Soul Searching.....

As those who have read my blog know, it's been awhile...  You can tell from my last post that it was from the whole eruption over Rob Bell's book.  It was at this point in time that I also came to a point in my life where I questioned some of my decisions as the result of my calling being quite literally called to question.  This has all zapped my creative energy, as well as energy in general, and has led to this blog becoming a dead zone.  I don't think that's a good thing.

To go into more detail, what follows is a somewhat general summary of how my life has gone since my last blog post and even before (categorized in different pursuits, i.e. personal, family, church/occupation, etc.):

Many of you know that I was going through the steps to becoming a local pastor in the United Methodist Church.  I went through all of the stated preliminary requirements and met with the dCOM (District Committee of Ministry) with my mentor to determine if I was ready to become a local pastor, which involves a continuing course of study.  They found that I was not ready, for reasons that I will not publicly disclose for numerous wise reasons.  This is probably the main reason for my blog energy being zapped.

Not long after this decision was made, I got a full time job with way more reliability than the job I had previously, although the requirements of the job have made it even less compelling to put energy into blogging.  My wife works second shift (I work first), so weekdays are usually taken up by work and child rearing.  Along with our changing job situations, my wife and I moved our family into a new apartment.

Obviously, the shift in my ministry expectations has affected this blog the most, and I take full responsibility for that, not because of the attention (more like lack of attention) this blog brings, but because it has been a healthy outlet for expressing my faith.  The feelings and emotions that culminated in that dCOM meeting have impacted me quite deeply, causing me to come face to face with a wide array of emotions: pain, anger, cynicism, doubt (not faith building doubt, but a doubt in my call), and a feeling of defeat and helplessness.  I worked quite hard to invest myself into pastoral ministry and it seemed to culminate in rejection.

So why blog now?  Even with all the emotions I felt following the dCOM meeting, I was aware of the strong possibility of what did happen, and while optimistic, my convictions and beliefs were not on the line.  My desire to express my faith, my interest in clarifying my positions, and my self-esteem may have waned for awhile, but my passion has not been extinguished.  I have begun to read consistently again, and I was in the middle of reading NT Wright's "Simply Christian" when I received an almost inexplicable hunger to "get back on the horse."  It's hard to explain, but sometimes when you go through hard times spiritually it takes a reminder from the Almighty to re-energize us with truths:

I am not a failure.
I can be helpful to others regardless of personal status.
I still feel a call, and it has survived one of the toughest spiritual trials of my life.

God moves in mysterious ways......

Grace and peace,

Jason