way, because I very nearly was crushed by it. There’s no mistake the Bible translates the same word as “forgive” and “release”.
3) I have been blessed with an incredible Godly, beautiful women who has stood by my side through this season, watched me fall apart more than once or twice, & (probably) not known what to do except to pray faithfully and wait it out. And pray some more. And some more.
Again, nothing I’ve done. So, the only conclusion I’ve come to really, which is something that I will say not only UNTIL but also WITH my final breath, is that God is good. He doesn’t give up on us, even when things get dark. Pain lingers. The enemy still shoots fiery darts. But the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1) Has not. Cannot. Will not. Ever.
Just my 2-bob. Hope it’s helpful to someone.
