Stories of Self-Denial, 2

Having confronted my earlier failure to ask Jesus what he wanted to do with my life, I completed my undergraduate degree in wildlife biology and did something I would have never thought possible – I stepped into Christian ministry.  (Check out part 1 of this story here).

My friend, Marv Anderson, convinced me to join the staff of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship.  Terry and I moved to Salt Lake City, UT where I worked on the campus of the University of Utah.  Four years of campus ministry with university students convinced me that I had to pursue graduate work in theology and Biblical studies, but that pastoral, parish work was the last thing I would ever consider.

Jesus had certainly been answering my daily prayer that he teach me to love people, but he hadn’t altered my basic makeup as an introvert.  Yes, I was learning to care deeply about others, but they still exhausted me.  I couldn’t imagine becoming a pastor, dealing with the messiness and conflicts of congregational life day after exhausting day.  So, I searched for a graduate school offering advanced degrees in Christian theology without directing students into the pastorate.

I enrolled in Regent College, Vancouver, B.C.

My first year at Regent blew my mind.  I absolutely loved studying theology, church history, Biblical studies and languages.  Perhaps I will share more miraculous stories from my time at Regent in future posts.  Terry and I were the beneficiaries of many, many miracles during those years.  We also made a number of life-long friends.  Those years living in Blaine, Washington were foundational in making us the people we are today.

But, alas, in my second year of study, the leadership at Regent College double-crossed me!  The powers-that-be decided to add a Masters of Divinity program to their catalogue.  An M.Div. degree is the standard gateway course of study for would be pastors.  To make matters worse, I began to sense that God was calling me to switch programs and enter the M.Div. program.  Yikes!

Following Jesus is a mysterious way to live.  For instance, how do you know when an invisible God, whom you have never seen, who does not speak in an audible voice (at least, not to me) is “telling” you to do something?  And not something in general, like “be a nice person,” but something very specific, like “change your major and enter the M.Div. program you have been running away from”?

Well, you just do.

Following the Holy Spirit is one of those things a person has to experience for themselves in order to understand it – and here I am using the word “understand” very flexibly.  Some would say I am stretching it beyond recognition.  Real Christianity is always mystical at its core.  If a person says they follow Jesus but has never experienced the ineffable compulsion to do this, go there, start that, move over here – especially when those urges direct you in ways that run contrary to your personal preferences – then I would suggest that person is only pretending to follow Jesus.

Remember, the way of Jesus is a way of self-denial.

I pushed back against God’s mystical shove towards the M.Div. program for weeks.  Yet, try as I might, I could not shake the sense that Jesus was telling me to sign up.  My early morning devotional times became lengthy wrestling matches where I worked hard at convincing God that he was making a terrible mistake.  If he had wanted me to become a church pastor, he should have made me a different person.  I simply did not have the proper personality to become a successful church minister.  Why had He made me this way if that was His design for my future?

I still remember the moment of my surrender, actually if was more like a collapse, as if it were yesterday.  I was spiritually and emotionally exhausted.  It is not easy to fight against your Creator.  At least, not if you are trying to love Him at the same time.  In the early morning darkness, sitting in my Blaine living room, I prayed this prayer:

“Ok Lord.  I think that you are making a big mistake.  You made me in such a way that I can never be anything more than a second-rate pastor.  But if that is what you want me to do, then I will try to become the best second-rate pastor I can be.”

That morning I went to the Regent registrar’s office and switched my course of studies to the M.Div. program.  I did not know where or how I could become a minister, since I had no denominational ties or support.  But when Jesus tells you to do something, it’s best to leave the future necessities to Him.  He knows how to work out the details.

I did eventually become the pastor of a church in Salt Lake City.  I was there for 9 years.  When people ask me about it, I sometimes quote a line from the opening of Charles Dickens’ novel, A Tale of Two Cities:  it was the best of times; it was the worst of times.

The Lord and I continued to have regular wrestling matches.  Many were the prayers that repeated my fears: “I told you, Lord!  Why am I here?  I am in over my head. I feel like I am drowning. You should have made me a different kind of person.”  And then the prayers would resolve themselves in a new moment of surrender: “But I know you brought me here, Jesus.  It’s up to you to make this work.  I’ll continue to try my best, but I need all the help you can give me.”

During those 9 years of pastoral ministry, I also experienced more of the grace, mercy and the power of God than I had ever dreamed possible.  All together our church body grew in maturity as we shared in more miracles, saw more lives changed, helped more new people enter into the kingdom of God and witnessed more genuine discipleship than I had ever seen before.  I experienced genuine Christian community in very profound ways through the love and support of church members who helped carry me through some of the hardest times of my young life.

I miss those 9 years even as I never want to relive them.  All I can tell you is that, in every way at all times, our God is always good.

We rarely, if ever, know what is best for us.  Heck, we don’t even know what is mediocre.  But Jesus does, and he wants to guide us into a peculiar way of fulfillment through self-sacrificial service because sacrifice is the way of fulfillment – at least, it is for people who follow Jesus.

Jesus says, “Everyone who wants to come after me must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me.  Anyone trying to save their life will lose it.  But whoever loses their life for me and the gospel will find it.”