Now What?

Note: I first wrote this post back about 2 years ago after finishing a counseling course.  As I continue to consider where God is leading me, these thoughts once again feel relevant to me.

Almost 20 years ago, on Halloween night, I made a committment to a bunch of brothers in the basement of my dormitory to follow a calling into ministry.  We laid hands on each other and commissioned each other into God's hands and God's plans for our ministries in the world.  The following spring I switched majors to Religion/Theology thinking that this would have me following this call.  After a few months, I realized that I was not ready and switched back to math and promptly forgot about my calling for the next 16 years.

Four years ago, I was led by a number of events to pursue a more formal ministry and so entered seminary.  However, I was adamant at that time that being a formal pastor was definitely out of the question.  The traditional view of the "Jack-Of-All-Trades" kind of pastor was outside of my comfort zone and outside of what had been revealed to me as my gifts, abilities and talents.  When asked if I thought about being a pastor I would answer that I didn't want to be a pastor as the traditional role defined.  Basically, this shut down the conversation because, in effect, I was answering "no".

Now here's the thing: how much of my non-answer was born out of my personal preferences and comfort zones and how much of it came from God's plan for me?  I'm starting to think that my own comfort played a great part in that answer.  I'm not comfortable with people as people.  I'm a theoretician, an analyst, a logical-thinker and, unfortunately, dealing with people is never a theoretical, logical thing that can be analyzed.  It's messy, dirty, mixed up and crazy.  It is unpredictable and full of pain, grief, sorrow, anger, and fear.  To deal with people is to be vulnerable and open to getting hurt.  You can feel soiled and dirty yourself when working with some of the more uncomfortable parts of the human condition.  To quote Daffy Duck, "I'm not like most people.  I can't stand pain.  It hurts me."  Whenever possible, I try to avoid those uncomfortable parts of living as a human and live in my nice little cotton wrapped world.

Six years ago, I got dirty.  I spent time working with the refugees from Katrina as they huddled in the convention center in the city of Houston.  The pain, fear, anger and sorrow they felt, I could not avoid it.  Some of it got on me.  As much as I have tried over the past six years, I cannot wash it off.  My life has changed from that time period.  I can no longer look at pictures of earthquakes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran and not feel that tug of "why aren't you there?"  I can no longer listen to stories of people dealing with fear and worry in our Western culture as they try and figure out what's wrong with their life.  The cotton wrapping around my life has been pierced and I feel those bumps, those knocks that come from being human.

Four years ago, the dirt got personal.  I found myself dealing with pain, grief and sorrow of my own.  And not only that, I found myself taking on the pain, grief and sorrow of my father and my family and them to me as we lifted each other up, supported each other, and comforted and counseled each other as we said good-bye to my mother.  The cotten wrapping got thinner, with more holes.  I see grief in others and now I feel it along with them.  I hear those fears, those worries, and I feel them, too.  I hear those cries of "Why, God!?!" and I cry along with them.

But even with that, I still doubted.  All the gifts and personality profiles I've ever taken have seemed to indicate that, while I'm good for teaching and such, those things that make up the rest of a traditional pastor (counseling, administration, leadership, etc.) were missing.  If God wanted me to be a pastor, wouldn't He gift me with those things?  Apparently, I had not been given those gifts or abilities so, I guess I was not shaped for that.

In the spring semester in school in 2009, I took a class on Pastoral Counseling.  It's a required course for my degree (Master's of Arts in Ministry) so I had to take it.  I looked on it as a challenging course, one outside of my normal abilities and gifts, and an opportunity to learn at least some of these skills in case I should need them.  After all, I'm not going to be a pastor, so this is just to fill a degree requirement.

While it was a work intensive class with a lot of reading and assignments and other tasks, interestingly enough, it was not as difficult as I thought.  I felt uncomfortable doing some of the things asked of me because, honestly, I had never done or considered any of this stuff before in the past.  But my discomfort was simply that, discomfort.  You know how you feel uncomfortable the first time you try weight lifting, no matter how small the weight?

Ability is a different story.  Please, don't get me wrong, I'm not "tooting my own horn" here.  I'm absolutely flabbergasted and dumfounded.  My triad partners in class were saying regularly, "You're good at this, man" and commenting on my counseling interviewing skills.  My assignments and such kept coming back with good scores and comments from my instructors telling me that I had great insight and good skills.  And I sat and listened to all of this saying, "This can't be right.  You can't mean that.  You're just saying that so I don't feel bad.  This cannot be true.  Are you sure you're talking about me?"

I sat, then, after the class was done, with a grade I was not expecting, and with my pre-conceptions shattered.   Who am I?  Is that really me?  Is that who I am?  It's not my personality.  It's not the way my brain works.  It's not anything like what my gift surveys have come back with.  How can that be me?  There's gotta be a mistake somewhere.  There's no way that could be right.

And there is this still small voice, whispering to me, "By whose definition of yourself are you living?"  And I answer, honestly, "Mine".  I have this picture of myself, of who I am, pasted inside my skull.  But the corner is starting to peel away from the wall and there is something underneath, a different picture.  It's not one I drew, but someone elses.  It's a picture drawn by the person who knows me best.  I cannot see all of it yet, but it is MUCH different than the one I drew.

This is going to take a lot of prayer, a lot of searching, and a lot of discerning.  Am I seeing something where there is nothing?  Or is God revealing to me what He wants for me?  Is this a kind of twisted wishful thinking?  Or have my prayers of "Show me your will" been answered in part?

Lord, have mercy on me.