Surrender

Surrender is not in my nature. Part of the reason may be my history as a marine officer. Part of the reason may be that I just don't like to lose. And surrender seems a lot like losing.

But lately, I've been reminded that I just have to surrender to God. And by doing so I can be a winner.

For the past two years we've been looking for a church home. The reasons are not important, lets just say that we've been looking. And we've visited a lot of churches.

We thought that we had found a church home. We (my wife and I) were both serving in roles that we were used to and good at doing. But then it all turned south.

My wife found herself shut out of her ministry. Friends and prayer partners told her that she absolutely should be using her gifts in the local church. But here she was shut out with her talents and gifts not being utilized while I was being used a lot.

One morning, very early, I was out running and I heard God tell me: find a new church. It was very distinct. A few weeks later we met with the pastor and the Director of Education (DCE) to talk about the situation. The pastor asked us what was on our minds with regards to the church so I told him what God had told me.

It kind of stopped the conversation for a while

But the conversation just confirmed to me that it was time to go.

We were both deeply wounded by events and people at our past two churches. It took a while for me to realize that I was also wounded. I am a little slow sometimes. We are not blameless in how we have handled things but we have attempted to resolve things in a biblical manner.

It is interesting though. As we quit beating our heads against the door of the local church God has opened up doors outside the church for my wife to use her gifts in ministry to others. Some of these have been in church settings and some of these have been in secular settings.

You see it is the surrender to God's will that made the difference.

So now we are in attending a non denominational church where there is no chance (right now) of my wife using her gifts. But we are being fed God's Word in huge, heaping spoonfuls.

And that is OK.

Because God is still opening doors and showing us where to use the gifts He gives us. Sometimes the way is clear and sometimes it is just the next step that is clear and sometimes it is pretty dark and cloudy and we just have to trust that there is a stepping stone in the fog.

And that is way better than butting our heads against institutions and religion and closed doors.

And way more exciting too...